Not long after the first riots linked to the death of George Floyd had erupted, I realized a fact that hadn’t been emphasized at all in most media: How huge swaths of major cities had been destroyed by rioters.
It took the New York Post’s video on the wreck that was downtown Manhattan — block after block after block of broken glass and boarded-up storefronts — (plywood and board-up companies are making a killing these days) for me to see a side of the protests that most media weren’t showing us.
Out on the Left Coast, the ruin was similar. The Oregonian called riot-plagued Portland “a city of plywood.”
Since then, images have emerged of a darker narrative, with rioters targeting Jewish businesses. Israeli newspapers ran with this angle this past Saturday, but by the end of the day, there was nothing about the Jewish vandalism to be found on the New York Times website. Usually the Times is pretty up on anti-Semitism, but it was easier to find a piece about Anna Wintour than any mentions of vandalized Jews.
So now we’re avoiding news about anti-Semitism in these riots urging diversity? American Jewish media have been on this for some weeks. The Forward ran this on June 1:
(Local businessman Jonathan) Friedman said he believes Jewish businesses were targeted specifically. “All Jewish businesses and temples in the area were either broken into or had graffiti tagged on their walls. I understand the demonstrators’ frustration, but we have nothing to do with what happened to George Floyd.”
Do read that story, as it’s heartrending, especially the part about the Iranian Jewish immigrant whose jewelry store was completely ransacked. Insurance won’t cover much of the loss, so he’s ruined.
Arutz Sheva, an Israeli TV network, covered the riots with this video.
Now, where’s the mainstream press on this obvious religious targeting? I haven’t seen a thing about this in the Los Angeles Times, not to mention other media. Have you?
Again, as of this weekend, the Israeli media were all over it this major West Coast story. From the Times of Israel courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:
LOS ANGELES (JTA) – Graffiti on the walls of a synagogue read “Free Palestine” and “f*** Israel.” A statue of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazis, was smeared with anti-Semitic slogans.
Along with the synagogues, Jewish-owned buildings and stores were defaced, in several cases also with anti-Semitic graffiti. The businesses were looted, too.
Los Angeles’ Fairfax district, known for its Jewish leanings, was heavily affected. Although many Jewish families have relocated to other areas in recent decades, many Jewish-owned businesses remain there.
“The attack on our community last night was vicious and criminal,” Paul Koretz, the district’s current city councilman, said in a statement Sunday. “As we watched the fires and looting, what we didn’t get covered were the anti-Semitic hate crimes and incidents. Under the guise of protests, some advanced their anti-Semitic agenda.”
The anti-Semitism included the above messages on Temple Beth El and similar graffiti on the nearby Baba Sale Congregation.
Across the street from Beth El, the Kosher Mensch Bakery and Kitchen and the Jewish-owned clothing store Go Couture were destroyed. Stores on the fashionable Melrose Avenue, on the district’s northern border, also were damaged, as were multiple Jewish institutions in the area: Congregation Beth Israel, Congregation Tivereth Avi/Morasha Educational Centre, Shaarei Tefilah synagogue and the Shalhevet school for girls, according to Aram Goldberg, vice president of the Jewish Federation Council.
The Jerusalem Post reported much the same thing, adding:
Richard S. Hirschhaut, American Jewish Committee Los Angeles Regional Director, condemned the acts of vandalism, saying in a statement to the Jewish Journal that “It is deplorable that certain protesters in Los Angeles today resorted to violence and vandalism. Sadly, their destructive opportunism included the defacing of Congregation Beth Israel, one of the oldest synagogues in Los Angeles and the spiritual home to many Holocaust survivors over the years. The epithets scrawled on the synagogue wall do nothing to advance the cause of peace or justice, here or abroad.”
Similarly, Liora Rez, Director of the Stop Antisemitism watchdog, also condemned their action in a statement to the Jewish Journal, saying that “once again we see vile antisemitism being disguised as activism. To vandalize a synagogue during this horrific time does nothing but further divide a broken country.”
Note their remarks. “Vile antisemitism disguised as activism.” Is there always an anti-Semitic strain hiding under the protests of the left? And what is the one word no one is saying here?
It’s Kristallnacht, the pogrom on Nov. 9-10, 1938, in German and Austrian cities where more than 1,400 synagogues were torched and thousands of Jewish businesses destroyed. The name comes from all the glass that lay on the pavement after Nazi thugs destroyed storefronts. Sound familiar?
With statues being pulled down these days by whoever can gather enough people and some rope, people are realizing the police may not be there for them. One thing that’s spiking is gun sales. Last month, there was an 80% increase in gun sales compared to May 2019.
This Tampa Bay Tribune piece reveals how deep the fear of anarchy is right now — with a devastated economy and street riots.
Perhaps media are ignoring this because they didn’t see anti-Jewish mobs march on heavily Orthodox neighborhoods like Crown Heights in Brooklyn. Was the damage and graffiti in Los Angeles, as one tweeter put it, “just BLM boilerplate about solidarity with Palestinians?”
The Israeli newspapers clearly didn’t think so. The rabbi in the above video with this blog post points to anti-Semitic roots in elements of the #BlackLivesMatter organization, itself. There are documents out there to examine and people debating them.
Is there a pattern here somewhere? Reporters need to figure this one out.