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Friday January 5, 2007

Second South Bay menorah defaced

by joe eskenazi
staff writer

On the eve of Chanukah’s final night, vandals brazenly wrecked Chabad of Sunnyvale’s 5-foot-tall steel menorah.

Rabbi Yisroel Hecht discovered the twisted remains of the menorah on Dec. 22.

“It was pretty heavy gauge steel and it was bent nearly in half. It probably weighed something like 120 pounds. It wasn’t just knocked down, it had to be heaved and bent and banged,” he said.

“In my mind this was done specifically because it was a menorah. That’s my belief.”

Police were unable to find any evidence on the scene.

Hecht was able to pull a silver lining out of the vandalized cloud, however. Tom Hoffman, who has a business manufacturing components for the semiconductor industry, sent a workman to pick up the menorah and not only was it fixed, another foot and a half was added to it.

And that night, Chanukah’s last, Holocaust survivor Saul Golan led an emotional lighting ceremony.

The vandalism comes on the heels of a Dec. 16 incident in which Chabad of Los Altos and Mountain View’s 8-foot chanukiah was destroyed. As was the case in Sunnyvale, a well-wisher repaired the menorah in time for that night’s lighting.

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