David Adler, a 33-year-old political economist from Los Angeles, has returned to the U.S. after more than two weeks at sea and five days in an Israeli prison.

Adler told LAist his upbringing in a Los Angeles Jewish community motivated him to help organize the Global Sumud Flotilla, a step that eventually led to his detention by the Israeli government.

“Here comes a Jewish kid from California, raised and reared in the Jewish community of the San Fernando Valley, who's speaking on behalf of Jewish principles,” he told LAist. “ We became objects for humiliation and abuse and treated as ‘animals’, in their language.”

Adler was one of about 450 people from more than 40 countries, including four Californians, who sailed with the flotilla that first departed Barcelona, Spain, at the beginning

See Full Page