LOS ANGELES -- Two City Council members called for an investigation Monday to determine why inspectors from the Department of Building and Safety interrupted a Yom Kippur service at a Jewish school in Hancock Park.
Jewish families were marking the beginning of Yom Kippur Friday evening when two city inspectors arrived at the
Yavneh Hebrew Academy, a Jewish day school, to determine whether the facility was in violation of its permit, which limits activities after 8 p.m., according to
Councilman Jack Weiss.
The visit by inspectors was prompted by a resident's complaint.
"(The inspectors) went there knowing and believing that that was a good night to find a violation," said Weiss, calling the incident a "pre- meditated religious sting operation."
"The inspectors were sending a message that the Jews praying should not be there," he said.
Officials from the Yavneh Hebrew Academy could not be immediately reached for comment, but they did respond to the incident on the Jewish Web site TheYeshivaWorld.com, according to City News Service.
"This action was clearly outrageous. Our community has been working diligently in its outreach efforts to reconcile with all the different elements within the neighborhood and time after time the response has been a slap on the hand. It is sad that our neighborhood has come to this where a neighbor in our community would stoop to the low point of using city officials to desecrate and disrupt our holiest of days," wrote Rabbi Moshe Dear,
Rabbi Daniel Korobkin and David Rubin on behalf of the organization.
Last November, the Los Angeles City Council decided to allow the Yavneh Hebrew Academy to continue holding Sabbath services, bar mitzvahs and other religious services.
Residents had complained that the campus, located at 5353 W. Third St., violates a conditional use permit granted in 1998 by holding religious services on Saturdays, resulting in congested roads and few parking spaces in the neighborhood.
In a joint statement, Weiss,
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and
Councilman Tom LaBonge, who represents the area, called the incident an "outrageous intrusion."
"For the government to intrude in this manner on a religious observance is offensive to our most basic and cherished principles. We extend sincere apologies to the hundreds of members of the Yavneh family who understandably feel that their basic rights and freedoms were callously violated," the three elected officials said in a written statement.
Weiss will meet with officials at the school at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.
