Biden weighs in as protest violence in LA Jewish neighborhood prompts meeting between mayor, chief
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass plans to meet with interim Los Angeles Police Department Chief Dominic Choi today to “further discuss the safety of Angelenos” following violent clashes between Palestinian and Israeli supporters in the Pico-Robertson district — and President Joe Biden was among those condemning the actions of pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the historically Jewish neighborhood.
“I’m appalled by the scenes outside of Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles,” Biden wrote on social media. “Intimidating Jewish congregants is dangerous, unconscionable, antisemitic, and un-American.
“Americans have a right to peaceful protest. But blocking access to a house of worship — and engaging in violence — is never acceptable.”
I’m appalled by the scenes outside of Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles. Intimidating Jewish congregants is dangerous, unconscionable, antisemitic, and un-American.
Americans have a right to peaceful protest. But blocking access to a house of worship – and engaging in violence…
— President Biden (@POTUS) June 24, 2024
In her announcement of Monday’s meeting with officials and faith leaders, Mayor Bass also spoke out against the pro-Palestinian protesters’ tactics and choice of location in which they deployed them.
“Today’s violence in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood was abhorrent, and blocking access to a place of worship is unacceptable,” Bass said in a statement released Sunday night. “I’ve called on LAPD to provide additional patrols in the Pico-Robertson community as well as outside of houses of worship throughout the city. I’ll be meeting with (interim) Chief (Dominic) Choi tomorrow to further discuss the safety of Angelenos.
“I want to be clear that Los Angeles will not be a harbor for antisemitism and violence. Those responsible for either will be found and held accountable. I will be joining Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky, the Chief Executive Officer of the Jewish Federation Los Angeles Rabbi Noah Farkas and other law enforcement and faith leaders in a community meeting as we talk about steps forward, together.”
Today’s violence in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood today was abhorrent, and blocking access to a place of worship is unacceptable. I’ve called on LAPD to provide additional patrols in the Pico-Robertson community as well as outside of houses of worship throughout the city. I’ll…
— Mayor Karen Bass (@MayorOfLA) June 24, 2024
The confrontation began at 10:52 a.m. Sunday, when pro-Palestinian demonstrators had gathered in front of the Adas Torah synagogue at 9040 W. Pico Blvd., one block east of Doheny Drive, and were met with counter-demonstrators, some carrying Israeli flags, LAPD Officer Tony Im told City News Service.
The demonstrators were apparently spurred to gather at the synagogue in response to a real estate event being held at the facility that included “representatives of housing projects in all the best Anglo neighborhoods in Israel,” according to an advertisement for the event.
On social media, pro-Palestinian groups blasted the event, calling it “a blatant example of land theft.”
“Racist settler expansionists are not welcome in Los Angeles,” the Palestinian Youth Movement posted on Instagram, calling the sale an “effort to further occupy Palestine.”
Several other groups, including USC pro-Palestine organizations, posted images saying that protesters went to the synagogue to “push back against the unjust sale of occupied land to a depraved Euro-American settler market.”
“We refuse to allow land theft and settler expansionists (to) operate in our backyard. Confront Zionism and smash settler colonialism,” according to the posts. “No peace on stolen land, from the belly of the beast to Palestine.”
Heated verbal confrontations grew physical shortly after the two factions gathered, with several scuffles occurring in streets throughout what Sam Yebri, who lost to Yaroslavsky in the 2022 race for the Fifth District council seat, called “America’s most heavily Jewish neighborhood outside of New York.”
Video from the scene showed punches being thrown, people wrestled to the ground and kicked, chemical agents being sprayed and demonstrators people the handles of protest signs as weapons. Police responded in riot gear.
One person was arrested for carrying a “spiked flag,” a prohibited item at a public demonstration, Im told City News Service.
According to an LAPD statement released on Monday morning, the person “was cited at West Los Angeles station and released.”
“The Los Angeles Police Department will be investigating … two reported batteries,” the LAPD statement said. “We will always protect the First Amendment rights of those wanting to protest. Violence and crime, however, will not be tolerated. Additional patrols will be conducted around sensitive religious sites to ensure the safety of all. If you have information relating to these crimes, please contact West Los Angeles Station.”
Video appeared to show at least two pro-Palestinian demonstrators taken from an SUV and detained at a gas station at Pico Boulevard at Doheny Drive with an LAPD officer removing a small child from the back seat.
Im said there were no immediate reports of any injuries.
Nafoli Sherman, an Israeli supporter whose T-shirt was stained with blood told reporters, “I just wanted to see what happened there. I just wanted to see what was going on. As soon as I came, one person just boom, straight to my nose,” Sherman said, demonstrating a punch.
“I fell to the floor. I got hit many times on my head. I got kicked over here,” Sherman said.
The pro-Israel and pro-Palestine groups briefly marched through adjacent Beverly Hills, coming north on Almont Drive from Pico Boulevard, then west on Olympic Boulevard for two blocks to Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills Police Department Lt. Andrew Myers told City News Service on Monday.
Beverly Hills Councilman John Mirisch said in a social media post after “having heard helicopters and chanting from my home, I walked down to Pico. By the time I got there, LAPD had cordoned off the synagogue; Magen Am and Shmira, volunteer Jewish safety organizations, were working to protect the neighborhood. I used the opportunity to lay tefillin.”
Tefillin are small Jewish ceremonial prayer boxes with leather straps that Jews wrap around the hand, arm and head during worship.
“Jew-hatred has infected our world; elected officials and governments are either silent or making excuses or worse,” Mirisch continued. “Yet again, we see that we really only can count upon ourselves. It’s incumbent upon all of us to speak up, to work with our communities, and to make our own mitzvot.”
Yaroslavsky, whose district includes the Pico-Robertson neighborhood, said in a statement released Sunday night, “The antisemitic violence that broke out this afternoon in Pico-Robertson would have been completely unacceptable anywhere in Los Angeles, but that it was planned and carried out in front of a synagogue in the heart of LA’s Jewish community should be deeply concerning to us all.
“Everyone has the right to protest, and everyone also has the right to be safe from fear and violence. We deserve answers for how this situation escalated.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote in a post on social media that “the violent clashes outside the Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles are appalling. There is no excuse for targeting a house of worship. Such antisemitic hatred has no place in California.”
Rabbi Hertzel Illulian, the founder of the Beverly Hills-based JEM Community Center which provides sports, recreational, and educational activities for youths, told KCAL from the scene that the protest, “doesn’t belong here.”
“I don’t think the Jewish people would go in front of a mosque and the Christian people would go in front of a mosque to do such a thing,” Illulian said. “Nobody would accept this. But here, when it comes to Jews and Israel, everything is kosher, everything is OK.”
Jewish Federation Los Angeles is holding a 4 p.m. news conference at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles where Mayor Bass, Councilwoman Yaroslavsky, County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, Interim LAPD Chief Choi, as well as JFEDLA President & CEO Rabbi Noah Farkas, and Anti-Defamation League Los Angeles Regional Director Jeffrey Abrams will speak.
In a statement, JFEDLA said, “Harassment, intimidation, and physical attacks against our Jewish community cannot be tolerated or normalized. Jews, like everyone else, have the right to live, pray, and gather in peace. We respect the constitutional freedom to protest. However, what we saw yesterday and are witnessing time and again across the nation, are protests that devolve into excuses to target and harm Jews.
“Our Community Security Initiative is in constant communication with our local law enforcement partners and Jewish institutions to protect our community and bring the perpetrators of yesterday’s violence to justice. We are conducting security briefings and coordinating with our federal, state, and local elected officials to create an action plan to further safeguard our Jewish community.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of Anti-Defamation League, which describes its goals as stopping “the defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment to all,” posted on social media Monday. “The antisemitic violence that started in front of an Orthodox synagogue and spilled over into the Pico-Robertson neighborhood of Los Angeles marks a deeply dangerous new low.
“It is a case study in gaslighting to describe this as ‘peaceful protest,’ Greenblatt wrote. “‘Peaceful protesters’ don’t converge on a Jewish neighborhood, conceal their identities, bring weapons, openly call for violence, antagonize and then attack residents with rage.
The antisemitic violence that started in front of an Orthodox synagogue and spilled over into the Pico-Robertson neighborhood of Los Angeles marks a deeply dangerous new low.
It is a case study in gaslighting to describe this as “peaceful protest.”
“Peaceful protesters” don't… https://t.co/b3OvKuesD7
— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) June 24, 2024
“Enough is enough. It is time for people of all persuasions and politics to speak out against this divisive, ugly hate. It is time for elected officials to recognize that these acts aren’t courageous, they are criminal. It is time for authorities to intervene before more people get hurt and then actually killed.
“Arrests, prosecutions, sentences — it’s time.”
Sergio Ramos, an investigative reporter for the news organization CalMatters, posted on social media that a demonstrator stole his cellphone, “to stop me from filming.”
“I told him I was press and showed him my press creds, he told me ‘You shouldn’t be there,’ and took my phone,” Ramos wrote.
Ramos also wrote, “Earlier I was filming a pro-Israeli protestor chase and beat a pro-Palestinian protestor in the streets when a man drove his truck through at high speed, almost ramming people. At that moment, a pro-Israeli demonstrator knocked my phone out of my hands to stop me from filming it.”
John Ondrasik, the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter known by his stage name Five for Fighting, shared video of the violence on social media, “If radical masked mobs were attacking a mosque, chanting death to all Muslims, beating Muslims in the streets. … There would be mass arrests, @POTUS would be giving a speech tomorrow, and our media would demand an emergency national conversation on Islamophobia. #WeAreNotOK.”
If radical masked mobs were attacking a mosque, chanting death to all muslims, beating muslims in the streets…
There would be mass arrests, @POTUS would be giving a speech tomorrow, and our media would demand an emergency national conversation on Islamophobia. #WeAreNotOK https://t.co/8nbgOf9JHh
— John Ondrasik (@johnondrasik) June 24, 2024