Pro-Hamas Thugs Beat Up Jews Outside of a Synogogue in LA; The Cops Take the Side of Hamas

 

The Pogrom on Pico Boulevard

AFP/Getty Images

On Sunday, a synagogue in the largest Jewish neighborhood in Los Angeles hosted a small, privately advertised event for those interested in purchasing homes or second homes in Israel. "The Great Israeli Real Estate Event" at Adas Torah synagogue wasn't political and it had nothing to do with the Gaza war. But within moments of its noon start time, it became the backdrop to the worst antisemitic violence in Los Angeles since an attack on Jewish diners at a restaurant in 2021.

Over the course of several hours, with dozens of LAPD officers decked out in riot gear largely staying out of the fray, around 100 pro-Hamas activists attacked, bear-sprayed, harassed, and brawled with Jews up and down Pico Boulevard.

The police occasionally stepped in, but their main activity Sunday afternoon seemed to ensure that the activists were able to successfully shut down the front entrance to the synagogue, ruin the event, and harass Jews more or less with impunity. Dozens of video clips from Sunday afternoon have been posted online (a good roundup is here). The striking thing about the footage is that despite the significant police presence, there is scant footage of the police forcefully intervening in the numerous fistfights, brawls, and beatings.

I had come to the synagogue with my kids not to get caught up in a street battle but to learn a bit about real estate in Israel. As violence across America has grown without much pushback--especially in cities where Jews live--many Jews are thinking about alternative plans, or at least exploring their options.

It turns out that Hamas sympathizers have been keeping close tabs on events hosted by synagogues in America. They knew about the event in advance, and were putting out calls on social media via groups like Code Pink and the "Palestinian Youth Movement" to mobilize their keffiyeh-clad thugs to show up at Adas Torah at "12PM SHARP" ready for action. The same groups that promoted Sunday's violence, it turns out, had also shown up at similar real estate events earlier this year in Toronto, Montreal, and Teaneck, New Jersey.

The social media posts about the event were designed to generate maximum mob outrage: "OUR LAND IS NOT FOR SALE! This Sunday, a real estate event will be marketing homes in 'anglo neighborhoods' in effort [sic] to further occupy Palestine," reads one post. One doesn't need to be a scholar of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to note that there is no distinction made here between Israel proper and disputed territories. To them, all of Israel is Palestine, all of Israel should be destroyed, and every home inhabited by a Jew on any part of this land is a crime.

These public social media posts are quite open about the goal of violence. "The Nakba is ongoing and must be confronted! FROM THE BELLY OF THE BEAST / NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE."

But I knew none of this when I loaded my kids into my car and headed over to "THE BELLY OF THE BEAST," an American synagogue. My wife, who was out running errands, would meet us there.

[A]s I got closer, the truly meaningful spectacle came into view: behind the phalanx of LAPD, on the sidewalk in front of the synagogue, were the Hamas supporters. When I walked up to the police with my boys and asked if I could enter the synagogue, they told me not to come any closer and said that I should leave.

I asked calmly but incredulously, "Shouldn't you be making sure this place stays open?" The reply was: "You should leave."

Police were unwilling to confront, arrest, and prosecute bad actors. Jews were being policed in the name of "safety." In Los Angeles and other big cities, and on many elite campuses, the message from authorities is essentially: things would be so much easier if you stayed off campus, avoided the library, didn't go to your synagogue, and overall just stayed away from the mobs that regularly gather to confront you.

It's important to note that this approach applies only to certain kinds of people. If a hundred masked Christian Republicans, say, had gathered in front of a Los Angeles mosque on Sunday and assaulted Muslims, we would now be several days into a national news cycle about Islamophobia and injustice in America. There would be joint LAPD-FBI task forces kicking down doors, and press conferences, vigils, presidential speeches, and multipart investigative reports from numerous leading publications.

GRTWT.