Company description::
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Edward R. O’Carroll
Office: 310, 951,8227
Fax: 310, 305,8636
E-Mail eoc@ justice.com
L.A. CITY COUNCILMAN TOM LABONGE ATTACKS
JEWISH SYNAGOGUE AGAIN.
On Wednesday January 14, 2004 at 10:00 a.m., Councilman Tom LaBonge, plans to bring a motion before the Los Angeles City Council to request that the City retain outside legal counsel in order to break a settlement agreement made by the City and Congregation Etz Chaim in Hancock Park. The purpose of the motion is to stop the renovation of the small Orthodox Jewish synagogue which is already 99% completed, and deny the members of the Congregation the right to worship in their own neighborhood. The Jewish Congregation will oppose Councilman Tom LaBonge’s motion at the Council meeting and will hold a press conference outside the council chamber’s door, right after the motion is heard.
In the past, it was LaBonge who misled the City and demanded that the City unlawfully interfere with the renovation of the synagogue. The matter ended up in the Federal Court. The Court found for the congregation and ordered the completion of the renovation without further interference by the City. Notwithstanding a Federal Court order, at Mr. LaBonge’s direction, the City persisted in its illegal interference with the renovation process. Only after the Federal Court found that the City was in violation of a Federal Court order and warned that it would hold the City in contempt of court, did the City finally comply with the law.
Etz Chaim, a small group of less than 40 members, had been meeting in the Hancock Park home of Rabbi Abraham Rubin for nearly 30 years. Orthodox Jews must walk to services on the Sabbath, and thus it was essential that they be able to gather and pray in their own neighborhood. Among the members of the congregation is an 85 year old Holocaust survivor who risked his life in Auschwitz to form a minyan (a prayer group of ten men), and several disabled elderly persons who otherwise could not come to prayers.
“We don’t know what to think”, Edward R. O’Carroll a lobbyist with Harrigan & O’Carroll, said,“ We will not believe that LaBonge is anti-Semitic, however we just don’t understand why Councilman LaBonge wants to find a way to stop good people from praying to God”.
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