Crime Prompts Expansion by Anti-Defamation League : Religion: Officials decide that a Valley office is needed because the number of anti-Semitic acts reported in the area equals those in the rest of the city.

By LESLIE BERGER

Nov. 29, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, the Jewish watchdog group that monitors hate crimes, plans to open an office in the San Fernando Valley early next year because of its large Jewish community and evidence of increasing anti-Semitic acts in the area.

Hate crimes, including anti-Semitic hate crimes, have been on the rise nationally and throughout Los Angeles County, according to the ADL and the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission.

But when ADL officials noticed that the number of anti-Semitic acts reported in the Valley equaled those documented in the rest of the city, they decided it was time to open an office there, said Mary Krasn, assistant director of the ADL’s Southern California headquarters in West Los Angeles.

“As the Valley has evolved, it’s not just a sleepy bedroom community any longer,” Krasn said. “Certainly, it’s not immune to what’s happening citywide and around the country, which is increasing intolerance.”

“This would be the first time we’ve actually made a full-time commitment to serving the needs of the Valley,” Krasn said.”It’s just become more and more apparent that’s what we need to do.”

The ADL’s new office will probably be in the West Valley, where a majority of the Valley’s Jews live, Krasn said. Current plans call for opening the office early next year.

The ADL estimates that 250,000 to 300,000 Jews live in the Valley.

According to the ADL’s records, Krasn said, the number of anti-Semitic acts reported in the Valley more than doubled from 18 in 1989 to 38 in 1990. In the rest of Los Angeles, there were 20 acts of anti-Semitism reported in 1989 and 38 in 1990.

Although the ADL’s 1991 statistics have not been compiled, Krasn said it appears that the number of anti-Jewish hate crimes reported in the Valley will again equal those in the rest of the city.

In a recent incident, vandals broke into a Jewish woman’s home in Sylmar and spray-painted walls, mirrors, furniture and pictures with swastikas and the word Jew . They also slashed open upholstery and discolored carpeting with bleach. The case remains unsolved.

The Verdugo Hebrew Center in Tujunga has been vandalized several times over the past six years, most recently in October with graffiti that included swastikas and the words Have a Nazi day .

Numbers compiled by the county Human Relations Commission, which are gleaned from law enforcement departments throughout the county, corroborate the ADL’s findings, said Bunny Nightwalker-Hatcher, a senior consultant to the commission.

She added that a majority of the religious hate crimes reported in the county are directed against Jews.

Last year, 125 of the 150 religious hate crimes reported around the county targeted Jews, Nightwalker-Hatcher said. In 1989, 110 of the 125 religious hate crimes reported were anti-Semitic. In 1988, the number was 100 of 111.

“Hate is flourishing,” Nightwalker-Hatcher said. “The Valley has a significant percentage of the hate crimes, especially anti-Semitic crimes, because of its large Jewish population, especially in North Hollywood, where there is a very visible Orthodox community.”

David Lehrer, the ADL’s regional director, blamed a combination of factors. He said the poor economy coupled with the city’s growing ethnic diversity are exacerbating racial and ethnic tensions.

He also blamed “a decline in civility in popular culture, from rap music that promotes tension between races, to shock radio and trash TV.”

The rudeness fad, he said, “allows feelings that might have been suppressed 15 or 20 years ago, when mores were different, to be expressed. There’s less inhibition.”

Prompted by the ADL’s concerns, Deputy Police Chief Mark A. Kroeker, the Los Angeles Police Department’s top official in the Valley, said he is in the process of forming a community response team to help victims of all hate crimes, not just anti-Semitic acts.

The response team, composed of police and civilians, will offer counseling, financial assistance or “whatever it would take” to help hate-crime targets, Kroeker said.

The team, Kroeker said, would represent “something that says, ‘Wow, there’s a lot of positive energy being unleashed here that exceeds the negativism.’ ”