by David A. Lehrer

About the author: David A. Lehrer is regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith in Los Angeles.

The cameras and satellite dishes have barely left the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, California. The confessed culprit, Buford O. Furrow Jr., has turned himself in. Yet conclusions are already being drawn that betray an ignorance of the implications of the tragic incident in August 1999.

Acts of Violent Desperation

The message to be drawn from Furrow's rampage is not that extremists are about to overtake America, or that Jewish and other minority institutions ought to become fortresses, or that hate crimes are on the rise, or that anti-Semitism is increasing. The message is these attacks are acts of violent desperation on the part of those who are not...