KTLA

Investigation underway after vandal hurls concrete slab at West L.A. synagogue

Young Israel of Century City synagogue on Pico Boulevard is seen in an undated photo. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

A vandal hurled concrete slabs this week at the windows of a West Los Angeles synagogue and a nearby kosher restaurant in the heart of the city’s Jewish community, the latest in a national surge in antisemitic attacks amid the recent Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Security camera footage released to local media by Young Israel of Century City synagogue on Pico Boulevard showed a man about 1 a.m. Friday throwing a concrete slab at the building.

Shatter-proof windows at the Pico-Robertson synagogue prevented the concrete from breaking the glass, and the concrete bounced back onto the sidewalk. The man, who was wearing a red cap, tried a second time to lob the concrete at the synagogue, and he rushed off when it was unsuccessful.

“We will not be frightened by any act by anyone,” Elazar Muskin, an Orthodox rabbi who leads Young Israel of Century City, said at a news conference Friday. “There’s no place in our society, and this country created and built on the principles of freedom of religion, for such acts of vandalism and of hate.”

Read the full story at LATimes.com