Jeannette Sánchez-Palacios, mayor of Ventura, Calif., said at a press conference at Temple Beth Torah, a Reform synagogue in the city, on Friday that she is working with others to have the city to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of Jew-hatred.
“This would be particularly important work that we can do for our Ventura residents, and to ensure that the message is clear. We will not be defined by hate,” she said at the synagogue, which was recently vandalized with antisemitic graffiti.
Sánchez-Palacios told JNS that her first thought upon hearing about the graffiti was that it was “so unfortunate” and “here we are again.”
“We don’t need that type of behavior. We don’t accept that kind of behavior,” she told JNS outside the synagogue. “I knew that speaking out immediately was what we had to do.”
The mayor told JNS that she’s learning more about the IHRA definition.
“I know cities like San Diego have adopted a resolution,” she said. “I asked city staff already to look into it, because as a city, we already have demonstrated that hate and hateful acts are not going to be tolerated, and so if we could even take it a step further to define antisemitism and what that is like, then I want to be able to take that.”
City staff would need to present their research on the matter to the Ventura City Council, and the council would vote whether the city should adopt the definition, the mayor told JNS.
Sánchez-Palacios was one of the speakers at a Friday press conference that the Anti-Defamation League organized at the synagogue.
Before the press conference began, Rabbi Lisa Hochberg-Miller, a rabbi at the temple, showed attendees sites on synagogue grounds that were vandalized.
That included the Temple Beth Torah sign and the synagogue’s exterior walls. The graffiti included a Nazi swastika and the words “death to the Jews” and “fight k***s,” according to Hochberg-Miller.
The nearby Higher Vision Church and Juanamaria Park were also vandalized with antisemitic graffiti, the Ventura Police Department said.
Sánchez-Palacios told JNS that over the past few years, there have been “several incidents” of hate crimes, including lawn signs for political candidates painted with a Nazi swastika.
“There’s been other forms of hatred expressed toward other groups as well. Unfortunately, it is something that we are familiar with,” she said. “Speaking out against it is what’s going to help our community unite during these moments.”
JNS asked the mayor about the California attorney general’s report in July which found that nearly three-quarters of religion-based hate crimes targeted Jews in the state in 2025. Sánchez-Palacios said that “politics, where we’re at today, has sort of opened the door and allowed some of this behavior.”
“I think rhetoric at some of our highest levels of government in the federal government and the state government—that I think people are seeing their actions aren’t being held accountable and they think that it’s OK,” she told JNS.
“For me, as a local elected official, it’s so important and imperative that I speak against this hate and against this type of behavior, because while maybe we’re not receiving the example from the higher ups, they’re going to see it here at the local government,” she said.
‘A lot of turmoil’
David Dickey, the city’s police chief, told JNS that “we’ve done extensive neighborhood canvassing at this point” and “interviewed dozens of people.”
“It is an active investigation. It’s clearly a priority for us,” he said. “We hate when things like this happen in our community.”
Dickey said that the police department thinks that the same person or group is behind the vandalism based on the “proximity and the similarity in the vandalism that occurred.”
Generally, when police officers investigate whether a crime is a hate crime, they see if the crime was “motivated toward race, religion, gender, things of that sort,” Dickey said.
“In this case, based on the nature of the vandalism, it clearly was directed at the Jewish community, and then of course, it’s next door, it’s on the Christian church as well,” he told JNS. “I know that there’s a good relationship there, and it was also at the park adjacent to these properties.”
“They’re clearly trying to intimidate, send a message directly to the Jewish people and the people that worship here,” Dickey said.
Two Ventura detectives are trained to handle hate crimes, and the whole department is “at their disposal,” he told JNS.
The number of hate crimes in the city “has not been really high, and it’s been pretty consistently below 10 per year,” Dickey told JNS. “We handle about 81,000 calls for service a year. So that’s a really low number, but that doesn’t mean that it’s insignificant when they happen.”
He said that a “significant number of the small volume that we have, have been directed toward the Jewish community in the form of vandalism.”
“It’s tied into a broader national problem, and quite frankly, international problem at this point,” Dickey told JNS. “There’s a lot of turmoil, and I think that, unfortunately, sometimes that manifests itself at the local level.”
‘Not again’
Matt LaVere, a supervisor for Ventura County, told JNS that his first thought after hearing about the vandalism was “not again.”
“We’ve had similar acts of vandalism here at the temple. We’ve gathered when we’ve seen acts of antisemitism, like the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh,” he said. “This is our gathering spot, but to have it happen again in our community right here, it was just painful.”
LaVere told JNS that he was not surprised to hear that nearly three-quarters of religion-based hate crimes in the state targeted Jews last year.
“I see what’s happening worldwide, and what really frustrates me is that it’s happening in both political parties right now,” he said. “I don’t feel like the national parties are speaking out strong enough against the fringes of their own party, where we’re seeing antisemitism being just flagrantly spread around on the far-left, on the far-right.”
“I try to do that here locally, but I think we all have a duty to not only speak up but to speak up louder, because it’s not getting better,” LaVere told JNS.
JNS asked if the county Board of Supervisors would consider adopting the IHRA definition. LaVere said that the county has “issued a proclamation declaring racism as a public health crisis.”
“We’re always looking at ways that we, as a political body, can speak out against not only antisemitism but just hate in general,” he said.
‘A persistent level’
Paul Nunez, the county chief deputy district attorney, told JNS that his office couldn’t comment on the active investigation of the graffiti case.
“We’re here today to support the community,” he said.
When investigating hate crimes generally, Nunez said that “the prevalence or the statement of ill will or violence toward another group that identifies either religiously, ethnically, their sexual orientation, all of these things if it’s reflected in their comments, will help us to prove the elements of a hate crime.”
The county hasn’t seen “a marked increase as much as other communities have had, but we do have a persistent level, and we’re trying to eradicate that level,” Nunez told JNS.
