June 24, 2024

We are venturing into very dangerous territory. The utter failure of leadership and the disgraceful disregard of our laws is leading some to take matters into their own hands. Others will follow. They will have no choice. The moral universe will demand it.

A theme has emerged that can no longer be ignored: as a nation, we are witnessing a disdain for law and order, and a pathological unwillingness to punish criminality.

It has led to an inversion of language. Words, the meaning of which were once well settled, have come to mean something else.  “Security” and “prosecute,” for instance, have become misnomers.

The Department of Homeland Security was created after 9/11 with the ostensible aim of securing the homeland. Since 2021, under the leadership of the recently impeached Alejandro Mayorkas, somewhere between 8 and 10 million illegal migrants have entered the United States. America’s total population is 333 million—that’s a lot of lawlessness. Mayorkas has improbably maintained, however, that the southern border remains secure.

A very dubious claim, indeed. Many recent arrivals have come from nations that are sworn enemies of the United States. Some are Islamists with jihadist ties. Eight possible ISIS-K foot soldiers were apprehended last week. I can’t think of a better example of gross negligence.

“The Department of Homeland Security” is now an Orwellian word salad with an opposing mandate. It is a federal agency spreading an overall feeling of insecurity, while shattering any confidence that someone is watching over the homeland.

Just recently, two illegal immigrants were arrested for strangling a 12-year-old girl in Texas. A young mother was killed on a running trail in Maryland by someone who was wanted for murder in his own country but roamed free around the United States. He is also a suspect in the murder of a mother and her 9-year-old daughter in Los Angeles. Five illegal migrants were arrested in Missouri for kidnapping a 14-year-old girl in Indiana. In New York, an illegal migrant attacked two 13-year-olds: brutalizing the boy and raping the girl.

Forget illegal immigration; we’re not even safe from one another. A posse of progressive district attorneys have hijacked cities plagued with the highest crime statistics and decided that laws no longer apply to criminals. In New York and Atlanta, if you’re not a former Republican President of the United States, and you happen to be a person of color, or a radical woke absolutist, you stand a very good chance of having a license to loot your local Apple Store and assault just about anyone—with a special dispensation for attacking Jews.

Call it a Defund the Police malaise that has infected American culture, politics and law. Cops decided that given the public mood, why put their lives on the line for lawless ingrates?

Defense attorneys will soon be out of jobs in places where prosecutors have reimagined their obligations as public servants. Legal Aid lawyers will be re-deployed to the Parks Department.

Crimes against white people, apparently, are now just deserts. Rioting are no longer crimes, at all. We saw that with Black Lives Matter. And, more recently, with pro-Hamas encampments and the occupation of city streets.

Manhattan’s infamous District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, decided this week not to prosecute 32 pro-Hamas agitators who seized buildings and menaced Jews at Columbia University. Another 13 will also soon have their charges dropped.

A gag order against Donald Trump, however, still remains in effect.

So, what’s a beleaguered citizenry to do? Well, one possibility is fending for themselves. Sure, tax dollars are supposed to buy the government’s protection. The bargain we all made in signing the social contract was that we surrender the rights of man in favor of the rule of law.

Tell that to the New Yorkers who apprehended the rapist who violated those two 13-year-olds. With the aid of the sketch artist, they undertook the task of tracking down the assailant. When they located him, and before calling the police, they treated him to the justice of the street. His mug shot no longer resembled the wanted poster. His face was completely rearranged.

It might inspire others to perform similar civic services. Back in 1984, in response to a spike in subway crime, Bernhard Goetz shot four teenagers who menacingly approached him. A New York jury, fed-up with rampant disorder, acquitted Goetz, by then known as the “Subway Vigilante,” of attempted murder and assault.

Street justice works underground, too.

The state of Texas has been embroiled in a legal war with the federal government on immigration enforcement. America’s failed immigration policies has had a disproportionate impact on Texans. True, immigration and border control is a federal matter. But what if Washington deliberately washes its hands of the duty? States, acting pursuant to its police powers, should be expected to take matters into its own hands. The Squad can’t get enough of illegal immigrants, but Texans have had their fill.

When the law fails to do its job, the morality of self-help presents itself as a viable option. Something, after all, must be done.

I wrote a book years ago, “Payback: The Case for Revenge.” Despite what you have been led to believe, vengeance is not without its own morality. Justice without satisfaction is no justice at all. Victims need to feel vindicated. The public demands that wrongdoers be punished. Setting things right is a moral imperative. The law must ensure that justice is done. If it can’t, or won’t, the duty may have to be delegated elsewhere.

Revenge movies—“The Searchers,” “Braveheart,” “Gladiator,” “The Revenant,” even the musical “Sweeney Todd”— are wildly popular, for a reason. If vengeance were abhorrent, audiences would walk out of theaters in disgust. Instead, they remain transfixed until the wrongdoer receives his due and moral balance is restored.

The creation of the modern state of Israel had its genesis in the Dreyfus Affair in France, and then the Holocaust. Global Jewry came to realize that it could not depend on host countries for protection. Unlike the Palestinians, Israelis grasped at statehood, and have fought their own battles ever since.

In the late 1960s, New York Jews came to a more domestic realization. Targeted for street crime, they discovered, painfully, that they were not a police priority. Out of that desperation emerged the Jewish Defense League.

These are grim times, especially for Jews. Violence against them is being excused. Appalling behavior is being unchecked, if not rewarded.

Lawlessness must come to an end, for everyone. And when it arrives, it might come unexpectedly.

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Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He is the legal analyst for CBS News Radio. His most recent book is titled “Saving Free Speech … From Itself,” and his forthcoming book is titled, “Beyond Proportionality: Is Israel Fighting a Just War in Gaza?”

Part of my work over the years at the Simon Wiesenthal Center is to be the intake person for plenty of bad news. In just the last few days, we have seen Jewish parents beset upon at a Brooklyn 5^th grade graduation, shots fired at a beloved falafel store in Montreal (following two other shootings targeting Jewish schools in Montreal). On Sunday morning came word that ISIS had launched simultaneous attacks in Dagestan, Russia against a Church—where the pastor had his throat slit and a synagogue was burnt to the ground. Thank G-d no Jews were in shul at the time, but over a dozen police were killed or wounded.

Against that backdrop, I made my way to Adas Torah Sunday late morning, home to hundreds of Orthodox Jews where Angelinos from across the Westside were invited to an Israeli Real Estate Seminar, similar to ones that had been held in Brooklyn, New York, Teaneck New Jersey and Shaare Tzedek Synagogue in the Valley. In each of those gatherings, pro-Hamas protesters showed up to threaten and demonize local lovers of Zion. I expected no less but experienced more than I bargained for.

Over the last 4 ½ decades, I have come to trust and admire the LADP. They have always done their best to protect our community, come hell or high water. Through riots and Covid and defunding, they held the line.

Tragically, their deployment outside Pico was not up to the challenge. The pro-Hamas forces which included virulent Code Pink were allowed to congregate close to the entrance of Adas from both east and west sidewalks as well all on Pico Blvd as well separated only by parked Magen Am vehicles.

Here are the words of a fellow member of the Young Israel of Century City who describes the scene as many of us experienced it:

“The scene outside Adas at 12:45 PM today was chaotic and dangerous.  LAPD seemed to be in react mode vs prevent mode.  Standard protocols that we have all seen and experienced at rallies to protect freedom of assembly did not appear to be implemented.  Here are some thoughts based on what I saw first-hand.

I couldn’t help but be saddened/scared by what appeared to be an unprepared set of LAPD officers.

1. Clearly defined areas for “assembly” by different groups in two different areas were not established
2. Pico traffic became blocked organically and become dangerous…
3. Anti-Israel protesters came ‘ready’ with means for escalation (sprays, ski googles) and seemingly walked around freely and antagonistically amidst the mixed crowd (again, defined areas for assembly could have made it easier on law enforcement and easier on those assembling)
4. Fisticuffs broke out in different spots in a two-block area and LAPD seemed on their heels, and then they intervened with greater force that could have been avoided had they been more proactive from the get-go
5. LAPD did not have enough of a presence at 12:45 . . . but this changed when I walked out of Adas back on Pico at 2:45
6.  The sidewalk area right in front of the shul was controlled by protesters, not by law enforcement – – why didn’t law enforcement move the ‘line’ away from the shul entrance?
7.  Once sprays were used by protesters and things escalated, why wasn’t the entire thing shut down?
8.  When I walked south to my car, I was surprised to see that the entire ‘event’ had moved directly onto our residential streets . . . and there was ZERO law enforcement there…”

Meanwhile, as if responding to an unseen cue—some Jews were pepper- sprayed. I stopped to help one Persian gentleman who was on all fours trying to deal with the pain nd shock. With the help of some volunteers, we calmed him down. When he asked, “where was G-d?”, a stranger responded “G-d is testing us” …

Unfortunately one of my eyes also suffered from the spray and I rushed home to irrigate the eye, returning at 2:30 to see that the still chaotic scene that had shifted east to Crest Drive and Pico…

Bottom lime

1. Thank G-d for Magen Am who maintained professionalism throughout. Without them, I believe the Synagogue could have been easily breached by our enemies.

2. The LAPD was either not prepared or are under orders to not intervene or take full control and apparently did not arrest people. Sounds eerily familiar to other battlegrounds on Los Angeles campuses in recent weeks. If these are the current orders of the day they must be challenged and changed.

3. What we experienced outside Adas was no mere hate crime but domestic terrorism. It is high time that both Homeland Security and the FBI start connecting the dots, wherever they may lead.

4. Our community must send a unified message to Mayor Bass and the City Council along with the LAPD that we demand they fulfill their obligations to ensure the safety of us taxpaying proud ZIONISTS.

5. As I told the LAPD officer in charge—going forward NO pro-Hamas protesters or their ilk must ever be allowed to prance openly in front of our synagogues or schools and endanger our children’s welfare. If Los Angeles needs more cops, more training, let’s make sure they get it with the help of our elected officials locally and from Governor Newsom and the State Legislature in Sacramento.

6. The Adas debacle should disabuse any wishful thinking that the summer will cool anti-Israel passions on the campuses. The Jew-hatred we face is well planned, coordinated, and has already reached the gates of two Jewish schools in the Valley just last week.

Like it or not, we have to be prepared for the long haul and plan and act accordingly. Our enemies clearly have. No panic, just smart Jewish action.

Am Yisrael Chai!

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Rabbi Abraham Cooper is Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action Agenda for the Simon Wiesenthal Center.