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Published on 08/25/1999 All articles from this issue

'Not In Our Town' anti-hate rally draws 700-plus

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By Joan Passarelli

Special to the Town Crier

Hate Crimes? Racism? "Not in our town!"Baseball hats, African-style caps, and yarmulkes adorned the heads of those streaming into the Albert L. Schultz Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto Sunday afternoon.

The crowd, estimated at more than 700, filled the sweltering auditorium to overflowing and spilled out into the courtyard. People of many colors and religions from around the Bay Area, including Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, African-Americans, Filipinos, and Japanese-Americans, came together to protest against the recent wave of hate crimes in the United States.

Sunday's event was titled "Not in Our Town! Our Community Stands Up to Anti-Semitism, Racism and Other Forms of Hate."

Judge LaDoris Cordell, a member of the JCC, spoke briefly but passionately and moderated the program of 13 other speakers and an open-mike session afterward.

Speakers included Ron Gonzales, mayor of San Jose; County Supervisor Joe Simitian; Iftekhar Hai, president of United Muslims of America; and Rudi Tokiwa, of the much-decorated Japanese-American 442nd Regiment that fought in the Second World War.

Many from the podium said the antidote to hatred was love.

"The only thing that can vanquish the darkness is the light that is in each of our hearts," said J. Manuel Herrera, community relations manager, city of East Palo Alto.

Two speakers quoted the Oscar Hammerstein lyric that "You have to be carefully taught" to hate.

Pat Dwyer, chief of the Palo Alto Police Department, introduced officer Adrienne Moore, the department's new official hate crimes investigator, to loud applause. Moore later said that she helped crack the case of a caller who made anonymous threatening calls, "full of hate," to the JCC in July and August.

"I think this event is great," she said. "Also, since hate groups start young, we need to target our children (to teach them the opposite)."

The event was organized in quick response to the shooting in early August at a Jewish day care center in Southern California.

"We literally mobilized the entire community," said Marcia Mintz, director of the Jewish Community Foundation.

Other organizers were the JCC and the Jewish Community Relations Council.

Cantor Kay Greenwald, from Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills, led singing during the program. Backstage, she noted the proactive law enforcement response to that shooting. "They were coming to us saying, 'Let us talk to you about security,'" she said. "It's comforting to know the country is on your side and not the other way around, as it was for my dad." Greenwald's father escaped Nazi Germany in 1939 at the age of 14. "It's unfortunate that we need to come out in response to atrocious activities like bombings and hangings," said attendee Dolores Sandoval, president of the Board of Trustees of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District. "But it's marvelous to see people of all different backgrounds come out and say, 'Hey, we're not going to put up with this.'"