Fighting Hate, Again

Sacramento is among the more diverse California cities, from the top down. Mayor Joe Serna is Latino. Vice Mayor Jimmie Yee is an Asian American whose own home was firebombed in 1993. And the outpouring of support for three synagogues that were torched last Friday has been impressive and heartening. It represents the fact, as one rabbi put it, that this “is not just a Jewish issue, it’s a human issue.”

Pledges of unity and reconstruction have poured in. There is talk of building a museum of tolerance. And more than 100 federal, state and local authorities are investigating the fires as hate crimes.

The blazes, a large one at Congregation B’nai Israel in southern Sacramento and lesser ones at the Kenesset Israel Torah Center in northeast Sacramento and Congregation Beth Shalom in suburban Carmichael, caused an estimated $1 million in damage in the predawn. Fliers left behind made the ludicrous assertion that Jews were responsible for NATO’s bombing of Kosovo.

These hatemongers struck and fled in the night, like others of their ilk. The most illuminating contrast is that when suspects in these acts are identified, they will be presumed innocent and given all the rights afforded any citizen. The American justice system, flawed as it might be, still rebukes bigotry with fairness.