Chicago Incidents Detailed In Wiesenthal Center Report On Midwest Anti-Semitism

(CBS) -- What do vandalism on Chicago's North Side and bullying at a public school here have in common? CBS 2's Jim Williams reports both ended up on a list tracking Anti-Semitism in the Midwest.

Just two weeks ago, graffiti appeared on garages and a synagogue in West Rogers Park making what the Simon Wiesenthal Center calls the top ten worst Anti-Semitic or anti-Israel incidents in the Midwest last year.

"The infrastructure of democracy is there to respond is a way of tamping down that activity. Getting the next arrest may be away from eliminating it for a while," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center's associate dean.

The student body president at Ohio University pouring a bucket of something red over her head protesting Israel's actions in Gaza made the list at number nine.

"This kind of stuff doesn't bring about peace, it just intimidates Jewish kids on campus," Cooper said.

The student said she would, "Never apologize for standing up for the people of Palestine."

Rabbi Cooper insists there's a difference between criticizing Israel's policies and calling the country a mass murderer.

"It happens to be the world's largest Jewish community but it also ends up demonizing your neighbor," Cooper said.

A Chicago public school made the list. At the Ogden school, students bullied another child with Anti-Semitic posts online.

"It was the failure of the adults in the room to deal with it appropriately," Cooper said. "The system failed the kid."

Rabbi Cooper says often the bigotry festers for a long time. Last August, a 73-year-old former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan allegedly murdered three people in Kansas City, two at a Jewish Center before Passover. That shooting was number one on the Wiesenthal Center's top ten list of Anti-Semitic incidents in the Midwest.

For more information, visit www.wiesenthal.com/midwest.