City Building & Safety inspectors briefly interrupt Kol Nidrei services at Hancock Park shul

Tom Tugend writes:

Rabbi Daniel Korobkin was conducting Kol Nidrei services for some 200 Orthodox worshippers at Yeshivas Yavneh last Friday, when shortly after 8 p.m. two inspectors from the Los Angeles City Department of Building and Safety walked into the lobby.

One inspector told a startled congregant that the service had run past the 8 p.m. closing time and that therefore the premises had to be vacated immediately.

After the congregant told the inspectors that they would have to remove the worshippers by force, one by one, the city officials left after 15 minutes and the service continued at the 5353 W. 3rd St. facility.

As word of the strange incident spread through the closely knit Orthodox community in Hancock Park, tempers and outrage rose.

The yeshivaworld.com Web site declared that the incident was "reminiscent of the cowardly sneak attack on Israel during the Yom Kippur War," and quoted one woman worshipper, a wheelchair-bound Holocaust survivor, "I was frightened. I started crying. I don’t want to go to jail. I want to pray."