While the Israel Community Center (ICC) is unfortunately used to finding signs of vandalism in or around their playground and building, they were recently victims of one of the greatest hits in recent history. And the center is not alone, as other religious institutions, including St. Bernard's, Good Shepherd and Temple Sholom, as well as schools in the community, have also had hits of vandalism.

Although this kind of activity is more common during the warmer months, the ICC was hit during a recent weekend with an incredible amount of vandalism. In addition to finding the usual beer bottles/cans and drug paraphernalia, ICC employees arrived one morning to broken windows, including one in which an air conditioner had been pushed through, and excessive garbage throughout the playground. While the center occasionally finds one or two broken windows, this time a total of seven were broken, resulting in the need to relocate certain classes to ensure the safety of the youngsters.

ICC President Lorraine Lerner noted that over the summer, it's common for custodians to come in prior to the arrival of children to do a walk through of the playground and facility, making sure that no vandalism had occurred and cleaning up any items left behind by reckless adolescents. However, this recent hit came as somewhat of a surprise, considering that it is winter.

"This is usually a springtime activity; it's a little cold to be out there breaking windows," Lerner noted, adding that since drug paraphernalia was found in the playground, she assumes that usage led to the vandalism. "Drugs and violence unfortunately go together."

Lerner added that the majority of vandalism usually occurs when schools aren't in session, particularly during the Easter/Passover recess.

"It's more common than not for us to come back from that break and find a piece of playground equipment damaged or totally destroyed. [In many years past] we've had an entire piece of playground equipment busted into a million pieces," she said. "They're cemented to the ground, so it isn't an easy thing to do ... Usually when we have a vandalism problem it happens on a school break, when parents choose to poorly supervise their adolescent children and allow them to roam Levittown, destroying Levittown."

Lerner added that during the summer, ICC staff has to walk through the playground to make sure it's clean and safe every single day. She said it's sadly become part of the daily routine.

"We're right on Hempstead Turnpike and our playground is large. We do have lighting back there, but it's far enough back that I guess they're lucky enough that [nobody] so far has been caught. And we just hope that their luck runs out one day."

In addition to having lighting, the playground is also fenced and does have "No Trespassing" signs posted. Lerner said that unfortunately, the fence is simply hopped and the signs are ignored.

Although the ICC has the support of the Nassau County Police Department's 8th Precinct, she said it's of course impossible for them to monitor the grounds 24 hours a day. According to Lerner, she contacted Councilman Gary Hudes' office soon after the incident and was told that while they were the first synagogue to be hit with this type of vandalism, others followed soon after. In addition, she was told that a local elementary school also had some windows broken. Lerner added that she hopes the ICC can work with the councilman in creating a taskforce to alert residents of this problem, working in cooperation with police.

"[We're hoping to] put together a task force in cooperation with the police in hopes of getting the message out to community [residents] and organizations. The police department can't sit there 24 hours a day and [we were made aware] that there seems to be a rash of broken windows in the Levittown-East Meadow area," Lerner said. "Vandalism in Levittown is a prevalent problem. We're hoping that we can get the message out there that this is behavior that can't and won't be tolerated. And parents should know on a summer night where their kids are before the police bring them home and before one of them gets hurt and/or arrested."