Two members of the Los Angeles Jewish community who say they were attacked by anti-Israel protesters in front of Adas Torah Synagogue on June 23 related their experiences in an interview with The Journal.
Naftoli Sherman, 25, suffered a broken nose and a black eye after being attacked by anti-Israel rioters that day; in social media videos that went viral, he was misidentified as a woman. Pico-Robertson resident Talia Regev, 42, was bear-sprayed. Sherman, who is originally from Brooklyn and now runs a bartending service, came to the synagogue because he “knew we needed as many people as possible to protect each other and make sure that [the anti-Israel rioters] just can’t come into our community and say things that go against us.” Regev, who is starting a chronic pain management company, showed up to attend the Israeli real estate fair being held inside Adas Torah and “to support the Jewish community knowing that the recent past that there has been issues across the world with violence against Jews in many places.”
“On our right and on our left, we had pro-Palestinian protesters that were chanting ‘Free Palestine’ and things like ‘we don’t like Israel’ and ‘Israel should be destroyed’ and stuff like that,” Sherman said, adding that there wasn’t much in the way of security present outside of Shmira Public Safety and Magen Am and around 10-15 police officers.
Regev said that initially there were 10-15 members of the Jewish community there, and that police officers told her that the anti-Israel protesters were going to stay across the street, separated from the Jewish community. But the anti-Israel protesters attempted to break through the police barricade “and it was a little bit scary because I could see the hands going through.” Over time, “hundreds of people from both sides” came.
Regev claimed that the police initially wouldn’t let Jews enter the synagogue but eventually relented; at which point, the protesters formed a human chain to try and bar anyone from entering Adas Torah. “They started pushing us forcibly,” she said. “If we didn’t move back, I would have been toppled over. So I told everybody on our side: don’t engage. What they wanted to do is push us and say, we didn’t touch you… but they were literally shoving into us.”
“Eventually there was no more room for the Jewish people to be standing right in front of the synagogue, so I had to go out to the street and as I’m going to the street, I realize that Jewish people and the pro-Palestinian protesters were not separated. We were all mixed together,” Sherman said. “Everyone started speaking loud to one another, being in each other’s faces, there was no separation, so we were all literally right next to each other. You could have gotten hit from any side anywhere, and no one had any protection at all.”
Sherman said he saw people get pushed, as well as a female anti-Israel protester “throw something at a Jewish girl that was just there with a flag” and the protesters kept saying “I’m going to catch you after, I’m going to see you.” The Jewish woman then stood behind Sherman for protection.
He also claimed to have told one of the anti-Israel protesters to leave, and the Jewish community would leave as well “and we’ll call it a day. But you’re in our community, we can’t leave before you guys fully leave.” Sherman said that the rioter responded that they wouldn’t leave “until we finish what we came here to do, which I don’t know what he meant by that, but I don’t think he meant something good.”
At this point, Sherman saw 30 people throwing punches and tried to get back to the side where the Jewish community members; he ended up passing by 10-15 protesters “and as I passed them they all jumped me. So one person just punched me, broke my nose … and then I felt like a bunch of people were kicking me on the head. There’s no cops there to protect us, which is insane.” Some Jewish community members intervened to break up the fight, which Sherman believes saved his life. “Who knows, a few more seconds and I could have been brain damaged or something … thankfully I got out and I’m okay.”
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Regev, along with two other rabbis, helped break up the fight. “I ran towards it [and] police just stood there,” she said, adding that Sherman “was in a football hold. There were people stacked on top of him, so we literally… had to peel him off and we pushed away the hooligans.” Regev claimed that she told the police that Sherman needed medical attention, but they seemed “perplexed” and told her that they’re “not medical.” Hatzalah was then called, though Regev alleged that they weren’t allowed in, so they had to get medical help at Walgreens. Sherman also claimed that police wouldn’t let him pass to go the emergency room, telling him he had to walk around the block despite Sherman’s pleas that his nose could permanently disfigured if he didn’t get medical attention soon. He did eventually make his way to the ER, but had to wait six hours.
Regev noticed that the rioters were headed toward the nearby Jewish residential neighborhoods, so she and a rabbi “formed another line and we held them off.” She told the protesters to “please leave so everyone’s safe. Let’s just not fight. A lot of them didn’t listen, but most of them did.” As she was ushering out the protesters, Regev saw one of them look angry with two flagpoles and seemed like he was going to use them to attack people; Regev pleaded with him to calm down and peacefully leave the area. The protester did leave, but as he got in his car he sprayed bear repellent in the area, and came in contact with Regev’s right side.
“It was burning like crazy,” Regev said. “I almost fell down.”
Regev found Sherman, and together they limped “in pain” to Walgreens, where they were treated by Hatzalah. Regev then called a doctor who works at an urgent care across the street, only to find out that the doctor had been pepper sprayed, which is why she and Sherman sought care at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Further, Sherman heard “crazy things” coming from the anti-Israel protesters, including one who said he didn’t like Israel and then said “all you Jews are crazy,” prompting Sherman to confront the protester by saying: “Oh wait is it Israel or is it Jews?” The protester responded by saying he didn’t like Sherman’s long hair and “was getting in my face.” Regev claimed that she heard anti-Israel protesters shout “Zionist pigs” and “globalize the intifada”; additionally, she said that a neo-Nazi was there and that he said directly to her that “Jews may be from Europe, but so are Nazis.”
Los Angeles Police Department Chief Dominic Choi said in a June 24 press conference that the anti-Israel protesters were coming “in waves”; Sherman said that was “100%” true. “Everywhere you walked there were more of them,” Sherman said, describing some of the rioters as being “bigger” and were “looking people in the eye and saying, ‘come here, I want to fight you.’”
Regev said that eventually the anti-Israel protesters “started moving east towards the Jewish restaurants and the Jewish neighborhood. The police are literally doing nothing.” So Regev “followed the crowds” and formed a chain with a rabbi and another person to form a human chain to hold the rioters back. Regev also saw anti-Israel protesters banging on the windows of a Jewish-owned bagel store; she broke up a fight there.
So she walked up to the police and told them “to stop this because it’s about to start turning violent in five minutes.” Regev claimed the police told her that they were told to stand down; Regev couldn’t recall specifically if the police told her that it was their captain or sergeant that gave the order. However, at a community security briefing on June 26, LAPD Commander Steve Lurie emphatically denied claims that they were told to stand down as “patently untrue” and “nonsense.”
Sherman doesn’t know if the police were told to stand down by elected officials, but what he does know is that “they didn’t do anything when they were supposed to do something. I don’t understand why they didn’t come in and separate the Jewish people from the pro-Palestinians. It was in front of their face, they saw how we were getting hit, they saw how they were yelling, it was so obvious that there were going to be fights.”
“[The LAPD] didn’t do anything when they were supposed to do something. I don’t understand why they didn’t come in and separate the Jewish people from the pro-Palestinians. It was in front of their face, they saw how we were getting hit, they saw how they were yelling, it was so obvious that there were going to be fights.” – Naftoli Sherman
He also believes that a number of the anti-Israel protesters were paid agitators. “The things that they were saying, they didn’t know any of the history about Israel,” Sherman said, recalling asking an anti-Israel rioter she condemned Hamas and the 9/11 terror attacks; the rioter said no to both. “The only thing that makes sense to me is that they were paid for. I don’t know who pays them and how they get these addresses and stuff, but they definitely don’t know what they’re talking about.” Regev also believes that myriad rioters were paid, as many of them were calling for an “intifada” but didn’t know what the term or “Zionism” meant. “Obviously some did, but a lot of them had no clue,” she said, adding that “they were there to be in our faces.”
Another witness to the June 23 events, 62-year-old business consultant Marvin Epstein, noticed that at least one of the anti-Israel protesters was dragging a keffiyeh (which is considered sacred) on the ground. “[He] looked like someone who just finished working and was exhausted after his long day of work, so it’s hard to believe there’s authenticity to some of their ideologies’ story when literally they don’t even respect the costume they’re wearing,” Epstein said. “And that’s why even somebody said, ‘why do you even wear this costume?’ And they said, ‘because there’s genocide in the world.’”
Regev said that what happened on June 23 reminded her of “Nazi Germany before the Holocaust. We are supposed to feel safe in our own synagogues … we need security guards because we know we are not safe.” But she believes that the message from the Jewish community is that “we’re not scared, and that’s why we went to help. Because we knew that if the police are not going to help, then at least we can help.”
She further contended that the Jewish community should arm themselves for protection and lamented that it can take a year-and-half to get a permit.
In the aftermath of the events of June 23, Sherman “had this realization that I need to take life more serious[ly]” and that “being a Jew, I should be so proud of it … I feel so lucky and privileged to be a Jew and that’s the one thing I’ll never give up … I want to share that feeling with every Jew around the world.”
“We’ve had antisemitism for thousands of years, and we have survived and we will survive and we are strong,” Regev declared. She added that the Jewish community is willing to work with LAPD and other local police to make sure that this never happens again.
