Jews, Blacks Join Forces to Stop Arson at Churches

The West Los Angeles Jewish community has joined the hunt for those responsible for the recent rash of church burnings across the nation.

“An attack against a church is an attack against us, our synagogues, our places of worship,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said Wednesday.

Cooper was joined by Rosey Grier, NFL football star turned minister, and several FBI agents at a press conference to announce the campaign to find those who set the fires that have destroyed churches with mostly black congregations.

The center announced a new 800 number and a Web site on the Internet where people can leave tips about possible suspects. On July 15, thousands of posters, paid for in part by the center, will go up in bus shelters and railroad stations in 12 states and in the nation’s capital. The billboard space is being donated by TDI, a company that controls much of the nation’s transit system advertising space.

The posters will stay up for a few months, Cooper said, but the 800 number and the Web site will be permanent. The Web address is: https://www.wiesenthal.com/watch/index.html. The toll-free telephone number is (800) 900-9036.

The Wiesenthal Center has primarily been a defender of the Jewish faith, but bigotry transcends skin color and religion, Cooper said. The conflicts between some African Americans and Jews must be pushed aside, he said.

“In Southern California, when you talk about tolerance and bigotry, you have to understand the multiethnic mix here,” Cooper said. “We’ve had a million visitors since we opened the Museum of Tolerance in 1993, and three out of four them are not Jews.”