Hate Crimes Against Jews Rise Sharply, Audit Shows : Bias: Report shows anti-Semitic incidents went up 21% in state last year. Number of Valley cases increases to 25.

Hate crimes directed against Jews rose dramatically in Los Angeles County and across the country last year, increasing 21% in California and reaching a 16-year high nationally, Anti-Defamation League officials announced Wednesday.

Enlarged photos of a desecrated Jewish cemetery in Norwalk and swastikas spray-painted on temple doors in Glendale flanked the City Hall lectern where the league’s regional director, David A. Lehrer, told reporters that his group had documented 2,066 anti-Semitic incidents across the nation in 1994.

The league’s “1994 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents” shows the highest national total since the civil rights organization began tracking such incidents 16 years ago, Lehrer said.

“Here in California, the picture is equally troubling,” he said, adding that there were 232 incidents last year, a 21% increase over 1993.

“Among the most disturbing findings of the report is that vandalism has increased for the first time since 1991 and that incidents of violence, assaults, arson, threats and harassments directed at Jews continue to rise unabated,” Lehrer said.

Incidents in Los Angeles County rose from 48 to 68 last year.

In the city of Los Angeles, however, they decreased, from 28 to 24. The San Fernando Valley area reported only a slight increase, from 23 to 25, according to the ADL report.

Lehrer credited local political leaders such as Mayor Richard Riordan and the Los Angeles Police Department with helping to create “a more civil and tolerant society.”

Los Angeles has sent out a message “that acting out one’s bigotry and prejudice is unacceptable and that a price will be paid,” Lehrer said. “An essay on brotherhood will no longer be the remedy for acts of hate. Legislation and firm law enforcement present the prospect of jail time for bigots who act out their sociopathic fantasies.”

The league’s audit cited the example of a self-described skinhead who attacked a yeshiva student in West Hollywood last July with a three-foot pipe and a screwdriver while yelling: “I hate Jews. I’ll kill you.”

The student and others who came to his aid were able to subdue the attacker and hold him for police. The attacker was sentenced to a year in county jail.

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Most of the incidents in the San Fernando Valley area involved the distribution of anti-Semitic flyers in school lockers and mailboxes, and defacement of local synagogues with swastikas, the report said. None of the attacks involved physical violence.

The majority of the incidents occurred in the West Valley, where most of the Valley’s 250,000 to 300,000 Jews live, said Roni Blau, director of the ADL’s San Fernando Valley office.

Thousands of anti-Semitic leaflets were found in lockers in at least four junior high and high schools in Santa Clarita, Calabasas and Agoura Hills. One of the flyers included the statement: “When you’ve had enough and want to kill Jews,” before giving a telephone number for a white supremacist organization.

Another high-profile incident occurred in September, when Glendale’s only synagogue was defaced with swastikas after the temple’s rabbi, a member of Glendale’s task force on human relations, had publicly condemned hate crimes in the city.

“One of the things that’s interesting is that while crime in general is down, (anti-Semitic) hate crimes increased,” Blau said. “There’s a climate of intolerance out there, and we are also finding that the type of person perpetrating these crimes is younger.”

City Councilwoman Laura Chick, who represents most of the West Valley and who is Jewish, said the increase in anti-Semitic incidents is unfortunate, but not unexpected.

“Sadly and typically, in economically hard times, people look for scapegoats,” Chick said. “It’s very dismaying that the part of the Valley that I represent is where some of this is happening.”

Chick said she hopes that when the city is able to replace the volunteer staff of the Human Relations Commission with a professional staff, the group could serve as a clearinghouse for such complaints, which could curb similar incidents in the future.

But, Chick added: “I’m not excusing people who scapegoat, but my No. 1 responsibility as a public official is to continue to come up with real solutions to problems so people don’t come up with these false, destructive answers.”

Harold Schulweiss, rabbi at Temple Beth Shalom in Encino, said some of the responsibility also lies with the media for debasing the level of discourse. “There’s this old saying, ‘Sticks and stones can’t hurt me,’ ” he said. “But they do. You watch talk shows, and people no longer talk, they shout at each other.

“So while I’m sure there are strong economic factors, I think mass culture bears . . . responsibility,” he said. “It is important for families to transmit to their children that this is not how to speak to each other.”

Leaders in Los Angeles are “responding more frequently and with sympathy and solidarity toward victims” of hate crimes, Lehrer said.

Riordan, who appeared with league officials at Wednesday’s news conference, described bigotry as “a cancer that eats away at the moral fiber of every human being.” While hate crimes are down in Los Angeles, Riordan said, “sadly they still exist. Every single hate crime eats away at our humanity.”

Los Angeles County’s annual hate crime report released last May showed that such incidents in the county were up 6.4% in 1993 over the previous year, with 773 crimes reported. For the first time since 1980, when the county began tracking, gay men supplanted African Americans as the primary target.

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The Anti-Defamation League has developed training programs for school districts and law enforcement agencies to deal with and prevent hate crimes, said Tzivia Schwartz, the group’s western states civil rights director.

“We understand that the only way to prevent hate crime is to accurately assess the problem, to educate children at a very early age about issues of diversity and to respond to incidents of hate appropriately and forcefully,” Schwartz said.

The 141 arrests nationally for anti-Semitic crimes in 1994 is more than double the previous year’s total of 60, the league’s audit reported. That increase may be attributable to factors such as more effective federal hate crimes laws, improved training for and increased attention from law enforcement and an increased willingness of victims to report these crimes, the audit said.

Founded in 1913, the league combats anti-Semitism through programs aimed at counteracting hatred, prejudice and bigotry, officials said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Crimes of Bias The Anti- Defamation League reported a slight increase in anti-Semitic crimes in the San Fernando Valley in 1994. The number in Los Angeles nearly doubled, while nationwide figures increased 10.6%. *

Number of incidents

Nation California Los Angeles Area* Valley 1991 1,879 124 N/A N/A 1992 1,730 117 N/A N/A 1993 1,867 191 23 23 1994 2,066 232 43 25

* Excluding the San Fernando Valley *

Type of Incident

Nation California 1993 1994 1993 1994 Vandalism 788 869 75 74 Harassment, 1,079 1,197 116 158 threat or assault

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Top Five States California had the third- highest number of anti- Semitic incidents in 1994: 1. New York: 440 2. New Jersey: 237 3. California: 232 4. Florida: 158 5. Massachusett: 134 *

Valley Hot Spots Valley communities with the most incidents in 1994: Woodland Hills: 11 Burbank: 5 Northridge: 3 Van Nuys: 3 Agoura Hills: 2 Source: Anti- Defamation League