Northwest Yeshiva High School was vandalized on Sept. 23. Members of Congregation Shevet Achim arrived early Friday morning for services and discovered that the windows of the bait midrash were covered with swastikas. Much of the western exterior of the main building was defaced with spray-painted swastikas and references to gas chambers and other anti-Semitic epithets.

This morning, we held a brief assembly to discuss this event and its aftermath. This is what we told our students that morning:

“Soon we will renew the annual reading of the Torah with the reading of the first Parshat Beresheit. The parasha closes with a description of the events leading up to the Deluge. The Torah tells us in Beresheit 6:5 that Hashem saw that the evil of humanity in the land had become great. This is the usual translation of the passage. However, the Sages tell us that the passage has an alternative translation: And Hashem saw that the evil of man in the land became predominant. This alternative translation suggests to our Sages that Hashem decided to destroy humanity through the Deluge only when He concluded that the evil-doings of humanity exceeded our acts of goodness.

We are regularly alerted to humanity’s failings. We are constantly informed of the wars taking place throughout the world, the brutality, the indifference to suffering, and other evils that seem to dominate human affairs. However, this emphasis on humanity’s failings obscures the good in humankind. The very survival of humanity communicates to us that Hashem has evaluated us and determined that our acts of kindness, compassion, charity and justice outnumber our terrible failings.”

Our security cameras show that three young people came onto the campus at approximately 1:30 a.m. These are probably the misguided individuals who defaced the school. On Friday morning, a group of volunteers came to the campus to clean up the graffiti. The first to come were Kevin, Karen and Amy Franke. Parents, students, staff (who were off on Friday) and neighbors followed. These friends were not called or solicited for their assistance. Through word-of-mouth, they heard about the vandalism and their own goodness compelled them to come. By mid-afternoon not only had all of the graffiti been scraped from the windows, but also the swastikas and epithets painted onto the sides of the buildings had been removed or painted over as well.

The following day, a group of our neighbors led by Rebecca Warriner and Tana Senn held a demonstration on Mercer Island expressing support for NYHS and their rejection of the hateful attitudes expressed through the vandalism to the schools and church. We have received donations from neighbors and friends to repair and repaint and damaged areas. Neighbors who identified themselves as practicing Muslims left a beautiful note and flowers. Colleagues of NYHS parent Steven Schwartz pledged $680 to the clean-up effort. We received assistance, offers of assistance and messages of support from the Jewish Federation, ADL, the Church Council of Greater Seattle, Attorney General McKenna, representatives from the Bear Creek School, Auburn Adventist Academy, Mike Colbrese of WIAA, Israel Consul General Akiva Tor and many other individuals.

A group of perhaps three young people communicated a message of anger and hatred. Hundreds of others were moved to respond with compassion, support and solidarity. Humanity’s goodness overwhelmed the evil of a few sadly misguided individuals.

Rabbi Bernie Fox

I am certain to have inadvertently omitted someone. I apologize in advance, and I would appreciate you sending me an e-mail so that we can correct the omission in the E-Bulletin. That said, I did want to publicly acknowledge those volunteers who helped repair the school on Friday and those who sent us messages of hope and support. I would also like to thank the many neighbors and Mercer Island residents who stopped by to help on Friday but whose names we did not collect.