On Sunday, June 8, after participating in a Zoom meeting of the Jewish Leadership Project (more about this later), I looked online for news and was astonished to see rioting in Los Angeles, with crowds, many carrying Mexican flags and preprinted signs and wearing bionic face shields, setting fires using burning American flags, looting stores, breaking up sidewalks to make rocks to throw, and physically resisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents trying to round up illegal immigrants, many with serious criminal records, for deportation. In fact, the ICE headquarters was completely surrounded by demonstrators, and local police were slow to act.
When the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), acting under the direction of a new chief of police who had vowed not to cooperate with ICE in enforcing federal arrest warrants, failed to restore order, President Trump called up 2,000 National Guardsmen to protect federal installations and agents, drawing the ire of California Governor Gavin Newsom, LA Mayor Karen Bass, and California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who claimed that the National Guard intervention was inflammatory. Mayor Bass accused ICE of “sowing a sense of terror,” while LA City Council member Eunisses Hernandez (D) went so far as to encourage escalating the riots. Even while terrorist chants of “Allahu Akbar” rang out across Los Angeles, Governor Newsom blamed the federal government for provoking the “peaceful protests” by enforcing the nation’s immigration laws, sued to have federal courts revoke the National Guard deployment, and even dared “border czar” Tom Homan to arrest him for obstructing law enforcement.
The extent to which Los Angeles’ civic leadership is compromised was revealed by Glenn Beck, who recalled, based on a documentary by Errol Weber, that the U.S. Capitol was bombed on November 7, 1983 by a female terrorist group, M19, some of whom had ties to the Cuban-sponsored Venceremos Brigades, a Marxist training program, of which now-LA Mayor Bass was the Southern California leader; six other present and former members of Congress are also Venceremos alumni.
Indeed, the level of organization and coordination shown by the “rioters” suggested that this was a preplanned event, and sure enough, in succeeding days, investigative journalists found that the signs were printed by the Party for Socialism and Liberation (which is funded by Marxist millionaire Neville Roy Singham, who has ties to the Chinese Communist Party), and the $60 face shields were supplied by the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights, CHIRLA (which receives six-figure federal grants and was given $35.2 million in the past two years from the State of California). Seijah Drake writes in American Liberty News that a study by the watchdog group Open the Books showed that another $29.8 million in California taxpayer money went to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, whose stated mission is to disrupt the “arrest-to-deportation pipeline.” Another prominent participating nongovernmental organization (NGO) is the “Mexican version of BLM,” Unión del Barrio – whose manifesto is filled with explicit Marxist and communist rhetoric,” as described by Tyler Durden (a pseudonym for Daniel Ivandjiiski, a Bulgarian-born, U.S.-based former investment banker and capital-markets trader, currently writing for Zero Hedge, the financial blog he founded). Overall, five organizations received $73 million in public funds.
With U.S. citizens and legal residents objecting to efforts to protect even the most violent illegal immigrant criminals (the Colorado Rapid Response Network recently helped Jose Reyes Leon-Deras, a child-rapist from El Salvador, escape arrest by ICE and the FBI), the Left has adopted a new tactic: “No Kings” demonstrations, a name drawn from the 19th-century anarchist, radical labor slogans “No Gods, No Masters” or “No Gods, No Kings,” which reject all religious, civil, and institutional authority, clearly intended to blame Donald Trump for their misdeeds. Antifa-linked groups are among the participants, and the demonstrations are supported by “nearly 200 far-left NGOs, labor unions, and donor networks, many of which are directly tied to the Democratic Party’s power infrastructure,” as reported by American Liberty News. Principal funding is coming from the American Federation of Teachers, led by Randi Weingarten; from Indivisible, a progressive organizing network funded by George Soros’ Open Society foundations; and from the Patriotic Millionaires, a leftist advocacy group headed by former BlackRock Managing Director Morris Pearl.
In short, American taxpayers, especially in California, are unwittingly funding activists seeking to overthrow the traditional American order.
There is a special message in the rioting for Jews. Besides the established connection between the rioters and the antisemitic Left, history tells us that when there is a revolution, Jews become targets, most notably during the Russian Revolution, when both the “Reds” and the “Whites” slaughtered Jews.
Which brings us back to the Jewish Leadership Project (JLP) meeting. We spent an hour discussing how Jews can fight back against the Marxist-Islamist cabal. Here are some of the main points:
- Our current establishment Jewish leadership isn’t getting the job of fighting antisemitism done, largely because it is so wedded to the progressive Left that it ignores their antisemitism (and frequently the Islamist version as well) and concentrates on the smaller threat from the radical Right (although the influence of Tucker Carlson and his anti-Israel disciples is potentially dangerous).
- Writing in The New York Post, David Bernstein elaborates on how difficult it is for our legacy organizations to break free of what he calls “the blue city trap.” As he writes, “Their staff, board members, donors, and partner institutions (e.g., universities, interfaith coalitions, city governments) are mostly Democrats.” And they and their rabbis live primarily in blue cities; nearly all of us live in one of the 600 sanctuary jurisdictions in America, any one of which could erupt like Los Angeles. Furthermore, these organizations receive grants from government security programs, from social service contracts, or from urban partnerships, so deviating from the party line could cost them money. As Bernstein writes, “Turning against the progressive coalition would mean breaking relationships with city councils, school boards, and interfaith partners; losing credibility with younger, progressive Jews; and risking their funding base and social capital. Moreover, many of their own members have not pivoted politically… Jewish organizations that wish to sound the alarm about antisemitism from the left must do so without alienating their liberal constituents.”
- His recommendation is that we create new organizations not tied to past alliances, which we’re doing. Examples are Americans for Peace and Tolerance and its offshoot, the Jewish Leadership Project, with which I am loosely affiliated; the African-Jewish Alliance; CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting); EMET (Endowment for Middle East Truth); End Jew Hatred; the Lawfare Project; Scholars for Peace in the Middle East; Middle East Forum; and Stop Antisemitism, among others, as well as one old line organization, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). We can join their fight by learning how to refute our enemies’ fallacious arguments.
- Also on the agenda should be self-defense, even though Israel is being pilloried for doing just that. In my humble opinion, it’s time to rehabilitate the memory of Rabbi Meir Kahane, who was right more than his detractors will admit, and revive the Jewish Defense League. In that regard, Rabbi Cary Kozberg (email [email protected]) recommends that men receive firearms training (or for those of us who are clumsy, may I suggest krav maga). There are also Byrna or Sabre pepper spray guns, legal in almost every state, which can fit in a pocketbook and should be carried whenever leaving home.
Indeed, we live in perilous times, as shown by three recent acts of violence against American Jews: first, the firebombing of the Pennsylvania governor’s residence in the early morning while Governor Josh Shapiro and his family were sleeping; then the brutal murder of two young Israeli diplomats on the steps of the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.; and then an Egyptian Islamist illegal immigrant on an expired visa using Molotov cocktails and a homemade flamethrower to burn 15 elderly Jews rallying on behalf of hostages held by Hamas.
The threat is magnified by the victory in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary of Zohran Mamdani, a socialist who, as a state assemblyman, co-sponsored a bill aimed at punishing Jewish charities which support Israel. He refused to condemn the October 7 Hamas massacre, instead labeling Israel’s military response “genocide.” He chants “Globalize the intifada” at rallies and aligns and associates with those who call for the destruction of Israel, whose existence as a Jewish State he refuses to affirm.
Apparently, 80 years after the Holocaust, the collective sense of shame has dissipated, and some are ready for a repeat performance. Nevertheless, there is a glimmer of hope that this may be the end of times, a prelude to our returning home triumphantly to Eretz Yisrael.
However, in that connection, we must deal with the issue of housing. It seems to me that three groups of returnees hold the highest priority for Israel: families with young children, Torah scholars, and wealthy Jews who can afford high housing prices. The rest of us must depend on Mashiach to provide.
Are there solutions to the housing issue? Some years ago, a quasi-libertarian candidate for the Knesset, Moshe Feiglin, formed a political party that proposed releasing government-owned land for development, but whether it was his proposals for legalizing marijuana and replacing the draft with an all-volunteer IDF, or some other reason, all the other parties, left, right, and center, joined forces to ensure that he fell below the threshold for winning parliamentary seats. Recently, the Israeli government authorized building 180,000 homes in the Shomron (Samaria), sufficient to house a million olim, but what makes them think that the nations of the world would allow such extensive building on what they regard as Palestinian land? If anything, the opposite is true. The Israeli government doesn’t intervene while Europe bankrolls illegal Palestinian construction that is increasingly surrounding and isolating existing Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.
Also, as many have observed, Israel needs to wean itself off American military aid, as it has from economic aid, to reduce the leverage the U.S. has over it. Especially when every attempt by the Trump administration to break free of the “Woketopus,” as Daily Signal correspondent Tyler O’Neil calls it, is overridden within 24 hours as the Left cherry-picks a federal district judge to issue a nationwide injunction. How audacious it is for any one of 677 federal judges to usurp the powers of the executive branch to set national policy! After months of legal wrangling, the Supreme Court did rule on June 23 to set aside a lower court order and allow resumption of deportations; however, future rulings could go either way.
As we go forward, let us learn from our ancestor Yaakov Avinu’s multifaceted strategy for dealing with Eisav. While our current enemies can’t be appeased (witness the Palestinians allowed to work in Israel providing intelligence for the terrorists), we can pursue the other two components. We can fight back through lawfare, by forging new partnerships and joining grassroots efforts, and exercising informed judgment about casting our votes. At the same time, we can do more mitzvos, acts of chesed, and Torah study. This is a time for action, not resignation; for hope, not despair. Let us remember that we have the eternal Divine promise of redemption. Am Yisrael chai!
