On Sunday, in the intense heat of a mid-summer day, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, carried a Sephardic Torah for one-half mile along city streets in Tarzana to a new Persian synagogue that had been the victim of an anti-Semitic attack just two days earlier. Police are still investigating the arson attempt, which burned a rear door of Beith David Education Center on Clark Street, as well as anti-Jewish graffiti left at the scene, as a hate crime.
Villaraigosa was joined in the procession and the celebration of the new facility’s opening by L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, City Councilmen Jack Weiss and Dennis Zine, Simon Wiesenthal Center’s associate dean Abraham Cooper and Anti-Defamation League’s West Coast Director Amanda Susskind, as well as more than 300 congregants. The group carried 10 Torahs from the center’s original Reseda Boulevard location to the new building on Clark Street. The politicians and Cooper helped carry the Torahs along Reseda and Ventura boulevards in triple-digit temperatures.
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“What an honor it was, a kid from Boyle Heights, to carry the Torah all the way over here,” the mayor said. He said he’d been told by Yaroslavsky, “‘If you do this 100 more times, you’ll be a Jew.'”
At the Clark Street shul, public officials took their places on the bimah as congregants engaged in celebratory ululation, throwing candy and crowning the Torah cases with lilies and other flowers.
In his address to the congregation, Villaraigosa referred to a call he’d made to the mayor of Sderot on Thursday, which was interrupted by a Kassam rocket attack, to call attention to how innocent Jews are still targets of hate, regardless of where they are in the world.
“We are absolutely committed to finding whoever did this on Friday and bringing them to justice,” Villaraigosa said. “A shul represents more than just a place of prayer or worship. It represents a place where faith binds a community.”
Zine, whom Beith David vice president Parviz Hakimi referred to as the shul’s own godfather for his strong support of the congregation during its two-year battle with local residence over parking issues, announced he would introduce a motion in the City Council to post a reward of $50,000 to find the arsonist.
“Our mayor has told me he would sign that motion,” Zine said. “We need to bring this person or individuals to justice. We will not tolerate that in the city of Los Angeles.”
During a tour of the synagogue’s damage, the mayor noted how the perpetrator had misspelled the anti-Jewish graffiti.
“It shows the level of ignorance of the person who did this,” Villaraigosa told The Journal.
