Oak Park, CA - Chabad House Defaced On Eve of Permit Expansion |
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News Source: The Acorn
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Rabbi Shlomo Bistritzky, director of the Chabad of Oak Park, shows a sheriff’s deputy the graffiti at the Conifer Street synagogue. Some residents oppose a Chabad expansion. SYLVIE BELMOND/Acorn Newspapers Oak Park, CA - Words spray-painted on the front wall of a small community synagogue in the 5900 block of Conifer Street in Oak Park stunned neighbors and religious leaders alike.
Vandals tagged the Chabad house of worship with the message: “Get out of Oak Park.”
“It’s horrible,” said Abby Winstone, who lives across the street from the synagogue and was the first person to see the graffiti. “You think Oak Park is a nice safe place and people wouldn’t do something like that. But obviously there are.”
Rabbi Shlomo Bistritzky, director of the Chabad of Oak Park, said he’s “extremely hurt,” but that the incident won’t dissuade the synagogue’s resolve to serve the Jewish community of the unincorporated eastern county.
“If anyone thinks that spraypainting our synagogue will scare us away, they don’t know Chabad,” Bistritzky said.
“We very much believe we have a lot of good to bring to the community. If anything, this will motivate us to continue to spreading God’s word and goodness and kindness to the community,” the rabbi said.
The graffiti appeared two days before a Ventura County Planning Commission hearing in which Chabad will ask to expand its operations.
Leaders want to double the synagogue’s occupancy from 70 to 145 and change the permit renewal requirement for the house of worship from every five years to every 20 years. They’ve also requested permission to keep a 750- square-foot enclosed patio that had been built behind the home without a permit. In April, the Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council recommended limiting the expansion to 127 people and said the patio extension should be allowed only if the building were brought into full compliance.
Bistritzky said concerns about the Chabad operations surfaced in 2008 when several synagogue guests parked their cars on neighborhood streets while attending religious services. According to Bistritzky, the congregants didn’t know that Chabad had an arrangement to lease parking spaces at the neighboring Oak Park Unified School District administration building. To prevent recurrences, the synagogue assigns a person to make sure visitors park their cars at the school district site.
But in June, opponents convinced the Oak Park School Board to postpone the agreement that allows congregants to park at the district office.
The parking and other problems arising from Chabad meetings have provoked the ire of some neighboring residents, who decided to monitor the activities of the synagogue with a video camera and clipboard.
“There are a few neighbors who are sending out a message that they’re not comfortable with Chabad’s request to increase their attendance. Unfortunately I think their tactics instilled some hate in the community amongst a few people and I believe this (the graffiti) is an outcome of that,” Bistritzky said.
“We have a 15 year track record of a few mistakes that we have addressed immediately and diligently,” he said.
Minoo Dorrani, who lives on nearby Parkview Drive, said the vandalism is appalling.
“I’m shocked. I know there are people who complain about the parking, but to do something like that is cowardly,” Dorrani said.
Capt. Brent Kerr of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department said to speculate that the vandalism carries an anti-Semitic message “just adds fuel to the fire.”
An investigation of the incident continues.
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