Arson Fires Hit 2 Synagogues in Fairfax Area

A pair of synagogue fires in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles on Sunday night triggered federal arson and civil rights inquiries as authorities attempted to determine whether the blazes were the work of local vandals, anti-Semites or a transient who may have happened into the buildings.

Although investigators were examining all those possibilities, by midafternoon Monday members of a task force looking into the fires said they had uncovered no physical evidence that the blazes were motivated by hatred of Jews. Officials believe that the fires were the work of one or more arsonists, but they have not identified any suspects. In the absence of the scrawled epithets or discarded literature typical of hate crimes, sources indicated that investigators were focusing on the possibility that a transient may have set the fires.

“The feeling is that it’s not a hate crime in nature, but we’re not ruling anything out,” said Los Angeles City Fire Department Battalion Chief Terry Manning. He added that unlike most hate crimes, whoever set the synagogue fires did not leave anti-Semitic symbols or messages.

The fires blackened and damaged portions of two Orthodox synagogues in the Park La Brea area, Congregation Kehillas Yaakov and Congregation Shaarei Tefila. The two houses of worship are on the same block of Beverly Boulevard, west of La Brea Avenue, and members of both congregations milled outside Monday, expressing anger, determination and sadness.

“It’s outrageous,” said Rabbi Moshe Goldberg, a member of the Kehillas Yaakov congregation. “It makes you feel very sad. It’s really quite sickening.”

Mayor Richard Riordan, vacationing in Idaho, was reached by aides Monday and informed of the fires. He released a statement expressing his sadness at the incidents and pledging to redouble security in the neighborhood.

“Our police and fire departments, along with the FBI and federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms officers, have been on the scene and will investigate these fires thoroughly,” Riordan said. “In addition, the LAPD has stepped up patrols around synagogues in the area.”

Inside the Kehillas Yaakov synagogue, the blue carpet was black with soot, and desks were covered with charred ash. According to the congregation’s rabbi, Gershom Bess, the fire did not do much damage--burning some carpet, linoleum and prayer shawls--but smoke from the blaze coated the ceiling, which the congregation must now replace along with the carpet. Damage was estimated at $7,000 to $10,000.

The fire was discovered by a student arriving for a 9 p.m. Talmud class, Bess said. “One of the students opened the door and was hit with a cloud of smoke. . . . If it hadn’t been for that evening class, the fire might have burned all night.”

Authorities did not disclose the cause of the blaze, but congregation members said they found at least one aerosol can inside the building. When lit, the spray from an aerosol can--in this case, hair spray--burns hot and can ignite a fire.

There were no signs of forced entry at the Kehillas Yaakov synagogue, but Bess noted that the building does not have heavy locks because the Orthodox Jews who worship there may not carry keys on the Sabbath. The result of that is that combination locks are used to secure the building, and the combinations are known by a large number of people, Bess said.

A block away, at the Congregation Shaarei Tefila temple, arson investigators sifted through the remnants of several small fires that were discovered Monday morning.

According to one investigator, the fires were set in bathrooms of the Shaarei Tefila building, but they appeared to have burned only briefly and put themselves out. They were discovered Monday morning, when the building was unlocked. Officials did not disclose how the fires were set.

Although the damage at Shaarei Tefila also was relatively minor--the congregation’s rabbi estimated it at several thousand dollars--investigators were alarmed by the coincidence of two fires in such close proximity. The timing created other causes for concern: Sunday was the sixth night of Hanukkah, the eight-day Jewish festival marking the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem in 165 BC.

“There is no good time for an arson fire,” said Rabbi Yehoshua Berkowitz. “This just makes it a little more inconvenient and inappropriate.”

Alarmed by the back-to-back fires, local authorities alerted the House of Worship Task Force, a group of federal and local investigators created to investigate the rash of arsons that afflicted black churches throughout the South. Since the task force was created in July 1996, it has investigated 18 church fires in the Los Angeles area.

As with the other fires investigated by the task force, results of the preliminary inquiries now underway will be forwarded to Washington, where officials will decide whether to launch full-blown civil rights investigations.

The neighborhood where the fires were set has occasionally been the scene of contentious rivalries between various congregations--including conflicts between Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Jews. Still, both residents and investigators downplayed the possibility that the fires grew out of those debates.

“Nothing we’ve turned up so far suggests that is behind this,” said one person close to the investigation.

Rabbi Bess emphatically rejected that suggestion, calling it “inflammatory and irresponsible. . . . Even if we have ideological differences, we never resort to this.”

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, agreed. “When you talk about the arguments--and they are heated arguments--they still are arguments within a family,” Cooper said.

According to sources close to the investigation, early attention in the case focused on the possibility that a local transient might have set the fires. At an afternoon news conference, officials did not directly address that possibility but said they were conducting dozens of interviews, including some with transients--who, even if not implicated, might have witnessed another person setting the fires.

Whatever the arsonist’s motives, the fires left a sense of vulnerability and anger, melancholy and grit.

“A synagogue is the core of a spiritual community. . . . For us, this is like the burning of our second home, our spiritual home,” Cooper said.