Jewish Times Magazine in El Cajon Is Firebombed for Second Time

For the second time this year, the office of the San Diego Jewish Times in El Cajon has been firebombed, in what authorities believe are anti-Semitic attacks.

Two Molotov cocktails were thrown sometime Thursday night or early Friday morning, charring the stucco and wood exterior of the building. No one was inside the office, and the damage was not discovered until a magazine employee arrived for work at about 7 a.m.

Similar damage to the Jewish Times’ building, a small, one-story office in the 2500 block of Fletcher Parkway, occurred April 22 after someone threw a single firebomb, shattering two barred windows and scorching the structure’s facade.

‘We Warned You’

The magazine’s employees on Friday called the recent bombing “terrorism” and a “vicious hate crime,” and said they had received two phone calls from men who said, “We warned you.”

“We obviously condemn this kind of an act of terrorism and barbarism. This act is clearly a deterrent to people who live and work in a free enterprise,” said Stan Heyman, associate chairman of the Anti-Defamation League of the B’nai B’rith in San Diego.

Garry Rosenberg, publisher of the magazine for 10 years, said the incident also was a violation of the freedom of the press.

“Any time you have a medium that is responsible for disseminating information to a community that becomes a victim of violence, that tends to have a damaging effect on that institution,” said Rosenberg. “Clearly, they would like to see us gone. They would like to destroy us. If that’s not impinging upon freedom of the press, then I don’t know what does.”

The two bombs, each a gasoline-filled glass container with a sock, exploded against and scorched the front of the building, a gray and cream-colored office along the busy parkway.

Metal bars and screens, upgraded since the April 22 bombing, prevented windows from being shattered. But stucco and wood paneling near the front door and a window were blackened, causing an estimated $2,000 in damage.

Jewish leaders in San Diego said the bombing most likely was the work of members of a neo-Nazi or skinhead organization.

‘Violent Group of People’

“What we’re dealing with is a relatively small but ideologically violent group of people,” said Morris Casuto, director of the Anti-Defamation League. “They have by their actions articulated the reality that they have lost the contest with the American people. That they will, at least for the foreseeable future, remain a pathetic, rejected minority.”

Casuto said he did not think the bombing was a crime planned by a racist group, but one carried out by individuals with white supremacist sentiments.

Racial separatists on Friday denied responsibility for the bombing, calling the magazine and Rosenberg “small potatoes.”

“Our sights are much higher than some silly little Jewish paper. No one that I know would waste their time” trying to bomb the Jewish Times, said Tom Metzger, director of the White Aryan Resistence, a Fallbrook-based racial separatist group.

“I always ask, if there’s a crime, who stands to benefit? We surely don’t if someone throws a bomb at a Jewish newspaper,” Metzger said. His son, John, heads the War Youth, a similar organization run out of Fallbrook. “I think you’ll find out sooner or later it had nothing to do with anyone who has the same views as I do,” Metzger said.

Tape Messages

Metzger acknowledged that tape-recorded messages on his organization’s hot line often give names, phone numbers and addresses of Jewish, homosexual and political leaders and encourage separatists to write or call them. But he said neither the Jewish Times nor Garry Rosenberg has ever been mentioned on the tapes.

“We have never told people to go out and grab people by the hair. We do not discriminate when we give people hell,” Metzger said. “We have put a lot of people’s names, addresses and phone numbers (on the tape), but it doesn’t mean they are a physical target. It does mean we know they’re there, they’re around and that we’re not happy with a lot of the things they say.”

Hate crimes such as bombings, physical attacks, threatening phone calls, graffiti and defacing and vandalism of property are on the rise in San Diego County, where 30,000 to 50,000 Jews reside, Jewish leaders say.

Eleven such incidents were reported in 1987, increasing to 33 in 1988, according to the Anti-Defamation League. About 20 have occurred this year.

The Jewish Times’ building was defaced with painted swastikas at least twice before the bombing in April. Employees often get threatening phone calls, and fences and windows of the office have been smashed, office workers said.

“It seems like there is an increase in the willingness of disgruntled individuals to express their unhappiness with fists and boots and threats,” Casuto said.

No Clear Motive

El Cajon police have yet to determine a clear motive for either bombing and have no suspects. No one immediately reported the incident, and the flames from the bombs apparently burned out on their own, Police Chief Jack Smith said at a press conference Friday morning in front of the magazine office.

A video camera above the office’s front door may have recorded the incident, but a videotape of the earlier bombing provided little help to investigators, Smith and Rosenberg said.

“There are a lot of things occurring in the world today to cause people to act this way. That makes it difficult to identify who might have done this,” said Smith, referring to anti-Semitism and tensions in the Middle East. “But we have a group that’s telling this businessman he shouldn’t be working, living or raising his family in this community just because of his beliefs, and that doesn’t belong here. To me, this is extremely serious.”

The April bombing, the first incident of its kind against a Jewish business in San Diego County, received widespread attention from the media, local politicians and the Jewish community, and drew contributions for a magazine-sponsored reward.

But Rosenberg said he was “disappointed” with the response.

“I think this has far more significance than a lot of people have acknowledged to this point,” he said. “I was very disappointed, and in fact am still angry that people you and I consider to be community leaders did not see fit to make any significant statements or contributions.”

Rosenberg has published the Jewish Times, with a circulation of about 16,500 and a staff of eight, out of the El Cajon office for almost four years. The magazine focuses on local events in the Jewish community in San Diego, but has taken controversial stands on national and international Jewish issues.

The magazine, for instance, has advocated that Israel leave the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, Rosenberg said.

The Jewish Times, in conjunction with the Anti-Defamation League and Crime Stoppers, has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for either bombing.