The Los Angeles City Council postponed a vote on whether to allocate $1 million for security services to protect Jewish institutions after the proposal was expanded to include other faiths.
Councilmembers Katy Yaroslavsky and Bob Blumenfield co-sponsored the motion in response to a violent clash outside a synagogue in Pico-Robertson on June 23. Pro-Palestinian groups had gathered in response to an Israeli real estate event being held at the synagogue, which they called an “effort to further occupy Palestine.”
The protest was met by pro-Israeli counter-demonstrators. Heated arguments between the two groups quickly became physical, and one person suffered minor injuries.
Yaroslavsky and Blumenfield’s original motion would have allocated $400,000 to the Jewish Federation Los Angeles, $350,000 to security organization Magen Am, and $250,000 to the Jewish Community Foundation for security efforts at Jewish community centers, schools, and synagogues.
Critics of the motion, including the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice, Union del Barrio, Unmute Humanity, and Veterans for Peace held a news conference on the steps of City Hall on Tuesday morning to urge councilmembers to vote against it.
Grassroots organization Ground Game L.A. released a letter from its Jewish members calling the motion "flagrantly anti-Palestinian" by "holding up Jewish safety as the sole concern raised by these protests." It called the proposed $1 million allocation "a misallocation of public funds" and demanded it be withdrawn or rejected.
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Before the motion came up for a vote during the council meeting, Yaroslavsky and Blumenfield gave it a last-minute rewrite. The funding was doubled to $2 million, and it would be given to the city’s Civil and Human Rights Department and made available to all faith-based organizations.
"I believe that this is an appropriate and necessary change to ensure that all faith communities across Los Angeles are able to access these funds while also addressing the urgent need to increase security at Jewish institutions," Yaroslavsky said.
Yaroslavsky said she hoped the city's program would mimic the state's $80 million initiative to fund neighborhood security grants over the next two years, which will begin in the fall. She said the more committees her proposal has to go through, the longer it will take and the "less safe all our religious institutions will be over this summer."
The $2 million is intended to fill in the stopgap and accelerate the state's effort. Yaroslavsky added that she believes the city will be reimbursed by the state once its program is in operation.
A vote on the proposal was postponed until after the council returns from recess on July 30.
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