Random target or hate crime? LA Jewish man shot near synagogue

Police won’t say if they’re investigating the shooting of a Jewish man as a hate crime.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

A Jewish man wearing a kippah (yarmulke) was shot twice on Wednesday while walking to his car shortly after leaving morning services at a synagogue in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood of Los Angeles.

The shooting occurred at the intersection of Shenandoah and Cashio streets in Pico-Robertson, which is a heavily Orthodox area. The synagogue was about a block away from the site of the shooting.

The man, whose name has not been released to the media, was taken to a nearby hospital and later released.

The shooter is still at large. Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson described him as an Asian male with a large frame, who was driving a gray Honda Civic.

An LAPD spokesman refused to confirm or deny that the shooting is being investigated as a hate crime.

“We are horrified by the shooting of a Jewish man leaving prayer service in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood of Los Angeles today. We are grateful the victim is in stable condition,” Anti-Defamation League Los Angeles Regional Director Jeffrey I. Abrams said in a statement.

“The suspect is still at large and ADL Los Angeles is closely monitoring the investigation, including LAPD’s investigation. We will provide updates as we learn more.”

“We pray for this individual’s full recovery, swift apprehension of the perpetrator of this horrific act of violence and then we have to determine, of course, whether or not there was an anti-Jewish animus that motivated the shooter,” American Jewish Committee Los Angeles Regional Director Richard S. Hirschhaut told the Jewish Journal.

Recent years have seen a spike in antisemitic hate crimes in Los Angeles.

In September 2021, a Muslim man attempted to drive his car into a large group of Jews attending a Sukkot concert at a local synagogue.

In May 2021, during the Israel-Gaza war Operation Guardian of the Walls, pro-Palestinian protesters brutally beat a group of Persian Jewish friends dining al fresco at a sushi restaurant in Beverly Grove.

Notably, an FBI report on antisemitic hate crimes in the U.S. released in December 2022 excluded statistics from New York City, Los Angeles and Miami – the three cities with the largest Jewish populations in the U.S.