Public Menorah Is Destroyed by Vandals

A large menorah erected in a south Orange County town green to foster better understanding of the Jewish faith and Hanukkah was destroyed by vandals, a sheriff’s official said Saturday.

The menorah -- a 150-pound steel model 15 feet high and 10 feet wide -- had been placed in Ladera Ranch, a planned community near Mission Viejo, earlier this month.

Sometime between 10 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. Saturday, a vandal or vandals cut its stem, broke its lightbulbs and smashed its stars, said Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Lloyd Downing. An adjacent Christmas tree was not touched.

The incident has been labeled a hate crime, Downing said. A much publicized public lighting of the menorah had been scheduled for Monday, a day after the start of Hanukkah.

The vandals “intentionally toppled this thing over prior to the lighting ceremony,” Downing said.

The menorah, a nine-branched candelabrum, is used in Jewish temples and homes to celebrate the Sabbath and holidays such as Hanukkah, which lasts eight days and this year starts the same day as Christmas.

Robert Cohen, a Ladera Ranch resident who built the menorah four years ago, said vandals covered it with toilet paper last year. On Saturday, he posted a message on the community’s private website urging residents to come to the lighting ceremony, scheduled for Monday at 6:30 p.m. Other menorahs will be used.

“I think it is very important that we mute the message of intolerance a few tried to leave last night with a louder one of unity and strength,” said Cohen, founder of Havurah, a Ladera Ranch Jewish friendship group. “Not only should we show up, but we should make sure we invite our friends and neighbors (of all beliefs) to join us,” he wrote on the website.

Others joined in condemning the incident and offered support for Cohen’s cause.

“It’s a real shame that we have people who are anti-Semitic or who just want to get a rise out of us,” said resident Bo Kelleher. The menorah, as well as a living Nativity staged in early December at the same town green, “increased the awareness of spirituality of the holidays,” he said.

The Rev. Steve Wright of Village Presbyterian Church in Ladera Ranch wrote Saturday in response to Cohen’s posting: “I pray that those who are responsible for this terrible act will be caught and brought to justice. We will include you and all our Jewish friends and neighbors in our prayers this evening.”