Don’t want ‘what’s happening in NYC to come here,’ Los Angeles county official says at event about synagogue vandalism

Kathryn Barger, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, doesn’t like the way New York City is handling Jew-hatred, and she hopes that the City of Angels doesn’t follow the Big Apple’s lead.

“I feel as though the rhetoric by many that are elected has stirred the pot and almost empowered individuals to do what’s being done,” she told JNS. “You see it in New York City, and I don’t want what’s happening in New York City to come here, so I’m going to stand tall with the Jewish community.”

Barger spoke to JNS at a community solidarity event at the site of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, a Conservative synagogue that was destroyed in the Eaton Fire in January 2025. Some 200 people attended the event on Thursday, and Barger was one of the speakers.

A mural at the site was vandalized with Nazi swastikas and the words “Zionism is not welcome” on July 24. The county sheriff’s department told JNS that it is investigating the incident as a hate crime.

“No matter where it happens, the impact it has on the community is chilling,” Barger told JNS, of anti-Jewish hate crimes.

Synagogues being forced to hire security to host services “is not America,” she said. “This is not a civil society.”

The county board upon which she sits “can send the message that we’re not going to tolerate it,” Barger said. “We don’t have to bring in motions boycotting Jewish businesses or propagating antisemitism. When the pensions programs are being pushed to pull out of any stocks that are part of any sort of Israeli business, are you kidding me?”

“We have not done that,” she said.

The graffiti has been completely removed from the mural. In January, the same wall, which now contains the mural, was vandalized with graffiti that stated “F*** Zionism.”

Barger introduced a motion on Tuesday offering $20,000 for information about the vandal.

“I want to make sure the person responsible is found, because I think it’s important to send a message. We’re not going to tolerate hate,” she told JNS. “Today, it’s the Jewish temple. What’s it going to be tomorrow?”

Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), who spoke at the event, told JNS that she “gasped” when she saw the destruction at the synagogue shortly after it burnt in the fire, and she again gasped when she heard that the mural was vandalized.

“What an ugly thing to do in such a devastating situation,” she said. “We have to do everything that we can to coalesce and to come together as a community of different backgrounds and support one another.”

One of the things that Congress can do to combat antisemitic hate crimes is pass the Countering Antisemitism Act, according to Chu, who said that it would “establish a national coordinator to counter antisemitism and strengthen our federal response to this hatred.”

Victor Gordo, mayor of Pasadena, spoke at the event. “In those moments, it’s not just important to say it but for people to see and visualize their community’s leadership,” he told JNS. “I hope it was a powerful moment. It was intended to be a moment to unify us all.”

Gordo got angry when he learned about the vandalism.

“There’s simply no place for hate in our community or anywhere else in the world,” he told JNS. “To have it happen here, in our community, is something we should all reject.”

“The tenor in the world, and even in our own country, at the federal level has caused a few individuals to cowardly take acts like this, not just in this community, but throughout, as we’ve seen, the country and the world,” he said.

“More reason for us to stand together and reject this type of hate directed at anyone,” Gordo told JNS.

Captain Ethan Marquez, commander of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Altadena Station, said at the event that “if this crime is determined to be motivated by hate, we will pursue every appropriate criminal charge.”

That prompted some in the crowd to yell “If? If?” repeatedly.

JNS asked if he had a response to the hecklers. “It’s unfortunate, because we cannot draw personal conclusions until all the evidence has presented itself, and that’s just the nature of any kind of investigation,” he said. “We still live in a country that everybody’s innocent until proven guilty.”

Marquez told JNS that “based on the nature of the graffiti, it appears to be a hate crime, but we have to be objective and we have to let the evidence speak for itself.”

JNS asked if there is a connection between the July 24 vandalism and the January vandalism. “We can all draw conclusions but until we have some definite evidence, we have to treat them as separate crimes,” he said.

“We’re hunting down the leads that we have. It’s an ongoing investigation,” he told JNS. “Right now, we’re just putting all the resources we can into it, and we’ll let the evidence take it where it goes.”

Caleb Yellin and Audrey Farahnik, both congregants at Wilshire Boulevard Temple, a Reform synagogue in Los Angeles, spoke at the event.

The two high school students are the co-founders of the Sparks of Kindness Youth Fund, which supports young people affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires. The fund organized the mural project after the vandalism in January.

After the event, JNS saw a muralist kneeling on the ground, painting an olive branch on the mural.

Yellin told JNS that the branch represents the “community coming together.”

“You saw we had preachers here,” he said. “We had Jews, Christians, rabbis and we also had Muslims. We had everyone coming together.”

It’s “showing that the whole community is united against hate,” he said.

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