Anti-Semitic Grafitti Stuns Suburb

Wellesley police are seeking vandals who spray-painted racist and anti-Semitic messages on buildings, streets and cars throughout this Boston suburb before dawn Sunday morning.

The graffiti, which included swastikas and insulting remarks about the police, appeared to be the work of "local youths bent on vandalism and using graffiti and vandalism for shock-effect," said Lt. Donald C. Whalen of the Wellesley Police.

The vandalism occurred on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, creating tension in the usually quiet bedroom community.

"I'm outraged and pained," said Sara W. Weiss, daughter of Wellesley Rabbi Ronald Weiss. "I'm wondering where it's coming from--it's certainly not coming from the community."

Wellesley Police Officer Joseph Collari said early yesterday that his office had received at least 50 separate complaints about the graffiti.

Whalen said he did not believe that the attacks intentionally appeared just before the Jewish holiday.

"To tell the truth, I don't think they even knew about Yom Kippur," Whalen said. "But if they were looking to shock people, it was a good coincidence."

But Leonard Zakim, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith said he thought the timing was no accident. "It can't be coincidental," Zakim said.

Jews were not the only targets of the attack. Weiss said "Chinks, Spics, Blacks and Jews' were among the terms used.

Whalen called the messages typical of the "white-Aryan supremacist sort of thing," and said the anti-police remarks were made "just to spice it up."

"They really follow skinhead attitudes, but we don't believe they were very organized," Whalen said. "The people in the community have certainly been shocked. They're very angry."

And Weiss said she was particularly distrubed by reports that the perpetrators were local adolescents.

"If it was youth, then it's all the more frightening because they don't even know what they're saying," she said.

Not the Only Incident

Whalen said this weekend's incident was not the only racially-motivated one in the Boston area in recent months.

In Wellesley, anti-Semitic graffiti has appeared in the town over the last six months, although "it really has been isolated and sporadic," said Police Sgt. Michael McCourt. "And then this came out of left field. They just went out and did it."

Police believe the Wellesley vandals went on the rampage twice Sunday morning, once shortly after midnight and a second time around 4 a.m.

Many people have already cleaned up the damage on their own property, while graffiti on the street will be cleaned by Wellesley maintenance crews, Whelan said.

'Shocking, Painful Experience'

Last year, racist and anti-Semitic graffiti were spray-painted on Harvard buildings, including Massachusetts Hall, where President Derek C. Bok has his office.

But a Harvard police spokesperson said there have been no reports of similar incidents this year.

"It's a horrible thing to happen," said Hilda Hernandez-Gravelle, assistant dean for race relations and minority affairs. "It's always a shocking, painful experience, even for people who are prepared for such attacks. It's even more offensive that it came so near the high Jewish holiday."

Hernandez-Gravelle added that she hopes the Wellesley vandalism will not spark "copycat" incidents at Harvard.