COMMENTARY ON TOLERANCE : Rise in Hate Crimes Signals Alarming Resurgence of Bigotry : Ethnic, religious and other factional leaders must start talking to one another, and the subject must be respect.

Monday evening the Jewish festi val of Passover begins and next Sunday is Easter. They are celebrations of freedom and hope with strong resonances in the coming of spring and renewal.

But there is disturbing evidence that this may also be springtime for bigotry and pessimism in Orange County.

A Feb. 28 report in The Times noted a 50% increase in hate crimes between 1991 and ’92 (188 compared to 125). African-Americans were the targets of nearly a third of the haters even though they make up just 2% of the county’s population. It is a sad situation with parallels across the country--for example, 736 hate crimes were registered in Los Angeles County last year.

Does religion offer any solutions to this epidemic of bigotry or is it simply part of the problem?

Certainly, religious zealots have hated and killed, and continue to do so, in the name of their beliefs. Yet, the religious traditions are also sources of wisdom for combatting the twin viruses of intolerance and hate.

One exemplar of such wisdom is Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. He is famous for his concept of I-Thou relationships between human beings that stand in contrast to the I-It mentality which treats people as objects. Buber said, “All living is meeting” and believed that, if you truly entered into dialogue with the other, you could never treat that person as an “It,” only a “Thou.” He fled Nazi Germany in the late 1930s but returned for lectures after the war to develop dialogue with a new generation of Germans in the hope that anti-Semitism would not be reborn.

In the same spirit, a recent gathering at Harvard University brought together a group of (now middle-aged) children of Holocaust survivors and a parallel group of sons and daughters of Nazi officials. During four intense and emotionally draining days, they met to share what the experiences of their parents meant to them and to encounter face-to-face their very opposite numbers. The result, captured in a recent segment of “Dateline NBC,” was a powerful breakthrough in understanding and communication. The children of Nazis were now more than that--they were human beings struggling with the heavy baggage of guilt for the sins of their fathers and trying to live authentic lives. The children of the survivors were no longer accusers filled with undying hate for anything German. They, too, were human beings still coming to terms with their parents’ pasts and trying to face the present. . . . All living is meeting.

One wonders how many members of the white community have ever sat down with an African-American to discuss the widespread problem of police brutality against blacks. And how often have blacks listened to the concerns of whites or Asians about the latters’ perceived fears of being harmed if they enter a predominantly black neighborhood?

Or how many from the religious right have ever given a gay or lesbian person the chance to tell his or her story about feeling different sexually and fearing the revelation of their orientation to outsiders? Conversely, have members of the gay and lesbian community ever listened to the fears of religious conservatives about what they consider the dangers of the homosexual lifestyle to society at large?

Difficult topics for dialogue? Yes. Impossible? No.

But both parties must put aside preconceived notions and truly listen to what the other is saying. Out of the listening will come, invariably, an area of common ground. On that ground will grow opportunities for cooperation and increased understanding. Perhaps it will be a joint project by black and white business people to expose inner city African-American children to the benefits and joys of computers. Perhaps a combined educational endeavor by gay and lesbian leaders and conservative clergy to dispel myths about homosexuals that are widespread among high school students and lead to gay bashing, or a project to raise funds for AIDS education.

Some might object that such exercises in dialogue are possible for the few--the very open minded--not for the typical bigot who paints swastikas on a synagogue or burns a cross on the lawn of a black family. This is true but misses the point. For unless the leaders of various ethnic, religious or diametrically opposed activist groups start talking with one another and conveying the message of respect and tolerance to the communities or constituencies they represent, acts of hatred and violence will persist.

The controversy over abortion rights is a good example. The leadership of several groups opposed to abortion have so demonized abortion providers and the organizations who support them that numerous acts of violence against clinics and the death last month of physician David Gunn are the tragic outcomes. There can be a corresponding tendency among groups favoring the right of choice to caricature all anti-abortion activists as a bunch of woman-hating religious fanatics. This sort of rhetoric, too, can lead to harassment and violence.

There are a few instances of “pro-choice” and “pro-life” groups cooperating despite their profound disagreements. Once such joint effort in the Boston area began with dialogue and culminated in a project to provide family planning assistance to low-income women and health care to their newborns.

We need a second spring this year to convince people representing different cultures and religious convictions that--if we are to live together--we must meet one another, seek mutual respect and start rebuilding the world through cooperative projects.