Violent protests at a synagogue on Sunday prompted Mayor Karen Bass to say Los Angeles should consider enacting rules around demonstrations and protesters wearing masks.
Bass made no recommendations Monday but said the city needs to consider the issue, including “the idea of people wearing masks at protests.” Some pro-Palestinian protesters covered their faces on Sunday.
The mayor also said during her afternoon press conference that she was seeking city and state funding to implement additional safety measures at the city’s places of worship. Hours after the clashes, she ordered the Los Angeles Police Department to step up patrols in the heavily Jewish Pico Robertson area and religious sites where protests were taking place.
The masks are part of many pro-Palestinian and some pro-Israel protests against the war in Gaza, including on college campuses.
When a mob attacked a pro-Palestinian camp at UCLA in May, it was difficult to identify the suspects because many wore masks that concealed their identities. Police said they would use technology to capture images and outlines of faces and compare them with other photos online and on social media to name the faces.
It’s unclear how the government will limit the use of masks at protests.
During the 2020 George Floyd protests, some health officials urged demonstrators to wear masks to prevent COVID-19. Although coronavirus cases have dropped significantly since then, masks can still provide protection, especially for those with underlying health conditions.
Earlier this month, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said she was considering a mask ban on New York subways, saying she was concerned people wearing masks would engage in anti-Semitic behavior.
“We will not tolerate individuals using masks to escape responsibility for criminal or threatening behavior,” Hochul told reporters at a news conference. “My team is working on solutions. But on the subway, people should not be hiding behind masks. commit a crime later.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams supported the idea, telling reporters that “cowards cover their faces.”
Some civil liberties advocates oppose the idea.
“Mask bans were originally created to suppress political protests, and like other laws that criminalize people, they will be selectively enforced — used to arrest, dox, surveil and silence people of color and protests with whom police disagree. ,” Executive Director Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union said in a statement, according to the Associated Press.
North Carolina has also been discussing a mask ban, citing Gaza war protests. But some health professionals and people with underlying health conditions are opposed to it.
“I think I should wear a mask that says ‘immune deficient’ or ‘cancer patient,'” one North Carolina resident told the Washington Post. “But we shouldn’t do that.
A new proposal now includes a health exemption.
There is no formal proposal in Los Angeles, and it’s unclear whether the City Council will support the idea.
But local Anti-Defamation League officials expressed support for mask restrictions Monday. At an afternoon news conference, ADL Los Angeles regional director Jeffrey Abrams joined Bass on the stage and said the city needs to do more to protect the community.
“As Mayor Bass said, we need to look at all legal tools available to us, just like the city attorney looked at California’s existing anti-mask laws,” Abrams said.
Sunday’s protests were condemned by top officials including Bass, President Joe Biden and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
A pro-Palestinian protester got into a car near the Adastora synagogue on Sunday, surrounded by pro-Israel counter-demonstrators.
(Zoe Cranfill/Los Angeles Times)
The protest began Sunday afternoon at the Adastola Synagogue in the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Pico-Robertson, but eventually spread to nearby areas within hours. Fights broke out between pro-Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli supporters.
“Yesterday was abhorrent and preventing people from entering a place of worship is absolutely unacceptable,” Bass said on Monday. “This act of violence was designed to incite fear. It was designed to divide. But please hear me out loud.” And to be clear: it will fail.
“Terrorizing Jewish congregants is dangerous, unconscionable, anti-Semitic and un-American,” the president said in a statement. “Americans have the right to peaceful protest. But preventing people from entering a house of worship and committing violence is Absolutely unacceptable.
Law enforcement sources said the campaign took out ads in Friday’s issue of The Jewish Journal, promising to provide information on “housing projects in all the best Anglo neighborhoods in Israel.” “Anglo” is a direct translation of Hebrew, meaning “English speaking”. The ad did not specify where in Israel the property was located.
The Southern California chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement posted on Instagram that protest flyers posted on social media said “our land is not for sale” and condemned “land theft.”
Hussam Eloush, executive director of the Los Angeles office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the demonstration location was chosen not because of its location in front of a synagogue but because of the events it was hosting.
The protest “is in response to flagrant violations of international law and human rights by institutions seeking to sell brutally stolen Palestinian land as the Israeli government continues its eight-month campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza to make a profit.” he said in a statement.
Eloush added: “Elected officials and mainstream media have politicized this incident and framed it as religious discrimination rather than a human rights issue.”
Rabbi Hertzel Illulian, founder of the Justice and Equality Movement Community Center in Beverly Hills, arrived at Adas Torah on Sunday to worship during afternoon prayers and met a group of people shouted into a loudspeaker. Some synagogue visitors were barred from entering, he said.
“We couldn’t pray properly because people were screaming outside,” he said.
