A Hollywood synagogue was vandalized Thursday night time, the second time this summer time.
Los Angeles police are investigating the incidents as potential hate crimes. An LAPD spokesman mentioned officers took a hate crime report on the scene on Friday.
Video captured by the synagogue’s safety digital camera reveals two hooded males crossing Melrose Avenue and approaching the doorway to Kahal Ahavas Yisroel on Thursday night time. There, one of many males carrying a darkish hoodie seems at hand his cellphone over to the opposite man, who’s carrying a lightweight hoodie. The person at midnight hoodie then begins to bang on the home windows along with his forearm earlier than drawing an unidentifiable blunt instrument from his sleeve, after which utilizing the item to smash the home windows of the place of worship.
The person within the gentle sweatshirt seems to report video of the incident with a cellphone.
Doni Dror, a board member on the synagogue, spoke to KCAL Information on Sunday and mentioned the lads smashed the home windows however didn’t go inside; no property was stolen.
He mentioned the synagogue had been vandalized just some weeks earlier than, and he believes the incidents are associated and hate-driven.
“It’s onerous for me to think about that these two consecutive incidents, so shut along with our constructing, it’s onerous to say that it’s not,” Dror instructed KCAL.
An LAPD spokesman didn’t present specifics in regards to the earlier incident, nor did he make clear the present investigation, apart from to substantiate a hate crime report was taken the next day.
Antisemitic hate crimes have surged because the Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israel, based on the Anti-Defamation League.
Within the three months after the assault, there was a 36% enhance in antisemitic incidents throughout the U.S., based on the ADL — a company based in 1913 “to cease the defamation of the Jewish individuals and to safe justice and truthful remedy to all.” Incidents totaled 3,291 between Oct. 7 of final yr and Jan. 7, 2024, the group mentioned.
Calls and emails to the synagogue weren’t returned.
“We strongly condemn these obvious acts of bigotry and the vandalism of a spot of worship,” mentioned Hussam Ayloush, the manager director in Los Angeles of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Antisemitism or hate of any kind should not be tolerated in our communities. We stand in solidarity with the Jewish neighborhood towards this unacceptable act.”
