When JNS visited the national headquarters of the Israeli-American Council in the leafy Los Angeles neighborhood of Woodland Hills on Monday morning, the area around the modernist building had already been cleaned up, after an antisemitic vandal spray painted swastikas, “burn” and Nazi “SS” bolts on Sunday morning.
A security guard checked JNS into the parking lot. But even with tight security, “some employees didn’t come to work today, because they don’t feel safe,” Tamar Nissim, Los Angeles regional director for the nonprofit, told JNS. Frightened community members are “thinking of moving out,” she added.
“We are very appalled by this vile, antisemitic act,” Nissim told JNS. “It’s getting worse and worse, and we really think that there’s something more deep that we need to address here.”
The Israeli-American Council, which is celebrating its 18th year, aims to “build an engaged and united Israeli-American community that strengthens the Israeli and Jewish identity of our next generation, the American Jewish community and the bond between the peoples of the United States and the State of Israel,” per its website.
Nissim told JNS that the antisemitic vandalism was “all over the neighborhood” and was “overwhelming in a very negative way, because it was on the poles, the electricity poles, the curbs, the road and the bridge. Everywhere.”
An expletive directed at Jews and a reference to the movement to boycott Israel were spray-painted on a barrier near the nonprofit.
Los Angeles Police Department officer Drake Madison, a department spokesman, told JNS that police are investigating the incident as a hate crime after an “unknown suspect spray painted swastikas and anti-Jewish language on the freeway entrance at Winnetka Avenue and the 101 freeway” on Sunday morning.
“Similar graffiti” was found at a nearby bridge, Madison said.
Nissim told JNS that the graffiti was cleaned up shortly after the nonprofit filed a police report.
“Today was the first day of school for kids, so all the community was aware and the kids were very, very exposed to it,” she said. “They’re going to school for the first day. They’re going through this trauma when they are already very traumatized.”
Research shows that “Jewish kids are more stressed to go to school than other kids since Oct. 7,” Nissim said. “To see swastika and SS, it brings history, and it feels like people are trying to recycle history, and that’s what we’re trying to stop.”
Elan Carr, CEO of the Israeli-American Council and former U.S. special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism, stated that the nonprofit is “appalled by this vile act of antisemitism at the doorstep of our own community and offices.”
“This incident will not intimidate or deter us,” he stated. “On the contrary, it fuels our determination to stand even stronger against antisemitism and to protect and strengthen our community for generations to come.”
The Los Angeles office of the Anti-Defamation League denounced the attack, as did the local Federation.
“This antisemitic attack is not only an assault on Los Angeles’s largest Israeli diaspora community,” Federation said. “It is a stark reminder of the growing tide of hatred facing Jews in our city and across the country.”
