Jewish School Cleans Up, Turns Anti-Semitic Trashing Into Lesson

Rabbi Zvi Block of West Valley Hebrew Academy opened a classroom door Monday morning to point out one of many freshly inked swastikas and anti-Semitic expletives marring his campus.

Block, the principal of the 200-student Orthodox elementary and middle school in Woodland Hills, also pointed out an irony: The graffiti was written around a sign in Hebrew advising students, “Guard your tongue from speaking evil.”

The school was vandalized Sunday, police said, by two teenagers who live in a home for youths with alcohol or drug problems. The suspects, ages 14 and 15, were arrested on the campus, which reopened on schedule after an overnight cleanup. They were being held in Sylmar Juvenile Hall.

The boys allegedly doused classrooms with fire extinguishers, broke windows, smashed computers and scrawled graffiti, causing about $50,000 to $100,000 in damage.

Educators said it was not the first act of vandalism at the 12-year-old school in the 5700 block of Oso Avenue, but it was easily the most destructive.

“They went bananas,” Block said. “This was totally disastrous.”

Parent volunteers and professional cleaners worked from 10 p.m. Sunday to 7 a.m. Monday, but much of the damage remained when children arrived.

Teachers, the rabbi said, were turning the damage into another lesson for the academy’s students, some of whom were forced to double up in the classrooms that were still usable.

“We spoke with the kids,” Block said. “I told them there is evil in the world. Though the evil continues, the good triumphs. But it’s also important for children to know that crime doesn’t go unpunished.”

The suspects are expected to be charged in a hearing today with one count each of burglary, vandalism and commission of a hate crime, said Lt. George Rock of the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Valley Division.

Rock said the two boys, who apparently acted alone, were not affiliated with any organized hate groups.

A French-language school that sublets space on the campus was also vandalized.

Police said the two boys came from a sober-living home, which Rock characterized as “a house that operates for juveniles that have a dependency problem.” Police would not disclose the location of the home.

Academy teachers spent Monday morning discussing the incident with their students.

“I guess the biggest problem is fear,” said teacher Sharon Leyton, whose fourth-grade classroom was one of the hardest hit. “But as bad as this looks, anybody can write this. I don’t feel it was directed toward the Jews; this was just stupid teenagers who happened to know it was a Jewish school.”

The school stepped up security measures Monday, but Block, who noted that attendance was at 95%, said the school community was determined not to be afraid.

“It takes more than this to bring us down,” he said. “We’ve been kicking around for 3,500 years, you know.”

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said that while the two suspects aren’t affiliated with a hate group, such incidents could be the result of a pervasive if limited culture of bigotry.

“This is not a Buford Furrow incident, where you have an adult with a long history of association with organized hate, going out to try to commit a race war against Jews,” Cooper said, referring to the white supremacist who allegedly attacked the North Valley Jewish Community Center in 1999 and killed a Filipino American postal worker. “But for the pro-racist bigots out there, they consider yesterday’s event as a great event.”

The vandalism was particularly painful because much of the damaged equipment had been purchased as part of a major fund-raiser last spring, said Alan Shapiro, a founder of the school. On Monday afternoon, Shapiro said a Woodland Hills business had donated $5,000 toward repairs.

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Fausset is a Times correspondent.