H eadlines
Protest Continued from Page 1
Jr. by two Philadelphia Police
Department officers the day
before. “Y’all know we the real
Jews, right?” one man yells at
the small group.

“This ain’t y’all’s fight, y’all
gotta go,” another man says, as
one of the two men in kippot
says that he and the other men
he’s with are “just showing
solidarity.” One of the Jewish men gets
shoved, and there are shouts of
“Amalek,” “get ’em out of here”
and “Revelation 2:9, synagogue
of Satan,” an anti-Semitic invoca-
tion commonly cited by Black
Hebrew Israelites, according to
the Anti-Defamation League.

One person in the crowd tried to
defend the men.

But one of the Jewish men in
the video, a West Philadelphia
resident who asked not to be
named, said he was not there
to “show solidarity,” a claim
repeated in news outlets like
the Daily Mail and New York
Post. Rather, he said, the three
Jewish men, who did not
know each other prior to that
night, attended out of simple
curiosity. “They, like me, just went to
see what was going on,” the man
said. “They heard the news that,
you know, Philly’s burning, so
it’s like, ‘OK, let’s go watch.’”
In this case, he was just an
observer, he said, though he added,
“You can see me at other rallies,
where I have the biggest mouth.

But that was not the case here.”
Though the West Philadelphia
resident’s Twitter account shows
he is not sympathetic to Black
Lives Matter — he retweeted
QAnon-affiliated Georgia House
candidate Marjorie Taylor
Greene calling BLM a terrorist
organization — he pointed out
that none of his political views
were known to the onlookers who
said anti-Semitic things to him.

“I didn’t bring my Twitter
feed there to show off to every-
body,” he said. He was, however,
wearing a shirt bearing an OK
hand gesture, a frequent white
supremacist symbol, as well as
dogs making Nazi salutes. (The
shirt was created by a far-right
activist who first gained
notoriety after he was prosecuted
for teaching his girlfriend’s dog
to make a Nazi salute.)
In addition to speaking
to the Exponent, the man
also spoke with the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency, initially
telling them that he had come
to the protests just to observe.

But he later acknowledged that
he had prior opinions about it
and wanted to see if he would
experience anti-Semitism.

“I did have a preconceived
opinion,” he said. “I came there
because I wanted to get my
own first-person perspective
and see, what’s this all about?
Are they actually going to say
anti-Semitic things to me? It’s
hard to believe until it actually
happens to you. I didn’t think
they were actually going to and
I was shocked out of my mind
when they did.”
The confrontation took
place after about four hours of
walking alongside protesters, the
man said, and the mention of
solidarity was simply intended
to de-escalate the situation.

But one of the other men
with him, who also asked that
his name be withheld, said he
and his friend, the third Jewish
man in the video, were sincere
in their expressions of sympathy
with the cause, even though they
didn’t know much about it. The
two yeshiva students from New
Jersey were in Philadelphia for
personal reasons, but, alerted to
activity in the area where they
were staying, decided to “show
our respect” to the protesters
and to the late Walter Wallace Jr.

They had not been following the
news closely, the man said.

As the students walked
around, insults from people
they identified as Black Hebrew
Israelites started to pile up.

“Those little comments, we
just brushed aside,” the man
said. “We thought, ‘Obviously,
there’s a lot of tension, there’s
a lot of justifiable rage.’ So, you
know, we didn’t think it was our
place to shift the narrative to us.”
But soon, they had no choice
but to pay attention, as the
comments went from calling
them “fake Jews” — another
common BHI epithet — to
outright questioning the men’s
right to be at the protest.

“They like pointed at us
and they said, ‘This is not
your Holocaust, this is not
Holocaust Remembrance Day,
you people have no business
A screenshot of the video Yaacov Behrman posted on Twitter that
depicts three Jewish men being berated on Oct. 27 on 52nd Street in
West Philadelphia during a protest of the death of WIlliam Wallace Jr. 
Screenshot being here,” the man recalled.

It was around this time that
the confrontation seen on the
video Behrman shared occurred.

Though one unidentified man
tried to support the Jewish men
as they were being accosted, he
was alone in his action.

“That, to me, was the most
concerning part,” the yeshiva
student said. “Nobody was
intervening. Nobody. Nobody
was saying anything. Nobody
was saying that it’s wrong. And
these were protesters who saw
us there earlier and recognized
that we were there for the
cause, or alongside with them.”
He’ll think twice before
joining another protest, he
said, and would caution other
visibly Jewish people to “steer
clear of these type of events.”
The Philadelphia ADL has
been investigating the incident:
“The ADL has reviewed a
longer video, which appears
to be posted by members of
the Black Hebrew Israelite
movement,” wrote Executive
Director Shira Goodman,
via email, to the Exponent.

“The video shows the person
filming, along with at least one
other individual, harassing
police officers before targeting
a group of visibly Jewish
bystanders. The clearly anti-
Semitic attacks were unpro-
voked and at least one victim
was shoved before seeking
safety with nearby police
officers. Anti-Semitism is
unacceptable, and we will
continue to be in contact with
law enforcement on this issue.”
The Black Hebrew Israelites
movement has a history of street
harassment of Jews, women
and white people. According to
the ADL, the movement’s “core
principles” include “the beliefs
that white people are agents of
Satan, Jews are liars and false
worshipers of God, and Blacks
are the true ‘chosen people.’”
Though some Black Hebrew
Israelites are not overtly racist
or anti-Semitic, according to the
Southern Poverty Law Center,
there is “a rising extremist sector
within the movement.”
The stabbing of five
Orthodox Jews in Monsey last
Chanukah, which resulted in
the death of one victim, was
perpetrated by a man believed
to be linked to Black Hebrew
Israelism. And the perpetra-
tors of the December 2019
attacks at a kosher market in
Jersey City, where four people
See Protest, Page 21
16 NOVEMBER 5, 2020
JEWISH EXPONENT
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



H eadlines
Election Continued from Page 1
that were scanned. The crowds,
at least early on, were subdued.

And it’s hard to put it into
words, but it just felt a bit
different. Those who arrived promptly
at 7 a.m. to vote at the Narberth
Municipal Building waited 50
minutes to do so, fortified, if
they so chose, by granola bars
handed out by a Democratic
committeewoman. By the time
those early arrivals voted and
were ready to leave, the lines
were largely gone.

Over at Penn Wynne
Elementary School
in Wynnewood, the Republican
and Democratic committee-
people assumed their traditional
spots on opposite sides of the
entrance — with one change:
They were asked to stay outside
instead of setting up in the
school’s lobby like usual.

“Everybody’s in a good
mood,” said Republican
committeeman Mike Adler,
who noted that he enjoys
Election Day to catch up with
neighbors. “This is usually a
friendly polling place.”
Across the way, Democratic
volunteer Elaine Roseman said
she’s noticed some changes.

“People are anxious. They
have PTSD from 2016,” she
said. “And the mail-in ballots
have really changed things.

There’s less conversation.

People are in and out.”
A few blocks away at Penn
Wynne Library, a lengthy line
remained two hours after polls
opened. Nicola Hill of Wynnewood
said she waited in line 90
minutes to vote.

“One thing different for
me this year was seeing voter
protection,” she said, refer-
ring to poll watchers stationed
outside the building.

Hill said the election
energized her family, including
husband Eric Weinberg, whose
father, Martin, normally served
as a poll worker, but declined
to do so this year because of
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Voters wait their turn in a line outside the Narberth Municipal Building on
Election Day,
Photo by Andy Gotlieb
the pandemic. Eric Weinberg
underwent the training and
replaced his father at a Bryn
Mawr polling location.

Voting traffic was fairly
light in the morning in Mt.

Airy, a neighborhood where
many residents had voted early.

At Germantown Jewish
Centre, a couple of women
stood outside and asked a
poll worker some clarifying
questions. Once they got the
answers, he said, “Come on in,”
and they went inside to vote.

There was no line, only a single
campaign-hired poll observer
who sat against a tree outside,
bundled up against the chill.

Nearby polling places,
like Action Karate off of
Germantown Avenue, had a
clutch of voters waiting outside
along with the poll observers
in their folding chairs. There
were plenty of signs about
COVID precautions, and hand
sanitizer was everywhere in
evidence. At the Commodore John
Barry Arts and Cultural Center,
Rabbi Alan LaPayover, director
of the Goldyne Savad Library
Center at Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College, was
working the polls.

Part of the Philadelphia
City Commissioners’ Rover
Program, LaPayover was
there, he said, to help move the
lines, answer voter questions
and address any problems the
judges of elections might have.

“It’s just to help the elections
move smoothly,” he said.

When asked if his Judaism
informed his Election Day
work, he said, “Absolutely,
absolutely. It’s a responsi-
bility to participate in society
and voting is one of the best
ways we can do that. It’s very
important to make sure that
everyone votes and we make
sure the elections go smoothly
and safely.”
It would be a long day for
LaPayover, who had already been
mistaken for Bernie Sanders
more than once; with his mask
on, there was a distinct resem-
blance. A fellow poll worker even
tricked a family member into
believing it was Bernie.

At 7:30 a.m., the line outside
of Tacony Academy Charter
School in Fox Chase snaked
through the parking lot, the
tip of the tail regenerated every
few minutes by a steady stream
of cars pulling in. A persistent
wind kept the lot cold even as
the sun started to peek over
the trees.

Bruce Blady came over
from Congregation Ahavas
Torah, across Rhawn Street,
where he’d just been at a
bris. Now, Blady said, he was
ready to take part in a more
contemporary duty, even if the
line was at least four times
See Election, Page 21
JEWISH EXPONENT
Rabbi Alan LaPayover works the polls in Mt. Airy as part of the
Philadelphia City Commissioners’ Rover Program. 
Photo by Bradley Maule
The Election Day scene at Germantown Jewish Centre
Photo by Bradley Maule
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