After anti-Israel protests outside a synagogue in a heavily Jewish Los Angeles neighborhood escalated into violence on Sunday, President Joe Biden blasted the instigators for blocking access to the synagogue and turning violent toward Jewish counterprotesters and congregants.

“I’m appalled by the scenes outside of Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles. Intimidating Jewish congregants is dangerous, unconscionable, antisemitic, and un-American,” Biden wrote in a post on X on Monday morning. “Americans have a right to peaceful protest. But blocking access to a house of worship – and engaging in violence – is never acceptable.”

Protesters blocked the entrance to Adas Torah to protest an event at the synagogue, located in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood, about real estate in Israel. Video showed an anti-Israel protester in a keffiyeh spraying pro-Israel demonstrators with bear spray. Other videos showed people attacking each other with flagpoles and signs. At least one person was arrested. On Sunday night, California Gov. Gavin Newsom decried the incident as “antisemitic hatred,” and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the violence “abhorrent.” 

The statement coming directly from Biden was a rare example of a quick response from the president, who has in recent months usually first dispatched his communications staff to weigh in on antisemitic incidents. 

Earlier this month, it was Andrew Bates, senior deputy White House press secretary, who offered a strong response after pro-Hamas demonstrators protested at the Nova exhibit in Manhattan, which honors the more than 350 victims of the Nova music festival massacre on Oct. 7. Three days later, Biden followed with a statement of his own on X. “Antisemitism doesn’t just threaten Jewish Americans. It threatens all Americans, and our fundamental democratic values,” Biden wrote.

Bates has emerged as the White House’s antisemitism rapid-response point person; he offered official White House condemnations of antisemitic incidents at The George Washington University and Columbia University, a rebuke of the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania after they appeared on Capitol Hill in December, and a condemnation of Elon Musk after he promoted the antisemitic Great Replacement theory in November. In April, after anti-Israel protesters violently occupied a Columbia campus building, Bates responded. Two days later, Biden followed. 

Biden has begun to ratchet up his own denunciations of antisemitism in recent months. In early May, Biden delivered a White House address urging campus protesters to refrain from violence and decrying threats of violence against Jewish students. A few days later, in a speech at a Holocaust remembrance event on Capitol Hill, Biden spoke forcefully about the need to counter antisemitism. 

The president’s public statement on Monday morning did not indicate any further actions the White House would take to respond to antisemitic violence. A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment asking if any such action would accompany Biden’s statement. 
Biden’s condemnation of the antisemitic incident in California comes as some Jewish Democrats have complained about a lack of engagement from the Biden campaign, according to a CNN report published on Sunday.