Jewish Leaders Take New Precautions : Security: Some congregations add 24-hour guards in the aftermath of synagogue bombing. Police say they will check potential target sites regularly.

Leaders at many San Fernando Valley synagogues moved to step up security Thursday after the early morning firebombing of an Orthodox synagogue in North Hollywood.

By Thursday afternoon some Valley congregations had already made plans for 24-hour security guards. Leaders of smaller synagogues said they were considering less costly measures.

“You can’t defend against that kind of hatred and that kind of action, but you can try,” said Rabbi Akiva Annes, whose Temple Judea in Tarzana will increase security patrols. “It’s a pity that we haven’t learned to live with each other yet.”

The firebombing occurred shortly after midnight at Yeshiva Aish HaTorah Institute, an Orthodox congregation and adult education center where the chairman of the militant Jewish Defense League maintained an office.

One of two synagogue buildings at the site was gutted by fire from “Molotov cocktails,” crude incendiary devices made with flammable liquid.

The one-story, wood-frame structures had little security.

The fire left many Jewish leaders angry, but they were reluctant to discuss publicly how they will increase security.

Some asked that the names of their synagogues not be used.

Others said their synagogues already have tight security--including alarm systems and guards--and there is not much more they can do.

The Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles said it will organize a conference about common-sense security precautions, such as increasing floodlights on buildings.

The Valley is home to the seventh-largest Jewish community in the world, with more than 250,000 Jewish residents, about three dozen congregations, three Jewish community centers and 11 Jewish social service organizations, said Amy Warmflash, director of the federation’s community relations committee.

Capt. Bruce Mitchell of the Los Angeles Police Department said police have a list of all synagogues, Hebrew schools and Jewish-owned businesses in the North Hollywood area, and officers will check those sites regularly for trouble.

“It’s really tragic, but if stuff breaks loose in the Middle East, this might be just the first of it,” he said.

The motive for the firebombing was unknown, leaving Jewish leaders to speculate.

The first question of many was whether the fire was related to the threat of war in the Middle East.

Rabbi Isiah Zeldon of Stephen S. Wise Temple in Los Angeles said it could have been “an anti-American act” by someone who “sympathizes with the Iraqi point of view.” He said the next target could be a church or a civic institution.

“Why would it be an anti-Jewish act? The Jews didn’t play any role in the breakdown of the conference or in the Iraqi aggression of Kuwait,” Zeldon said.

Others said it was more likely a simple act of anti-Semitism without any direct relation to the Gulf crisis.

“We don’t have any evidence that it is linked,” Warmflash said. “These things happen from time to time.”

Jerry Shapiro of the Anti-Defamation League, which monitors anti-Semitic activities, said there has been a dramatic increase in the number of hate crimes against Jews across the country during the past two years.

The ADL recorded 1,452 anti-Semitic acts in 1989, the greatest number of such incidents in the past 11 years, he said.

Several synagogues in the Los Angeles area have received bomb threats in the past month, Shapiro said.

In Ventura County, three synagogues and a high school were recently defaced by anti-Semitic graffiti.

In November, Jews in the Bay Area were shaken by a spate of incidents that included three firebombings and a drive-by shooting that left three bullet holes in a synagogue’s stained-glass window.

Rabbi Moshe Rothblum of Adat Ari El in North Hollywood said the rising tide of anti-Semitism in recent years reflects deteriorating conditions in American society.

“Any time there are problems, be they political or economic, there is always this need to look for scapegoats and unfortunately, Jews have been scapegoated for thousands of years,” Rothblum said.