The fires -- all set between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. -- destroyed the library at Congregation B'nai Israel in Land Park but did less damage to Congregation Beth Shalom on El Camino Avenue in Carmichael and Kenesset Israel Torah Center on Morse Avenue. Officials estimated the destruction at nearly $1 million.

The wave of arson was condemned by a broad range of local and state leaders, including Gov. Gray Davis, who said "these despicable hate crimes are an offense to all decent people."

Federal Agent in Charge James Maddock would not rule out the possibility that all three fires were set by the same person or persons.

More than 100 law enforcement officials -- 70 from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the FBI -- swung into action, including 15 from the ATF's National Response Team.

The first arson attack occurred at Congregation B'nai Israel on Riverside Boulevard shortly after 3 a.m., triggering a burglar alarm. Firefighters dispatched at 3:19 a.m. had fires in the main sanctuary, administrative offices and library under control within 40 minutes. The FBI estimated damages at $800,000.

In Land Park Friday morning, dozens of stunned congregants converged on B'nai Israel, the oldest Jewish congregation west of the Mississippi. The 5,000-volume library where hundreds of young Jews have studied for their bar and bat mitzvahs -- the rite of passage into adulthood -- was gutted.

"You'd never know it was a library -- there's no sign of a book," said U.S. Attorney Paul Seave, a congregation member. "It's just charred."

Also charred were several classrooms, said Fire Department incident commander Joe Cherry. The temple's administrative offices were severely burned.

Sources said the arsonists apparently tried to torch the main sanctuary by igniting an accelerant, such as gasoline, on a piano in front of the bema, or altar.

As a precaution, temple leaders removed the sacred Torah scrolls, handwritten copies of the five books of Moses, from the sanctuary.

"There's one that's a Holocaust Torah scroll from Czechoslovakia, at least 200 years old and reclaimed after the war -- you can even see Nazi boot marks on it," said Lester Frazin, the temple's former rabbi, who flew back to town from Arizona to lend his support Friday. "It's like a portable sanctuary -- wherever they can maintain the scrolls, that's where the Jewish community develops."

Friday's arson attack wasn't the first at B'nai Israel. In 1993, the temple was firebombed with Molotov cocktails, as were the downtown offices of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Japanese American Citizens League, the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing, and the Land Park home of City Councilman Jimmie Yee.

There have been 39 arson attacks against Jewish institutions nationwide in the past five years, national Anti-Defamation League director Abe Foxman said, but never three in one city in one night. "This is one of the worst attacks since we began keeping records 20 years ago," he said.

"What's so distressing is the resiliency of anti-Semitism," he said. "Nazism is gone, fascism is gone, communism is gone and yet anti-Semitism is still here. It's been around for 2,000 years and it continues to pollute our environment."

The hate fliers found Friday read, "The fake Albanian refugee crisis was manufactured by the international Jewsmedia to justify the terrorizing and bestial bombing of our Yugoslavia back into the Dark Ages."