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TThe deadly attack on the Poway synagogue in San Diego last weekend may have shattered the image of some people in southern California as a sunny liberal enclave. But the region has for decades been an incubator of far right politics and it is far from the first time that its Jewish communities are facing violent threats.
"Hate groups and hate activity have been prevalent in southern California for a very long time," said Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center. "This activity is deeply rooted in Orange County and northern San Diego," she added.
The origins of the far right Southern California
In the 1920s, far right groups were very active in San Diego and Los Angeles. KKK committed several acts of violence in the region during those years. A member of the Klan was elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 1923. In San Diego, violence, harassment and organized discrimination against Mexican immigrants, along with Jews and Catholics, constituted 39, one of the main objectives of the Klan in the 1920s and 1930s.
Beirich attributes the rise of the far right in the region to two major factors. The strength and dynamism of immigrant culture has often provoked a racist reaction from far-right whites, she said. This is reflected today in anti-immigrant groups still present in the region, such as the Californian group for stabilization of the population in Santa Barbara and anti-Muslim groups like Jihad Watch at Sherman Oaks and David Horowitz Freedom Foundation in Los Angeles.
Beirich also attributes an important role to the unionization of the John Birch Society (JBS) in the 60s, 70s and 80s. The conspiracy-minded anticommunist group was, for many, "an introductory drug. to other forms of extremism, "she noted.
In the 1960s, Orange County had become a popular recruiting ground for the JBS, whose founder, Robert Welch, had shockingly identified former President Dwight Eisenhower as an agent of Communist Russia and had finally been excluded from traditional conservative circles. Some of the most prominent right-wing organizers in the 1980s and 1990s, including Tom Metzger, the founder of the Aryan White Resistance, were members of the JBS or had contacts with this group, noted Beirich.
Metzger, a former San Diego TV repairman, became one of the most notorious extremist leaders of the 1980s and 1990s. In 1980, he and his followers sparked a riot when they entered a park. Oceanside in order to rid it of immigrants. In 1990, men linked to the White and Aryan resistance group of Metzger were prosecuted for killing Mulugeta Seraw and an Ethiopian immigrant. The jury awarded $ 12.5 million in damages to the victim's family.
From the 1960s, "orange counties swelled the ranks of the John Birch Society, opened up many far-right bookstores and worked within their churches, schools, and communities to roll back the gains. liberals who, in their eyes, threatened the nation, "according to Lisa McGirr's classic account of the birth of the new right in Southern California, Suburban Warriors.
The JBS not only promoted the type of conspiracy mentality that characterizes the far right – it was, from the start, actively infiltrated by racists and anti-Semites. "As soon as Welch and a handful of conscientious section chiefs chased out the bigots, they got together – promoted their poison behind Welch's back, and often right under his nose," wrote Dan Kelly in Baffler.
In recent decades, anti-Semitic violence has terrorized some of the local Jewish communities in southern California. In 1999, five people were injured in 1999 by a white supremacist who fired 70 rounds of a semi-automatic weapon into the lobby of the Los Angeles Jewish community. Four years later, a Molotov cocktail tore the windows of the Beth Shalom Valley Synagogue in Encino, a neighborhood in Los Angeles. Last year, a man shouted anti-Semitic insults before attempting to attack worshipers in front of a synagogue in nearby Hancock Park, and the last Halloween, an Irvine synagogue was disfigured by antisemitic graffiti.
Modern era
Today, the region is home to prolific and influential white nationalist "intellectuals", such as Kevin McDonald, editor of the Western Observer. During his career as a professor at CSU Long Beach, McDonald's published a trilogy of anti-Semitic books that claims the Jewish dominance of finance and media as the group's evolving strategy.
For decades, McDonald's has been considered by many as an isolated crank. But with the rise of the "alt right", he appeared on podcasts and on conference scenes alongside young movement influencers. His mix of racial pseudoscience and far-right activism was not enough to deter Donald Trump Jr from republishing him before the 2016 election.
The Trump era coincided with violent attacks and political campaigns led by a new wave of far right groups in the region. In 2018, a member of the Atomwaffen division, a neo-Nazi militant group, murdered his 19-year-old Jewish classmate, Blaze Bernstein, in Orange County. According to ProPublica, the murderer, Samuel Woodward, would have joined Atomwaffen Division as early as 2016 and would have been one of the main organizers of his California cell.
Several California-based groups were present at the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which resulted in the death of Heather Heyer. Among those prosecuted for their role in violence were members of the Rise Above (Ram) movement. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Ram's members are concentrated in Orange County and San Diego. The group is known for its violence, dragging its members into melee combat and, before Charlottesville, participating in violent far-right rallies in California towns such as Berkeley and Huntington Beach.
Ram participated in several events organized by Identity Evropa (IE). The militant group is active throughout the country, but its southern California offices have been extremely busy, browsing university campuses with propaganda attacking immigration and promoting what they call a "white identity" ". IE members played a key role in organizing the Charlottesville Rally and were behind the event's most important slogan, "You Will not Replace Us".
Meanwhile, pro-Trump rallies in southern California have also escalated. At a KKK protest in Anaheim in February 2016, counter-partners were stabbed and beaten. In March 2017, in Orange County, supporters of Mr. Trump and counter-partners exchanged blows and pepper spray. This last This incident was part of a wave of violent street protests on the west coast in early 2017 – in Berkeley and Portland in particular – that allowed groups such as Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer to unite, build yourself and organize yourself.
Far-right politics being so entrenched in the state's history and still-active hate groups, Southern California's fight against far-right extremism Is not over yet.
But after Poway's attack last week, the rabbi of the synagogue remained provocative. "We are fortunate to live here in a country that allows us to live proud to be Jewish. We are still recovering from the Holocaust, we are broke like animals, as in Nazi Germany, but the terror will not win. I am here facing a senseless hatred, "he said.
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