Redefining hate crimes. Eugene celebrates Torah's restoration

[Ian David]

By Lynn Reichman

The transformation described in the Pesach Haggadah prayer "From sorrow to joy, from mourning to festivity" came to life recently when about 200 celebrants welcomed back the Torah desecrated during a break-in last February at Ahavas Torah, an Orthodox synagogue in Eugene.

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The joyful rededication ceremony was another new beginning for a Torah that had originally been rescued from the Holocaust only to be desecrated in Oregon. The Torah was torn and left strewn across the synagogue floor by vandals.

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Yet there was an upbeat mood at the celebration with many stating that some good may emerge from the tragedy when Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy announced to the crowd that the city is proposing new stronger hate-crime legislation as a direct result of the incident at Ahavas Torah.

She said that officials felt the incident was indeed a hate crime, since only religious objects had been damaged, but because no message, such as graffiti, was left at the scene, they were limited in the extent of their prosecution by the "exceptionally narrow" scope of state and federal laws.

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http://www.jewishreview.org/Archives/Article.php?Article=2007-08-01-3538