Gitel Rubin was recently strolling with her son in her Hancock Park neighborhood when, she said, a neighbor drove by, rolled down her window and yelled out. The driver was upset that Rubin's family was expanding a newly purchased home to 10,000 square feet to make room for their six children, said Rubin, an Orthodox Jew.
"We're watching your project carefully!," Rubin said the driver yelled. "You better make sure you're leaving enough yard space and not overbuilding for your large family!"
A year or two before, Rubin said, a longtime neighbor turned a cold shoulder to her and her father at a community meeting over whether to renew the conditional use permit of their neighborhood Jewish day school.
"Don't talk to me," Rubin said the man told her father. "I'm on the other side."
As Orthodox Jews increase their presence in Hancock Park, this genteel Los Angeles neighborhood of gracious homes and leafy trees has become a battleground over religion, land use and historic preservation.
Neighbors have clashed over two major land use issues -- whether the day school, the Yavneh Hebrew Academy on 3rd Street and Las Palmas Avenue, is improperly using its space as a synagogue, and whether an Orthodox Jewish congregation properly converted a home into a synagogue on 3rd Street and Highland Avenue in an area zoned for single-family residences. Both issues are currently embroiled in litigation.
Grumbles have surfaced over other issues as well. Some residents complain that Orthodox Jews are tearing down architecturally significant homes and erecting megahomes for their large families -- concerns that have added momentum to a move to declare Hancock Park a historic preservation zone. Others complain that some members of the Orthodox community have disregarded Hancock Park's premium on open lawn space and erected fences in violation of city building codes.
The tensions came to a head Sept. 21 when Los Angeles building inspectors disrupted a Yom Kippur service to check for violations of an 8 p.m. curfew at Yavneh, causing a furor on the holiest night of the Jewish calendar. Yavneh families said they were particularly outraged that a neighbor called inspectors in advance of the service in what several characterized as a sting operation.
"This never would have happened five, 10 years ago," said Rubin, whose family moved to Hancock Park in 1972.
