Private Jewish High School Vandalized, Burglarized : Violence: Swastikas and the letters KKK are spray-painted on walls and furniture. Police are investigating the incident as a hate crime.

Intruders broke into a small private Jewish high school in North Hollywood sometime Friday night or early Saturday and spray-painted swastikas and Ku Klux Klan symbols on walls and furniture.

Police said Saturday night that they are investigating the vandalism as a hate crime.

“It’s a horrible, frightening thing,” said Rabbi Avrohom Stulberger, principal of the 200-student Valley Torah High School. “I cannot believe what these animals have done.”

Police said the vandals apparently entered through an unlocked window in one of the classrooms. The break-in was discovered by a janitor Saturday morning, but Stulberger said that because it was the Sabbath, police were not notified until Saturday evening.

School spokesman Ron Solomon said the intruders also stole a computer and at least one typewriter from the principal’s office.

Most of the damage was confined to the principal’s office and a hallway nearby. Huge swastikas and the letters KKK had been spray-painted on walls, furniture and fixtures on the walls. In several cases, the word Jew had been painted, with a swastika superimposed over the word.

School officials said they were unsure if anything other than the typewriter and computer were taken.

“We have obvious vandalism here that we are investigating as a hate crime,” Los Angeles Police Officer Robin Hopkins said.

Stulberger said it was the first time such an incident has occurred at the school in the 12000 block of Riverside Drive. He expressed dismay that anyone would attempt such a thing.

“We’re a small, private high school that isn’t in the limelight, isn’t in the headlines,” the rabbi said. “All we do here is teach.”

Besides school officials, several concerned parents gathered at the school Saturday night as police prepared to conduct their investigation.

“I thought we had gotten past this kind of thing,” said one parent, who did not want to be identified. “When I look at these walls, it makes me shudder about what motivates some people.”

For the fifth consecutive year, anti-Semitic incidents rose in California and across the country in 1991, the Anti-Defamation League reported in February. Anti-Jewish incidents rose 11% in California, and included the firebombing of a North Hollywood synagogue, according to the ADL’s annual report.

Attacks, harassment and threats against individuals in California soared 31%, to 122, the report stated. California, home to about 919,000 Jews, ranked second only to New York, with 246 reported acts.

The most serious incident in the Los Angeles area was the January, 1991, firebombing of the Yeshiva Aish HaTorah Institute in North Hollywood, which caused $250,000 in damage.