Antisemitic Hate Crime: Beverly Hills Police Investigating Vandalism At Synagogue

Police in Beverly Hills, California, are investigating vandalism to a synagogue as a potential hate crime.

Furniture was knocked over, pamphlets were strewn about, and several relics damaged Saturday at the Nessah Synagogue.

Police have obtained security footage from the late-night incident and have taken stills showing the primary suspect in the vandalism. Some of these photos and an official media release were published on the Beverly Hills Police Department’s Twitter page.

“The suspect damaged several Jewish relics, but fortunately the Synagogue’s main scrolls survived unscathed,” the release read. “The disruption was primarily to the Synagogue’s interior contents, and there is very limited structural damage.”

The Nessah Synagogue was founded in 1980 by Iranian Jews fleeing persecution and turmoil after the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. According to the city, the house of worship boasted the “largest Persian-Jewish congregation in the United States”

"This cowardly attack hits at the heart of who we are as a community," Beverly Hills Mayor John Mirisch said. "It is not just an attack on the Jewish Community of Beverly Hills; it’s an attack on all of us. The entire City stands in solidarity behind Nessah, its members and congregants."

"We will stand together and speak out strongly against any act of hate and intolerance in our community,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said. "We're keeping our friends and neighbors in our thoughts as police investigate."

This vandalism comes on the heels of numerous attacks on Jewish communities in the U.S. over the past year.

A Kosher supermarket in Jersey City, New Jersey, was targeted Wednesday by gunmen, potentially linked to a noted hate group. Six people, including a police officer, were killed in the shooting.