Synagogues in Los Angeles and Richmond vandalized during protests

A synagogue in Los Angeles was vandalized with graffiti reading “F**k Israel” and “Free Palestine” as protests against the police killing of George Floyd swept the city.

Also Saturday, the window of a synagogue in Richmond, Virginia, was smashed during protests in the city.

Protests have continued for several days in dozens of cities across the United States.

In Los Angeles, the graffiti was spray-painted on the walls of Congregation Beth Israel in the Fairfax district, the Jewish Journal reported. Amid particularly intense protests in the district, several Jewish businesses and restaurants were damaged and looted, Haaretz reported.

Sabbath-observant Jews told Haaretz that they heard helicopters on Saturday and, toward the end of Shabbat, a Hatzalah emergency vehicle drove down the streets urging people to return to their homes.

Several synagogues in Los Angeles were vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti over Saturday, including Kehillas Yaakov, a storefront shul, Hamodia reported.

“Vandalism is never ok. Antisemitism is never ok. The answer to hate and bigotry is not more hate. We are better than this Los Angeles,” the Anti-Defamation League of Los Angeles tweeted in response to the first report of the Beth Israel vandalism by journalist Lisa Daftari.

Meanwhile, video posted on Twitter by a college journalist showed a brick thrown by a protester through the window of Congregation Beth Ahabah, a more than 200-year-old Reform congregation in Richmond, during Saturday night protests.

Someone just threw a brick, shattering one of the windows of the Congregation of Beth Ahabah, a synagogue. pic.twitter.com/rnpvKpkZRJ

— ed (@edace2936) May 31, 2020