Oakland mayor calls for hate crime investigation after large menorah in California was destroyed during Hanukkah

By Dakin Andone and LJ Spaet, CNN

(CNN) — The mayor of Oakland, California, is demanding a hate crime investigation after a large public menorah was vandalized and destroyed – with pieces of it thrown into Lake Merritt as Jewish communities around the world celebrate Hanukkah.

Images and video from the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area showed pieces of the menorah strewn across the waterfront and threatening graffiti painted where the menorah had been erected. Pieces of the menorah were also shown lying nearby in the lake’s shallow water.

CNN affiliate KGO reported the vandalism occurred overnight Tuesday, the sixth night of Hanukkah, a celebration known as the “Festival of Lights” that lasts eight nights in all.

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, who attended the lighting of the menorah last weekend, said in a statement that she asked Oakland Police Department Interim Chief Darren Allison “to investigate this incident as a hate crime.”

Thao said she was “outraged by this desecration and act of vandalism,” calling the menorah a “long-standing and important symbol” for the local Jewish community.

“I want to be very clear that what happened was not just an attack on Oakland’s Jewish Community but our entire city and our shared values,” Thao said. “We stand together against hate, against antisemitism and against bigotry in any form. Any when someone commits such a crime, they are attacking the foundation of our City.”

CNN has reached out to the police department for comment.

The lighting of the Lake Merritt menorah was organized by the Chabad Jewish Center of Oakland. The center’s rabbi, Dovid Labkowski, told KGO that he received a text Wednesday morning that the menorah had been destroyed.

“I would never imagine that the menorah, which is a symbol of light, would be something that someone would want to destroy … I don’t know why,” Labkowski said. “I know the air is toxic these days, and it shouldn’t be that way.”

News of the menorah’s vandalism comes amid a spike in reported antisemitic incidents during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. More than 2,000 such incidents have been reported in the two months since October 7, when Hamas attacked Israel – a 337% increase over the same period last year, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Oakland had already drawn attention for a heated city council meeting last month that included hours of debate over a resolution that would call for a ceasefire in Gaza as well as support for hostages kidnapped by Hamas. The resolution passed, but did not include language condemning Hamas.

There has also been a surge in bias incidents against Muslims and Arabs, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim advocacy group. CAIR reported more than 2,000 requests for help and reports of bias in the month following October 7.

CAIR’s San Francisco-Bay Area chapter condemned the vandalism of the Oakland menorah, saying it was “not only an attack on the Jewish community but an affront to all who stand for religious freedom.”

“The rise in incidents targeting both the Jewish and Muslim communities calls for a collective response against all forms of bigotry,” the group said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter. “We stand in solidarity with our Jewish neighbors against anti-Semitism, just as we fight against Islamophobia. Hatred against one community is a threat to all.”

By Wednesday night, the Oakland community had mobilized to install a new menorah, KGO reported, and a crowd of people attended to show their support. They included California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who decried the rise of hate-motivated crimes.

“Too many people have been attacked and targeted and hurt and harmed because of who they are, where they are from, who they love and how they pray,” Bonta said, “and that is wrong.”

North Carolina momument defaced

On the other side of the country, a 22-year-old Black man was arrested and charged Wednesday for vandalizing a Holocaust memorial in Greensboro, North Carolina, last week, according to the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office.

Nile Harvey was charged with ethnic intimidation and injury to personal property in relation to the defacing of a Holocaust monument with antisemitic graffiti on December 8, according to the arrest report. Harvey was in court for his first appearance Thursday. It is unclear who his legal representation will be.

The vandalized monument is called, “She Wouldn’t Take Off Her Boots,” a large bronze statue of a group of women and children, “dedicated to the women and children who endured or perished in the Holocaust.”

The monument “was defaced with graffiti that included a swastika inside of the Star of David at the base of the monument,” a statement from the non-profit Women of the Shoah, said. The group’s website calls the monument “North Carolina’s first Women’s Holocaust memorial.”

In a statement posted Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter, North Carolina Congresswoman Kathy Manning said, “My heart goes out to fellow Jews in our community, and to the Holocaust survivors & their family members, who were forced to face this abhorrent display of hate. I will continue to work tirelessly to put a stop to this rising scourge of antisemitism.”

North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis called the incident “despicable” and noted a recent “surge of antisemitism and individuals displaying their bigotry against Jews, including even elected officials,” in a post on X. “We cannot allow antisemitism to become the new normal. I stand in support of North Carolina’s Jewish community,” Tillis added.

CNN’s Wesley Bruer contributed to this report.

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