Supporters Help Couple Whose Store Was Torched in Hate Crime : Thousand Oaks: Anti-Semitic scrawls are left by arsonist who destroyed a comic-book shop. The owners fear another attack.

Armed with shovels and brooms, friends rallied to the aid Saturday of a Thousand Oaks couple whose comic-book store was set on fire and defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti.

Supporters who have known Myron and Judith Cohen-Ross for years dropped by the gutted remains of their Thousand Oaks Boulevard store, Heroes and Legends, to help sweep up and clear out the rubble, or just to offer their sympathy.

Some had tears in their eyes as they hugged the Cohen-Rosses, described as a caring couple who have helped youths throughout the community.

An arsonist set the store afire early Friday, emblazoning it in red paint with swastikas, “SS” and the phrase “Die Jew.” Ventura County sheriff’s investigators characterized the incident as the latest in a series of hate crimes.

But even as their neighbors gathered around to help out, Judith Ross-Cohen said she and her husband were angry and afraid that the arsonist would return.

Cohen-Ross said she does not want the graffiti painted over immediately. “I want everybody to see it. People have to see what this is about,” she said. “People kept saying, ‘Don’t take this personally.’ But you blow up our store, you say ‘Die Jew’--that’s about as personal as it gets.”

Sheriff’s detectives have not pinpointed a motive for the attack but are investigating it and other recent hate crimes committed in the Conejo Valley, Lt. Kelli McIlvain said.

On Saturday, Rene Rodriguez, a Newbury Park business owner and friend of the Cohen-Rosses, said he has organized a fund-raising drive to help make up for the loss and has collected about $200 so far. Another friend, Bob Hamilton of Thousand Oaks, parked his station wagon in back of the burned-out building Friday night to watch over the business.

Others brought food, and a volunteer from Shalom International, a group that helps hate-crime victims, offered to raise money for a reward.

“The kids are just unbelievable,” Myron Cohen-Ross said. “Young people in their twenties and thirties have come out in droves, not just to say ‘I’m sorry.’ They come out and hug me and say ‘I’m here for you.’ ”

“I was crying yesterday,” he said. “Today I can laugh.”

The incident marked the second time in three months that a Conejo Valley building has been defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti.

On July 24, a Westlake Village couple’s house was vandalized and their car spray-painted with swastikas and the words “Die Jew.” No one has been arrested in that case.

Sheri Lesser, whose home was vandalized in the July incident, said in a telephone interview that she was horrified that another building was defaced in the same way. “I want to know if it’s the same person,” Lesser said. “I hope they catch them.”

Friends of Cohen-Ross said they were horrified when they heard his business had been destroyed. They described the 59-year-old man as something of a hero himself.

Cohen-Ross gave jobs at his store to local teen-agers, donated comic books to libraries, synagogues and soccer clubs, and overlooked charges for youths short on change, friends said.

Cohen-Ross opened the store eight years ago, after he retired from a 30-year career as an insurance salesman, as a way to sell comic and science-fiction books and as a place to store personal memorabilia he had collected over more than 50 years.

As Cohen-Ross toured the charred wreckage of his store Saturday afternoon, he stepped over half-burned copies of comic books and pointed to the places on the wall where autographed photos of rock stars used to hang.

“The Rolling Stones were there,” he said. “That was the R.E.M. Gold Record award.”

By midafternoon Saturday, the couple’s clothes were stained with soot. Charred pages fluttered in the wind as the pair stood in front of the boarded-up storefront.

Wes Seay, 25, of Thousand Oaks recalled spending hours poring over pulp magazines at the store. On Saturday, he and a friend spent about six hours salvaging comic books.

“Let’s put it this way, it’s out of respect,” Seay said. “He’s done so much for our community. He’s given us dreams.”

Agoura Hills resident Geri Deutsch, 44, said she rushed over as soon as she heard about the fire. It wasn’t just because Cohen-Ross had given her 15-year-old son his first job.

“This is a place where people come, and they hang out, and it’s a family,” Deutsch said. “They don’t realize this man’s almost 60 years old and has worked hard for what he has. The community’s got to band together to get to the bottom of it.”