California synagogue entrance smeared with feces and food on Hanukka
Worshipers at a Santa Monica, California, synagogue said they were dismayed to see the entrance of their building smeared with feces and food on the first day of Hanukka, the Jewish festival of lights.
Rabbi Dovid Tenenbaum of Living Torah Center/Chabad said the center’s senior rabbi first noticed something on the front door of their building on Wilshire Boulevard at about 7:50 a.m. Sunday, before morning services. Tenenbaum, an assistant rabbi, arrived a short time later and saw the “pretty disgusting sight.”
“It’s very disturbing... it’s something you don’t want to come into for morning services and see,” he said. “Thank God, it’s Hanukka today and one of the symbolisms of Hanukka is light... Hopefully, the light of the menorah can light up the world and dispel all the darkness.”
Tenenbaum, who is also a chaplain with the Santa Monica Police Department, said he reported the incident to police, who came and filed a vandalism report.
Santa Monica Police Department Lt. Saul Rodriguez said there is currently nothing to indicate that the incident is antisemitic or a hate crime.
“There was basically feces and food smeared on the front door,” he said. “Beyond that, we’re not certain what the motive was or what was behind it,” adding that police have not found any surveillance video, but will thoroughly investigate the incident because it took place at a synagogue.
Tenenbaum said there were feces wedged into the window frame at the entrance, sprinkled over the brick area in front of the window, on the window and across the doors.
“It seems like someone either took their leftover meal that they had gotten, rubbed it on the windows and threw it at the door,” he said. “Then I’m not sure if... it was human or animal poop, if you don’t mind me saying that, stuck onto the wall on the window and in the corner of the window.”
Tenenbaum said that it is obvious the building is a synagogue from the outside; there’s an electric menorah on display and a sign wishing people a Happy Hanukka.
“It was definitely something that was pretty intentional in regards to the act of vandalism that was taken toward us,” he said.
The mess was cleaned up by the synagogue’s rabbis in conjunction with a congregant on Sunday morning.
Hanukka, which this year began Saturday night, commemorates the rededication of the Second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 165 BCE after it was desecrated by the Syrian-Greeks. According to tradition, a cruse of oil was found in the Temple that escaped contamination miraculously lasted for eight days, allowing the Jews to rededicate the Temple and prepare new oil according to ritual purity laws.
Tenenbaum said another incident at the synagogue occurred on November 17, in which a man briefly walked into the sanctuary, raised up his arm and said “Heil Hitler,” then made a pretend gun with his hands and said “pow, pow, pow.” The man left after Tenenbaum confronted him, he said.
“People need to be aware of the sensitivity to religious places,” Tenenbaum said. “People need to be more aware, or have self-control with their emotions instead of doing acts of physical aggression against institutions. They should have freedom of speech as opposed to action.”
Daily News, Los Angeles/TNS