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Larchmont Chronicle Neighborhood newspaper representing Hancock Park, Larchmont Village
Miracle Mile, Park La Brea Fremont Place in the Wilshire center area of Los Angeles. Local News and
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Hancock Park area. Founded in 1963 on Larchmont Bouelvard, Los Angeles, CA, California

January 30, 2004

Temple at Highland & 3rd

Suzan Filipek

Following nearly a decade of litigation with the city and some of its neighbors, an orthodox Jewish temple is set to open in Hancock Park amid continuing controversy.

Tempers flared again when a joyous parade—to dedicate a Torah—winded eight blocks through the neighborhood last month, from the rabbi’s S. June St. home to Etz Chaim’s new temple at 303 S. Highland Ave.

Residents worry the noise—musicians playing traditional Jewish music—crowds and closed streets were a sign of more to come in their residentially-zoned neighborhood.

“Whether it’s a church or a synagogue, I think everyone is opposed to this,” McCadden Pl. resident Matthew Kuhns said.

An elevator and a few other finishing touches are needed before the temple is granted a certificate of occupancy, yet the hundreds who attended the Sunday afternoon festivity entered the building anyway. They also violated a settlement agreement that prohibits more than 50 people inside, a city official said.

The Department of Building and Safety had approved building permits for the temple, a decision city officials now say was a mistake, but which was upheld last month by a federal judge in the last of a string of lawsuits.

For years the congregation met quietly at Rabbi Chaim Rubin’s June St. home. He sought another location when his parents became elderly and thought the neighbors would be pleased when he moved his worship services to a rundown, 1925 Spanish-style home. It’s located on a busy corner at Highland and Third St., where thousands of cars pass by daily, congregation member Gary Apfel said.

But requests for a conditional use permit to worship there were repeatedly denied.

The tide turned in the congregation’s favor in 2000 when Congress passed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. The federal law prohibits the city from imposing regulations that would impose a substantial burden on worshipers from being able to attend services at their church or temple.

Rather than challenge the federal law, the city signed the settlement agreement with the congregation, which bans banquets, receptions and weddings on the site and limits services to 50 people on weekends and 15 on weekdays.

Those numbers were based on the size of the congregation of about 50 families, said Apfel.
Many of Etz Chaim’s congregants are elderly, he added, some are Holocaust survivors; one is an amputee, but all, as Orthodox Jews, are forbidden to drive on the Sabbath. The congregation is a small, quiet group; the recent communal procession “was a once-in-a-lifetime” event, Apfel explained.

“Every time I drive by there, I see God’s hand,” he added. “Freedom of speech” allows this right, as long as I’m not bothering anyone else.”

The fervor with which the community has opposed the temple has made some congregants suspect anti-Semitism at its heart, explained Apfel. The original deed for his McCadden Pl. home, as well as all of Hancock Park which was developed in the 1920s, prohibits Jews from purchasing land here, a sentiment Apfel feels is still felt among some in the community.

“The issue is not religion...the tragedy of the Holocaust is a smoke screen. It’s a land use issue, a land grab of the neighborhood,” said Leonard Hill, president of the League of Residential Neighborhood Advocates, who is also Jewish.

The group sued the city last year after it made the settlement agreement, what Hill calls a “Faustian bargain,” and the 2,900-square foot home was mostly razed.

When Building and Safety granted the building permit, city officials thought they had approved an 8,200-square foot home with two Jacuzzis, not a domed temple with ceremonial baths, Hill added.

The League plans to appeal federal Judge Harry Hupp’s recent dismissal to the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The synagogue is there illegally, and my hope is in time it will revert to what it should be, a single-family residence,” Hill said.

Larchmont Chronicle
542½ North Larchmont Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90004

Editor & Publisher: Jane Gilman
Associate Publisher: Irwin Gilman

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