Things got violent outside a Los Angeles orthodox synagogue last week, leading the mayor at a press conference to say that a ban on wearing masks to such protests should be considered. A number of the pro-Palestinian protesters, who blocked entrance to the synagogue and ended up in fistfights and spraying bear spray at those attending synagogue, wore masks. Without making a specific proposal, Mayor Karen Bass said that the city should consider the issue — including “the idea of people wearing masks at protests.”
Amanda Berman, executive director of Zioness, said: “There is a painful irony in the pro-Hamas mob attacking a synagogue on the same day as a ceremony marking the rebuilding of the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, which experienced a violent white supremacist attack in which 11 innocent souls were senselessly murdered. As the Jewish community grieves and commemorates a tragic attack from the extreme right, we simultaneously experience a pogrom coming ostensibly from the radical left. Violent antisemitism is coming from every direction.”
There were condemnations of what happened in front of Congregation Adas Torah, but few concrete proposals for what to do about it.
“Intimidating Jewish congregants is dangerous, unconscionable, antisemitic, and un-American,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “Americans have a right to peaceful protest. But blocking access to a house of worship — and engaging in violence — is never acceptable.”
