A Los Angeles synagogue and a nearby kosher eatery were vandalized early Friday morning.
According to the Jewish Journal, around 1 a.m. on May 28, an unidentified person threw a cinderblock at Young Israel of Century City's (YICC) window. Security camera footage caught the vandal in the act. The synagogue was not damaged because the windows are shatterproof.
The same person also threw an object at nearby Pat’s Restaurant, which is described on its website as a “kosher restaurant serving Italian dishes with a Californian influence in a white-tablecloth setting.” One of the windows of the restaurant was subsequently boarded up.
YICC said that they believe the incident was a hate crime. Law enforcement is investigating.
Richard Hirschhaut, regional director of the American Jewish Committee, in a statement called upon the LAPD to investigate the incidents as hate crimes and to “further elevate its protection of an understandably anxious community. The perpetrators of anti-Semitic hate crime must know that they cannot act with impunity.”