The entrance to Kahal Ahavas Yisroel, an Orthodox synagogue in Los Angeles, after it was vandalized on July 25. The glass panels have since been boarded up. Courtesy of Osher Netkin

By Louis Keene July 29, 2024

When Osher Netkin’s backyard prayer group moved into a storefront in a busy Los Angeles retail district last August, they made a conscious decision not to mark the building with the synagogue’s name.

“We specifically didn’t put any menorahs — we didn’t put anything,” said Netkin, who co-founded the congregation, Kahal Ahavas Yisroel, in 2021. “The only thing is a mezuzah.”

In spite of its low profile, however, the synagogue has become a target. In June, vandals smashed a window at its entrance, forcing thousands of dollars in repairs, Netkin said. Shortly after it was replaced, two more windows were broken, the vandals appearing to record the act — and this time, getting caught on camera themselves.

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The Los Angeles Police Department said it is investigating the incident as a hate crime.

Since the second incident, caught on camera July 25, Netkin says he’s had to convince members not to quit the synagogue, with others considering arming themselves. And he said the building’s owner is threatening to evict them because he doesn’t want any more trouble.

“People are very scared,” Netkin, 33, said. “People don’t want to show up.”

Netkin’s fledgling synagogue in Hollywood is one of several Jewish institutions across the country vandalized in recent weeks, and anti-Israel and antisemitic graffiti is proliferating.

A Chabad synagogue in Pittsburgh was spray painted Sunday night with “Jews 4 Palestine” and an inverted red triangle. At about the same time, vandals scrawled “Funds genocide ♥ Jews, Hate Zionist” on a sign outside the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. More anti-Zionist vandalism appeared in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood Monday: a branch of Citibank — often protested for its ties to Israel — was covered in red paint. Vandals also smashed the window of a Long Island diner that was covered with posters of hostages abducted during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. 

After the first incident at Kahal Ahavas Yisroel, the synagogue installed security cameras, which recorded two men in hooded sweatshirts approaching the building on foot at around 11 p.m. on July 25. In video that Netkin has shared publicly, one of the men takes out his phone and hands it to the other, who uses it to take flash pictures while the first swings a hammer at the windows. Then they run away.

The whole incident lasted under a minute.

It’s unclear whether the same suspects were involved in the incident last month. In both cases, the damage was limited to broken windows. 

“I feel scarred a little bit, you know?” Netkin said. “You put your heart and soul into something — but I’m never gonna let a terrorist beat me. That’s not how I’m going to let life work.”

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