By: Fern Sidman
Police in Beverly Hills are investigating a break-in and vandalism overnight at one of the city’s largest Iranian-Jewish synagogues as a hate crime. The attack occurred at around 2:00 am on Shabbos morning at the Nessah synagogue on Rexford Drive. Several rooms inside the building were ransacked and Sifrei Torah and Seforim were damaged. The suspect is described as a white man in his early 20s with short dark curly hair. Surveillance video shows the suspect carrying a backpack and pulling a rolling suitcase.
According to a JPost report, local police responded to the call at the Nessah Synagogue “shortly after 7 a.m.” local time on Saturday, after an employee notified security when he “found an open door and items ransacked inside the synagogue,” the police said in a release to the media.
The suspect overturned furniture in the building as well as “damaged several Jewish relics,” according to the statement. Fortunately the synagogue’s “main scrolls remained unscathed,” and disruption was “primarily to the synagogue’s interior contents,” with “very limited structural damage.”
“This cowardly attack hits at the heart of who we are as a community,” Beverly Hills Mayor John Mirisch said in the release. “It’s not just an attack on the Jewish Community of Beverly Hills; it’s an attack on all of us. The entire city stands in solidarity behind Nessah, its members and congregants. We are committed to catching the criminal who desecrated a holy place on Shabbat of all days and bringing him to justice.”
Contrary to earlier reports, the synagogue, one of the largest Iranian Jewish synagogues in Los Angeles, suffered less damage than originally believed.
The LA Times reported that police are investigating the incident as a hate crime but report that there is no evidence to suggest that the attack was anti-Semitic in nature. The synagogue’s main scrolls were locked up and undamaged.
Damage inside the synagogue was “ugly,” according to one witness who had conversations with people who saw the damage first hand, and will require extensive cleanup, as was reported by the LA Times.
The synagogue was founded by David Shofet, who immigrated to the United States in 1980 from Tehran in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution, according to the LA Times report.
“In the aftermath of the terrible tragedy in Jersey City earlier this week, the American Jewish community is understandably anxious,” said Richard Hirschhaut, director of the American Jewish Committee in Los Angeles. “Reports of vandalism and damage to a synagogue are deeply troubling and cause further sense of discomfort amid the presumption of anti-Semitic intent.”
On Twitter, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti also expressed his concern.
“Shocked and outraged by the vandalism at Nessah Synagogue in the city of Beverly Hills,” he said. “We will stand together and speak out strongly against any act of hate and intolerance in our community. We’re keeping our friends and neighbors in our thoughts as police investigate.”