What was billed as a bridge-building security seminar between Jewish and Korean community members at Wilshire Boulevard Temple on Wednesday instead became the latest flashpoint in the national fight over protests targeting Jewish institutions.

Shortly after 9:30 a.m., as participants gathered inside the Koreatown campus of the synagogue – which bills itself as “a congregation that honors the ancient traditions of Judaism in a thoroughly modern context” – about 15 masked activists assembled outside, shouting “Baby killers,” “Zionist pigs,” and “Occupation no more,” according to multiple attendees. Among them was UCLA medical student and Jewish activist Eliana Jolkovsky, who told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) the chants were so loud “we couldn’t hear the speakers inside.”

When Jolkovsky approached one protester and asked why the demonstration was being held outside a house of worship, the woman responded, “We’re protesting in front of a site that’s hosting genocide supporters and trying to bring that to K-Town.”

Inside, the seminar — organized in part by the Israeli Consulate and featuring security professionals, including an AI researcher from Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems — was aimed at sharing safety strategies with Koreatown community members amid rising antisemitic and anti-Asian attacks. “The Koreans were shaken,” Jolkovsky said. “They told us, ‘So this is what you experience?’”

Roughly 90 minutes into the event, two women inside the audience suddenly stood up and began shouting anti-Israel slogans. Security escorted them out — but moments later, a man who had entered the building posing as an attendee smashed a glass vase, sending shards flying across the synagogue floor.

“He screamed profanities, called us genocidal terrorists,” Jolkovsky recalled. “There were children downstairs in the nursery. It was terrifying.” Another woman then began yelling about “dead babies in Palestine,” while a man outside shouted through the windows with an infant strapped to his chest, she said.

The scene marked one of the most aggressive disruptions of a synagogue event in Los Angeles since Oct. 7 and mirrors similar confrontations across the country, including in New York, where protesters recently targeted an Orthodox shul hosting an event on Jewish migration to Israel.

LAPD officers arrested two individuals — one for battery, another for vandalism. Community security officials said some of the activists appeared linked to Nodutdol and Koreatown 4 Palestine, groups that have recently staged demonstrations in the neighborhood criticizing Israel and expressing support for North Korea.

Mayor Karen Bass swiftly condemned the incident. “This behavior is abhorrent and has no place in Los Angeles,” she said, adding that additional LAPD patrols would be deployed near houses of worship.

The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles described the protest as “antisemitic behavior in the strongest of terms,” noting that its Community Security Initiative was participating in the panel when the disruption occurred. “There is no place in our community — or anywhere — for antisemitism and hate disguised as dissent,” the organization said.

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