Police Investigate ‘Hate’ Attacks : Crime: A Jewish synagogue in Tujunga has been subjected to bomb threats and swastikas.

Los Angeles police are investigating recent bomb threats and vandalism at a Jewish synagogue in Tujunga as “hate incidents,” authorities said Thursday.

Swastikas about four feet square were etched into doors of the Verdugo Hills Hebrew Center on May 12, said Los Angeles Police Detective Gaspar Oliveras. Anti-Semitic slurs were scrawled on signs and brass plaques at the temple’s entrance that same day, police said.

On May 11 and May 16, telephoned bomb threats were received at the temple, which serves about 85 families in Sunland, Tujunga and La Crescenta, Oliveras said.

He said the vandals may have been inspired by the desecration of Jewish graves in a cemetery in southern France in early May, which received widespread media attention, and a wave of other anti-Semitic incidents in recent months.

Police have no suspects in the incidents, but neo-Nazi skinhead youth groups are believed to be responsible, Oliveras said.

Several temple windows broken earlier this month and an incident in which a firebomb was thrown at the synagogue’s front door last fall appear to be unrelated to the vandalism and bomb threats, police said.

The firebomb caused about $8,000 damage, Oliveras said.

Officials said the center is the only Jewish synagogue in the area, making it a convenient target for anti-Semitic crimes.

“We don’t call them hate crimes; hate is not a crime,” Oliveras said. “They are hate incidents.”

However, he said “hate incidents” are an ongoing problem in the department’s Foothill Division, especially in the Sunland-Tujunga and Sylmar areas.

The center’s president, who asked that his name not be used, said temple officials had tried to keep the incidents out of the news.

“We don’t want publicity,” he said. “We’re trying to keep a low profile. Our people are watching for the vandals, but we can’t be here 24 hours a day. The police have been there, and we just hope everything stays quiet.”

A woman who answered the phone at the temple said synagogue members fear that they will be harassed or harmed at their homes if the incidents are publicized.

“The problem is that we have a lot of copycat crimes when incidents like this get a lot of publicity,” Oliveras said.

Other recent incidences of hate crimes have included an attempted cross-burning at the home of a black family in nearby La Crescenta in February, authorities said.

Mary Krasn, a spokeswoman for the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, agreed that some people fear copycat crimes, but said, “It’s very important to confront each hate crime so that it can be fully investigated by police.”

Krasn said the ADL is assisting the Tujunga synagogue.

She said hate crimes nationwide are becoming more frequent.

An ADL audit released in January found that anti-Semitic incidents in the United States during 1989 rose to their highest level in at least 11 years.

In Los Angeles County, the Human Relations Commission listed 167 racially motivated hate crimes last year, a 75% increase over 1988.