UNITED IN OUTRAGE; REVULSION OF TERRORIST CRIMES CROSSES ALL RACIAL, ETHNIC BARRIERS.

Byline: Si Frumkin

I was in the checkout line at Wal-Mart when an employee ran up, yelling ``They got him! They got the guy who shot the kids!'' The word spread like wildfire.

Some people applauded, others just whooped with joy. Soon strangers were talking to each other, happy and relieved, but also furious with the monster who tried to kill children and almost succeeded.

``How could he do it?'' people said. ``What kind of a person would shoot at little kids?'' And, ``I hope they execute him,'' they said.

And some said, ``I, too, have kids. I can just feel the horror of it . . .'' They all said it - the African-Americans, the Latinos, the Asians, the whites.

I listened for the word ``Jew'' in the hubbub of conversation. I didn't hear it. No one spoke of Jewish kids, of a Jewish community center, a Jewish day-care facility - just children, innocent children, children at risk from a demented killer.

The cliche about a glass that is half empty being also half full applies here. Public reaction - revulsion may be the better word - to this outrage and to the recent arson of Sacramento synagogues once again points up what a unique and wonderful place America is and it makes my glass much more than half full.

There is a collective conscience at work in America that is outraged when a black church is blown up or a synagogue is set on fire. It is revolted when Jewish children are shot at, when a black man is dragged to his death by a pickup truck and, yes, when a white man is dragged out of a truck in South Central and has his skull bashed in by a black racist.

These things happen in America just as they happen elsewhere, but the reaction here is different. Here it is happening to all of us, not to a minority that is somehow different and, therefore, less important.

Yes, we do have our racists and our monsters in human form, but they are few and despised by most of us. The neo-Nazis, the skinheads, the Aryan Brothers, the Ku Klux Klan and all the rest are a nuisance more than a danger.

Many will disagree with me but I am convinced that these perverted and evil creatures disgust most Americans as much as they disgust me. None of them will ever occupy the White House - we, the people, will not stand for it.

And they are few. I agree with the notion that there are more Americans who believe that the earth is flat than believe in the Nazi philosophy.

And just so we don't take this mind-set for granted, let us remember that what is true for America is definitely not true for other places. Russia is a good study in contrasts. A recent knifing in the Moscow synagogue and the aborted bombing that followed shortly after hasn't been condemned by the Christian Church in Russia, and most Russian politicians refrained from commenting on these and other anti-Semitic outrages.

The Jews - and other minorities - are not quite like us to the average Russian and they never will be. If a Jewish child care center had been attacked in Russia, the conversation in a Russian Wal-Mart would not have been about just children, but Jewish children who are not quite like our Russian children.

And there would have been much less outrage and concern. After all, maybe the Jews deserved it.

St. Petersburg, formerly Leningrad, has always been proud of being the most intellectual and enlightened city in Russia. One of the most popular TV programs there is a talk show that airs on the major city-owned TV channel. It is ``Sobytyia'' - ``Events.''

It recently featured an appearance by Nikolai Bondarik, a leader of the openly anti-Semitic Russian Party, who called, on the air, for ethnic cleansing of the Jews.

``I don't like Jews,'' he said. ``Russians have gone to space, but Jews, they do nothing.''

The show, which often promotes anti-Semitism, conducted a poll and found 58 percent of the 2,295 callers said they would take part in ethnic purges in St. Petersburg.

Back in the United States, I went to a 50th wedding anniversary party for wonderful friends of mine who came here from the Soviet Union about 20 years ago. There were over 100 guests, much food, much vodka and many toasts.

And just as it happens at every party that immigrants give, one of the toasts was in gratitude to the United States of America - the wonderful country where we are equal - no better, but also no worse.

I drank that toast with tears in my eyes and I thought of something else most immigrants say almost daily: ``Only in America . . .''

They say it when they see something that we take for granted but which is improbable and inconceivable elsewhere. And so, only in America, after the horror of Granada Hills, can I proudly say that my American glass is more than half full.