A Jewish family whose Calusa home was hit with anti-Semitic graffiti twice in less than two weeks took to the airwaves Monday to fight back at intolerant speech in South Florida. Maryella and Jeff Fleisch went on Mariano Otero's 1080-AM Spanish language Jewish issues show Los Caminos de Israel to discuss what Otero called a climate of anti-Semitism. "We've been living here 18 years. We are friendly with everybody," said Maryella Fleisch, who returned home from her downtown sandwich shop about 2:30 p.m. July 15 to find swastikas painted on a concrete pillar in front of her home with the words "Jew die" underneath. "By no means do we have any enemies or people who dislike us. It's really a nice neighborhood and I don't think that the person doing this is from here."

The July 15 message was more distressing than what Fleisch found July 2, right before the long holiday weekend: swastikas and a Star of David painted on the house in the 13300 block of Southwest 103rd Terrace and a cross painted over the mezuzah next to the front door with the word "Jew" written underneath. "We got very upset, of course, because someone had violated our space. But the next day we just got up early and cleaned it up and painted over and that was that," Fleisch said. "Now things are getting serious," she added, referring to the word "die" in the scrawled message. "Now they are threatening our lives. We're distraught."

In response, ten armed members of the militant Jewish Defense League are patrolling the neighborhood. "If our members happen to catch this perpetrator, I pity what will happen next," said Rabbi Yerachmiel Gersh, the regional director of the league who joined the radio broadcast. "Most are either children or grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, so this has struck a chord within them as a result of hearing stories about the Holocaust. I cannot guarantee the safety of the perpetrators if they catch them."

Five Jewish families live on that stretch of Southwest 103rd Terrace, but the Fleisch home is the only house that has been targeted. They told the radio audience that they suspected the harassment may be connected to advertising for their sandwich shop that runs on Neil Rogers' controversial radio show on WQAM. A week before the first incident, they received a letter from the Tampa-based Florida Families Association asking them to drop their support for the Rogers show. Christy Rene, an office manager for the association, said the association had not yet released any information to their members about boycotting the Fleisch sandwich shop. "We send out four to six letters before we let anyone know that a business is supporting the show," Rene said. "It's only the fourth letter that says we're going to let people in our newsletter know and that you're on our list to not go into the store or support it because that's what they spend their advertising dollars on. But since we sent just one letter, there's no way anyone would have known."

Authorities believe the same criminal or criminals struck twice. "I do believe the two incidents are connected, but we have no clue who's doing it," Miami-Dade Detective Vicki Thomas said.

Michael Winograd, the associate director of the Anti-Defamation League's Florida regional office, said that to his eye the two sprayed messages looked similar. "It appears to be the same handiwork, the same hand," Winograd said. This is "clearly a hate crime. If it was just graffiti without the anti-Semitic element, it would just be vandalism. It's clearly graffiti targetting this family because they are Jewish." He called the culprit a coward. "It's most likely a teenager out of school on summer vacation," Winograd said. "There's probably little risk to the family because the vandals strike when there's nobody home. But it's still a threat to their peace of mind."

Miami-Dade Police spokesman Juan DelCastillo said the department was looking at the matter closely. "We are very concerned because this is the third incident at their house," he said. The first incident was an armed robbery in the driveway May 20, but DelCastillo said he did not know if it was related to the graffiti.

This is the second occurrence of anti-Semitic graffiti in the Kendall area in the past two months. On May 21, three teenagers were arrested and charged with a hate crime for spraying swastikas and "Kill Jew" on the Temple Zion Israelite Center, 8000 SW 56th St. Don Ungurait, a spokesman for the state attorney's office, said that because of their ages he could not comment on the state of the case against the teens other than to confirm that it is still pending.

Winograd said hate crimes like this one do more psychological damage than physical harm -- unless it escalates. "You can't measure it in terms of dollars," he said. "But in terms of the impact on the person or the sense of safety in the community, it has a much stronger, much deeper impact than a couple of dollars for paint."

The Jewish Defense League's Florida regional office is offering a reward for the apprehension of the perpetrator(s) of these acts; if anybody wishes to contribute to the reward fund to help make it more lucrative for the individual who apprehends these vile creatures may do so by sending a check or money order to: