When Melissa Levy, executive director of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, learned that a community mural at the congregation’s fire-ravaged campus had been defaced with antisemitic graffiti on July 24, her first reaction was pity for the vandal.

“I just remember thinking, ‘Wow, I really feel bad for this person who has so much hate in them that they will deface a beautiful mural about rebuilding in Altadena after thousands of people lost their homes,’” Levy told JNS on Monday from the Conservative synagogue’s temporary administrative offices in downtown Pasadena, Calif.

“All they’ve done is make the entire community sad,” she said.

The graffiti, spray-painted in black, read “Zionzim is not welcome,” misspelling “Zionism,” and included several swastikas, one of them crudely drawn backward, according to Levy.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the incident as a hate crime. Capt. Ethan Marquez, who commands the department’s Altadena Station, stated that the department and station “condemn this act of antisemitic vandalism in the strongest possible terms.”

“We are committed to conducting a thorough investigation, holding those responsible accountable, and standing with our Jewish community, all faith communities and every resident against all forms of hatred and intolerance,” Marquez said in a statement.

Levy told JNS that the synagogue has done an “initial scrubbing” to remove the graffiti, although the mural has not yet been fully restored.

The mural was painted on the only major exterior wall left standing after the synagogue’s campus was destroyed in the Eaton Fire of January 2025. It was commissioned after the same wall was vandalized in January with antisemitic graffiti reading “F*** Zionism.”

The project was organized by the Sparks of Kindness Youth Fund, which supports young people affected by the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires, together with scenic artist Miriam Hellmann, the Art over Hate Collective, synagogue youth and community volunteers.

The mural features a California poppy, serving as a “symbol of regrowth after the fire,” a peacock—a familiar sight in the area—and the Hebrew phrase Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Bazeh, loosely translated to “all in the community are responsible for each other.”

It is “very much a message that, after the fire, we’ve all rallied together,” Levy told JNS. “We’ve helped each other financially, we’ve helped clothe each other, we’ve helped house each other, we’ve helped each other share resources and so we are all responsible for one another.”

For someone to target the mural, she said, is an “extra type of cruel.”

“Why would you do that at an American synagogue that burned down in a fire, that has done nothing but try to lift up after tragedy?” Levy said. “It’s heartbreaking.”

Levy noted that the vandalism came amid a series of recent antisemitic incidents, including the stabbings in New York City and attacks targeting Jewish bakeries in Toronto.

Despite the incidents, she said, the community is “mostly really determined to be very, very Jewish.”

“The message that we’ve been receiving from people, not just Jews, all over the country is that we’re not alone,” Levy told JNS. “That’s what we need to keep pressing toward each other and reminding our neighbors in Altadena, who feel responsible for us just the same way that we feel responsible for them, that none of us are alone, that there are very sad, bad actors who go about their frustrations in the wrong ways, but that we can’t let that keep us down.”

The synagogue is currently in the “quiet phase of a capital campaign” to raise money and rebuild, according to Levy, who expects that the synagogue will be breaking ground “sometime early next calendar year.”

“We are Jews,” she added. “We know that when something is broken, you repair it.”

Levy told JNS that “it’s entirely possible that in some cases there is a distinction” between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, but the vandalism crossed a clear line.

“You can criticize any government for their actions,” she said. “But in this case, they can bring those comments elsewhere because there were swastikas on an American synagogue next to the word Zionism.”

One of the synagogue’s neighbors “was ready to wipe those swastikas off because they were just as appalled,” she said.

“There’s something out of tragedy like this that comes out, which is, I think, the opposite of the intent of someone who’s doing the graffiti,” Levy told JNS. “People come together and get behind you, and we want to be behind them too.”

‘We’re all noticing the uptick’

Levy said Jewish institutions across Southern California have experienced a noticeable rise in antisemitic incidents since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

“My network of colleagues, other executive directors all around Southern California—we’re all noticing the uptick,” she said. “We’re all feeling like we have to increase our security budgets.”

She said the synagogue regularly receives threatening phone calls from people who want to “blame the Jews” and issue threats. After the campus was destroyed in the Eaton Fire, “we got more than one message saying it’s a shame nobody died inside, saying that people should put gasoline on the fire to make it burn more,” Levy said.

Before Oct. 7, the synagogue was also the target of a swatting incident in which a false report of an armed person near its preschool prompted an evacuation.

Levy added that while the threats are intended to intimidate the Jewish community, they have had the opposite effect.

“It’s terrifying, and that’s the whole point: to try and scare us,” she told JNS. “But at the same time, it definitely hardens our resolve.”