Activist Rabbi’s Synagogue Defaced With Swastikas : Crime: Police do not know if temple’s vandalism is linked to its leader’s work on an anti-bigotry plan.

Six bright orange swastikas were found Thursday spray-painted outside a Glendale synagogue headed by a rabbi who has been a vocal opponent of hate crimes and helped draw up a plan for fighting bigotry that was publicized this week.

The vandalism of Temple Sinai at 1212 N. Pacific Ave., the only synagogue in Glendale, was the city’s fourth hate crime of the year.

“To see the swastika is to be reminded that there are people who are filled with murderous hate,” said Rabbi Carole Meyers, who is a member of the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on Community Relations. “My first reaction was of gut-wrenching horror.”

Authorities had no suspects in the case Thursday. Glendale police spokesman Chahe Keuroghelian said it had not been determined if the defacement of Meyers’ temple was related to publicity over her work on the task force.

Glendale Mayor Eileen Givens, Police Chief James Anthony and City Council members Larry Zarian, Sheldon Baker and Mary Ann Plumley appeared at the temple Thursday to denounce the vandalism and help clean up.

“I can’t even imagine why somebody would do something like this,” Givens said after using a roller to paint over a swastika. “This is not a rational act. . . . It’s hard to make sense of it.”

The 14-member task force, made up of city officials and community activists, was created in May after vandals spray-painted anti-Armenian slogans at the headquarters of Homenetmen Ararat, an Armenian youth scout organization.

The group has met three times, Meyers said, and next week plans to give the Glendale City Council a report outlining recommendations for controlling hate crimes.

One suggestion includes forming an emergency response team of volunteers that would go to crime scenes and publicly denounce the acts on behalf of the city. Meyers helped draft the proposal.

The vandalism occurred between 7 p.m. Wednesday and 7 a.m. Thursday, when a teacher at a nearby school noticed the 2 1/2-foot-long swastikas, police said.

“It’s sad as a mayor and frustrating to see media attention focused on isolated bad things happening,” Givens said. “It’s important to keep this in the context of a city that is safe and successful.”

Glendale is still struggling to overcome its history as a headquarters for Nazis during the 1960s.

Since the Glendale Police Department began compiling statistics on hate crimes in 1986, 59 have been reported, most committed against Armenians, Keuroghelian said.

This year, an elderly Armenian man was attacked by a homeless man shouting racial slurs, and swastikas were painted on a parking space outside a shopping center and on a building belonging to the Homenetmen Armenian General Athletics Union and Scouts.

At least one member of the mayor’s task force, Alice Petrossian, questioned whether the task force itself prompted the vandalism.

“My first reaction was that someone must have read (about the task force) in the paper and then done this,” she said. “I usually equate reading the newspaper with some degree of intelligence, but whoever did this shows no intelligence.”

Police were trying to establish a motive.

“It may be attributed to the task force or it may be in response to the rabbi or the recommendations by the task force, and it may not,” Keuroghelian said. “It’s just a remote possibility.”

The incident did not seem to dampen the resolve of Meyers, who in 1986 became the first female rabbi to lead a Jewish congregation in the Los Angeles area.

Temple Sinai was also defaced by vandals in 1987, she said.

“You can’t let an incident like this change anything about you and what you want to accomplish,” Meyers said. “You heal, you move forward, but you never forget.

During a Sabbath service for her congregation of 250 families tonight, the rabbi said she will discuss the city’s most recent hate crime.

“I’ll say that we have to be realistic about what happened. We have to stand tall.”

While she decried the act, Meyers also noted the support expressed by municipal officials.

“People in the Jewish community who see swastikas on their spiritual home feel violated. They feel pain, fury and revulsion, knowing there is murderous hatred out there in the community.

“The other side of that is wonder. When good people get together, they create something godly,” she said. “The vast majority of good people stood together and spoke out--the majority of the City Council, the chief of police, the city manager and many members of the community who came to be with us. They said that when this happens to anyone in our community, it happens to all of us.”

City officials’ quick response was also applauded by people outside Glendale.

“The tragedy of this is that people willing to speak out and take initiative to deal with these issues are themselves targeted, or their institutions are,” said Steven Windmueller, a spokesman for the Jewish Federation Council of Los Angeles.

He added: “The issue here is the community, in this case Glendale, must push to create an environment where crimes of hate are not accepted.”