Man vandalizes Hollywood synagogue as accomplice records it, security video shows

A Hollywood synagogue was vandalized Thursday night, the second time this summer.

Los Angeles police are investigating the incidents as potential hate crimes. An LAPD spokesman said officers took a hate crime report at the scene Friday.

Osher Netkin, the 33-year-old founder of the synagogue, told The Times on Tuesday that the first time the building was vandalized, he didn’t think much of it.

“We thought, hey, you know, there’s a lot of [crime] in California and Los Angeles. We just chalked it up to that,” he said, adding the synagogue paid to fix the window that had been smashed, which took about four weeks. Within five days of the new window being installed, it was smashed again.

Video captured by the synagogue’s security camera shows two hooded men crossing Melrose Avenue and approaching the entrance to Kahal Ahavas Yisroel on Thursday night. There, one of the men, wearing a dark hoodie, appears to hand his cellphone over to the other man, who is wearing a light hoodie. The man in the dark hoodie then begins to bang on the windows with his forearm before drawing an unidentifiable blunt instrument from his sleeve, and then using the object to smash the windows.

The man in the light sweatshirt appears to record video of the incident with the cellphone.

Doni Dror, a board member at the synagogue, spoke to KCAL News on Sunday and said the men smashed the windows but did not go inside; no property was stolen.

He said he believes the two incidents of vandalism are related and hate-driven.

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“It’s hard for me to imagine that these two consecutive incidents, so close together with our building, it’s hard to say that it’s not,” Dror told KCAL.

Netkin said his community of about 60 people has been shaken by the incidents, and the synagogue has lost one family as a result. He said he worries he is going to lose more but understands the fear that many in his community feel.

He said his synagogue is hardly unique; he knows of others that have been tagged with swastikas or hit by other forms of vandalism.

This case is being handled as a hate crime, said Drake Madison, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department. “We are aware of a prior unreported incident that occurred in May of this year at the same location. Detectives are investigating whether the cases are connected.”

Antisemitic hate crimes have surged since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

In the three months after the attack, there was a 36% increase in antisemitic incidents across the U.S., according to the ADL — an organization founded in 1913 “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” Incidents totaled 3,291 between Oct. 7 and Jan. 7, the group said.

Calls and emails to the synagogue were not returned.

“We strongly condemn these apparent acts of bigotry and the vandalism of a place of worship,” said Hussam Ayloush, the executive director in Los Angeles of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Antisemitism or hate of any form must not be tolerated in our communities. We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community against this unacceptable act.”