Four days after a violent protest outside a Los Angeles synagogue made a national splash, more perspectives are emerging about what happened.
The demonstration drew condemnation from national and state elected officials, including President Biden, Vice President Harris and Governor Gavin Newsom.
“Intimidation of Jewish congregants is dangerous, unconscionable, anti-Semitic and un-American,” Biden said in a statement. “Americans have the right to peaceful protest. But blocking access to a place of worship – and committing violence – is never acceptable.”
The incident has led to increased police patrols in the area and discussions about restricting mask-wearing during protests.
It has also led to criticism from both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian sides of police tactics.
A Los Angeles doctor, who requested anonymity because he fears reprisals, worked as a medic during Sunday’s protest outside the Adas Torah synagogue in the predominantly Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood. During the hours-long battle, which saw violent clashes erupt between pro-Palestinian supporters and pro-Israel counter-protesters, he treated at least 11 people, whose injuries ranged from chest pain and shortness of breath, from inhaling pepper spray to a broken arm.
“This was probably the scariest protest I’ve ever been to,” he said. “It was very clear that our police were not there to protect us and that any acts of violence that occurred in their presence would have no consequences. It was a very traumatic experience, and I’m still coming to grips with it. with it.”
Read more: Protest violence outside LA synagogue draws widespread condemnation. Bass promises fast action
The Los Angeles resident volunteered to work as a medic after seeing a protest flyer on the Instagram account of the Southern California chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement. Sunday’s battle prompted politicians and Jewish community groups to condemn the protest outside the religious site as an act of anti-Semitism. However, pro-Palestinian supporters say the protest was a direct response to a real estate event at the synagogue, which was advertised as providing information on “housing projects in the best Anglo neighborhoods in Israel.”
In the advertisement that appeared in the Joods Dagblad on Friday, the location of the property was not specified.
According to an archive of the website of My Home in Israel, one of the companies mentioned in the ad, homes were offered for $435,000 to $4.1 million in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and in the areas of Efrat and Ariel on the Western Jordan Bank. Much of the international community, including the US and the UN, says settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law, which Israel disputes.
On Sunday, medics arrived at the synagogue and found protesters gathered at the entrance. Within 20 minutes, Los Angeles police officers showed up and formed two separate lines — one on the east side of the block and another on the west side, cutting off access to the area where the pro-Palestinian supporters had parked their cars, he said . The demonstrators were effectively ‘sandwiched’ between the counter-protesters and the police.
“That’s when I started to realize how dangerous the situation was,” he said.
The officers began pushing and using batons against the protesters in an attempt to disperse the crowd, he said. Both demonstrators and counter-protesters used pepper spray, he noted.
Interim LAPD Chief Dominic Choi previously confirmed that a “mobile field force” attempted to disperse the crowd. Choi also said the protesters had “tried to block the entrance to the synagogue.” The LAPD referred questions about the use of force and allegations that they failed to intervene in the violence to a department press release about the protest, which did not address those topics.
The doctor said he had treated at least 11 protesters, including seven who were pepper-sprayed. One woman was sprayed three times in the face while singing into a megaphone, he said. He treated another person who complained of chest pain and shortness of breath after inhaling pepper spray. Another suffered a fractured right arm after being hit with a police baton, he said.
“There were a lot of people struggling to stay safe,” the doctor said.
Before Sunday’s protest, the doctor said he had helped with pro-Palestinian camps at UCLA and USC, volunteered at the medical tent and taught basic first aid and how to respond to medical emergencies.
Read more: In a hospital in Gaza: the story of a Los Angeles doctor
The Times spoke to others who witnessed the protest and its aftermath and offered their perspectives.
Rabbi Hertzel Illulian, founder of the JEM Community Center in Beverly Hills, said he arrived at Adas Torah on Sunday to worship during the noon prayers and was confronted by a group shouting into megaphones. Some temple-goers were not allowed inside, he said.
“We couldn’t pray properly because these people were shouting outside,” he said.
Jessica Hyam, owner of the Little Tichel Lady clothing store a few doors down from the synagogue, said she heard about the protest and hired a security guard to stand outside her store. The demonstration started small and in front of Adas Torah, but eventually the sidewalk in front of her store was packed, she said.
Her security guard ran in after being pepper-sprayed, Hyam said.
“It’s our home,” she said, “so when they come to a heavily populated Jewish area and protest here, it doesn’t feel like it’s part of their cause. It just feels like they’re coming and saying to us, ‘We’re against you.’
Sam Yebri, who surveyed the situation outside the synagogue on Sunday, said the targeting of places of worship appeared to be a new level of escalation by protesters. Yebri’s family prays, eats and shops in the Pico-Robertson community, and his children go to school there, he said.
He arrived outside Adas Torah around 1 p.m. and saw protesters wearing masks and green headbands chanting “Intifada,” the Arabic word for uprising.
Eden Cohen said a handful of Los Angeles police officers stood at the entrance to the synagogue, apparently to prevent protesters from entering. Her throat and eyes burned from the bear spray that saturated the air, she said, adding that she saw Jewish people lying on the ground after being sprayed with the irritant as others tried to help them.
Cohen said she heard anti-Jewish insults and calls for violence against Israeli soldiers.
“The police really couldn’t stop the fights that broke out. … It was a chaotic, violent, terrifying scene that seemed to spiral completely out of control,” Cohen said.
Videographer Sean Beckner-Carmitchel said he was hit in the back of the head by pro-Israel protesters while covering the event. Several men followed him on Pico Boulevard shortly before 4:30 p.m. In his video, someone off camera can be heard telling the men that Beckner-Carmitchel was a member of the media.
“It was nothing more than incitement to violence,” he said. “There were no political statements made.”
Read more: LAPD, FBI search for protesters at synagogue as city considers mask restrictions, boosting security
After Sunday’s violence, those in the crowd supporting Israel also criticized police for not intervening.
Talia Regev, 43, who said she came to the protest “to make sure things didn’t get out of hand,” was speaking to police officers when she turned around and saw her friend Naftoli Sherman fall to the ground .
Sherman, 25, told a Times reporter that he was hit in the left eye by a pro-Palestinian protester. As he fell to the ground, some in the crowd tried to pull the man who hit him away, while others tried to pile on top of them. When he finally got up, the left side of his face was bleeding and his nose was broken. He walked up to officers and asked them to call an ambulance or let him through the line, but they stayed put and told him to use side streets.
Eventually, Sherman said, he walked past the police line and went to a nearby hospital, where his nose was reset.
Regev said she stood among the fighters in an attempt to break up the fighting. She also saw someone pick up a chair and was able to talk him out of using it.
A pro-Israel protester carrying a nail pole was arrested, cited and released, and there were two other reports of injuries, the LAPD said. A pro-Palestinian protester also used a chemical irritant against at least two officers, which the department is investigating, Choi said.
During a public safety briefing Wednesday, LA Mayor Karen Bass and LAPD Cmdr. Steve Lurie denied the accusation that police were told to do nothing. Lurie said no officials during Sunday’s protest issued an order for LAPD officers to “stand back and delay or stop any action.”
Lurie accused those gathered outside the synagogue of showing “anger, vitriol and violence.” As police liaison to the city’s Jewish community, Lurie said local officials should consider whether blocking access to a place of worship during a protest should be viewed as an act of hate that could be prosecuted.
“It feels like we’re moving into an area where that particular action could be considered a hate crime,” Lurie said, “so we’re going to explore what criteria might be for that.”
Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky introduced a motion at an LA City Council meeting on Tuesday to find more resources for security services at houses of worship.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
