From Activism to the ER
What happens when free speech devolves into antisemitic violence? We’re finding out.
In June 2024, Adas Torah, an Orthodox synagogue in Los Angeles’s heavily Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood, hosted The Great Israeli Real Estate Event. The private gathering was designed to answer Jewish people’s questions about purchasing homes in Israel. Around 100 pro-Hamas protesters gathered to block the entrance of the synagogue.
“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,” political consultant Noah Pollack wrote in The Free Press. “It was only in talking to people on the outskirts of the protest that I learned that the event was still on.”
Video of the event shows masked, pro-Hamas protesters yelling “Intifada!”—a call for violent uprisings against Israel and the Jewish people. In front of the synagogue, Jewish counter-protesters formed a line to block the protesters from the building. The pro-Hamas crowd clashed with them, with one video showing a pro-Israel counter-protester bloodied on the pavement.
The synagogue said it was “deeply concerned [for] our small congregation’s ability to safely operate as a place of worship. Members are, tragically, already expressing fear of attending services or bringing their children.”
This is not the first time anti-Israel protests have turned violent in Los Angeles. In November 2023, Paul Kessler, a Jewish man counter-protesting a pro-Hamas demonstration, was killed when an anti-Israel protester hit him with a megaphone. The blow sent the 69-year-old reeling backward, and he fell and hit his head on the sidewalk. Kessler died the next day.
Thinly veiled antisemitism is surging all throughout the United States. In June 2024, three pro-Israel activists in North Carolina, at least two of whom were Jewish, attended an anti-Israel event at the West Asheville Library dubbed “Strategic Lessons From the Palestinian Resistance.” Footage filmed by one of the activists shows that the lecturer stopped when he was told the meeting was being recorded by “Zionists.” He asked the 60 to 80 people in attendance what they wanted to do.
The three pro-Israel activists were told to leave. A group soon formed around them to block their camera from recording the speaker. The phone was knocked from the filming activist’s hand, and the footage went black; but the audio captured the ensuing altercation. The anti-Israel attendees allegedly dragged the activists out of the library, pushed them to the ground, and assaulted them.
In July 2024, an Arab family attacked a Jewish woman and her family at a fifth-grade graduation ceremony at a public school in Brooklyn, New York.
“An older man turned to us and said ‘Free Palestine!’ for no reason,” the woman told The New York Post. “My husband told him this was not the time or place for that; but the man cursed at him in Arabic, and shouted, ‘Free Palestine, Gaza is ours, death to Israel.’”
The Arab family’s members threw the woman’s husband, who is not Jewish, to the ground; restrained him; and kicked him. One member then threw the woman to the ground, telling her, “I will kill you.”
“They targeted my family because we are Jewish,” the woman said.
Though Jewish people always have confronted antisemitism, the United States has been a safe harbor for them. The recent, sharp rise in antisemitic incidents and the failure of many key American institutions to address this evil in their ranks demonstrate a marked shift in the country’s view of the Jewish people.
If the United States and other Western countries expect the divine blessings they have long enjoyed, they must protect the apple of God’s eye (Zech. 2:8). When God said He would bless those who bless Abraham’s descendants and curse those who curse them, He meant it.
