Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Make a matched gift and support Jewish journalism. DONATE NOW
Fast Forward

3 Schools In LA Spray-Painted With Anti-Semitic Graffiti

(JTA) — Three Los Angeles schools — two of them Jewish — were tagged with anti-Semitic graffiti days after a synagogue in Beverly Hills was found vandalized.

A swastika and hateful messages including the phrase “time to pay” were found spray-painted at the American Jewish University in Bel Air, the Westwood Charter School and Milken Community High School on Tuesday, according to a report on the LAist website.

On Saturday, a suspect described as a white male entered the Nessah Synagogue, a Persian Jewish congregation in Beverly Hills, and vandalized the sanctuary, tearing prayer books and strewing Torah scrolls on the floor.

In September, “Free Palestine” was spray-painted on the front of the Baba Sale Congregation in the Fairfax district of the city and “Six million $ was not enough” was drawn in marker on the welcome sign affixed to the gate of the city’s Temple Ahavat Shalom.

LAist cited the Anti-Defamation League as stating that there have been 36 such incidents in Los Angeles in 2019.

Correction, December 26, 1:08 p.m.: A previous version of this article stated that all three vandalized schools were Jewish; however, the Westwood Charter School is not.

This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.

This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.

With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.