Appreciating the vision
While governments remain inept in peacemaking, j. and writer Stacey Palevsky served with excellence to report on the leading-edge activity of Bay Area-based Abraham’s Vision (“Finding common ground,” Oct. 3).
Your dramatic photos brought home to us their successful weeks of face-to-face engagement of young Jews and Palestinians — the missing, citizen part of the peace process.
Except for a too-small handful, still almost no Palestinians or Jews have ever met in any depth, including in the State of Israel.
You detailed well how close at hand this is for those who will move beyond their clans and front doors.
We admire the life paths chosen by Abraham’s Vision co-directors — a Palestinian and a Jew.
How inspiring that Huda Abu Arqub came from a Muslim home in Hebron and, after helping raise her 11 siblings, became a Fulbright scholar in conflict transformation and in now a shepherd of young adults who refuse to be enemies.
We equally appreciate Aaron Hahn-Tapper’s determined participation in many U.S. peace-building camps that combine practical experience with academic excellence in comparative religions on the road inventing and fulfilling Abraham’s Vision — helping our youth keep their idealism.
This is the future. Thank you, j.
Libby and Len Traubman | San Mateo
Twisting reality?
In its article, j. portrayed Abraham’s Vision as a group that fosters peace and coexistence, but a careful examination of the method used by this group reveals that j. did not provide its readers with a complete and balanced picture of the issue.
While it would be appropriate for Abraham’s Vision to bring together two comparable groups such as Muslims and Jews or Palestinians and Israelis, Abraham’s Vision twists the reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and ignores the Israeli side by deliberately choosing to promote dialogue only between American Jews and Palestinians.
This furthers the incorrect view of Jews as “colonizers” of the land of Israel because American Jewry has its home in faraway America, while Palestinians have their home in the Palestinian territories. Additionally, by disconnecting Palestin-ians from the Arab and Muslim world, Abraham’s Vision depicts the Palestinians as standing alone against an enemy, whereas the reality is that the whole Arab world, which is far more numerous and wealthy than the Jewish community, unequivocally backs the Palestinians.
Leeron Morad | Palo Alto
Jews of many colors
The cover photo of hands of varying colors in a circle implicitly and wrongly suggests that Jewish hands are white and Palestinian hands are brown. As a brown-skinned Jew I am amazed that this distortion should be pegged to a piece about Jewish and Palestinian students coming together.
Both Jews and Palestinians come in every color. Yet sadly, too many of America’s Jews and Israel’s leaders perceive Israel as a white state, in contrast to Palestine as a future brown one. This unconscious association quietly contributes to the impediments to peace.
On the eve of the U.S. considering a biracial candidate as its president, American Jewry must face its own ingrained racial biases and fallacies. Despite primarily white representation, both Israeli and American Jewry are multiracial and multicolored.
Daniel Najjar | San Francisco
A loaded term
I am responding to an article regarding BlueStarPR posters near the Berkeley campus, which characterizes student-group Students for Justice in Palestine as an “anti-Israel” organization (“More pro-Israel posters defaced,” Sept. 26).
I question the wisdom of using this blanket term, especially within the context of these incidents. It does not do our members justice. We consistently call for coexistence, justice and equality, but j. has never referred to our Arab members as “Arabs speaking out for coexistence,” as it did the soccer player featured on one BlueStarPR poster. Instead we are dismissed as “anti-Israel.”
While we oppose Israeli policies, we have never called for or condoned violence against Israelis, which is what the term “anti-Israel” seems to imply. We have never called for the destruction of Israeli society, or for Israeli Jews to be relocated (as Israeli ministers have suggested regarding Israel’s Arab population), which are other possible implications of the term “anti-Israel.”Institutional reform is not synonymous with the destruction of a people.
With the ADL, we condemn the swastika hate speech that targeted a BlueStarPR poster. There is a clear difference between criticism of Israeli policies and anti-Semitism, and as an organization we reject the act as well as its message.
Yaman Salahi | Berkeley
Praise for ‘Girl Thing’
It was inspiring to see so many local organizations represented in Amanda Pazornik’s article “Slingshot propels Bay Area Jewish groups to prominence” (Sept. 26). Moving Traditions and its national program for adolescent girls, Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! was also selected by Slingshot — marking our fourth year being included in the 50 “most inspiring and innovative organizations” in the Jewish community.
Launched in the Bay Area just two years ago, there are already more than 20 Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing! groups meeting monthly at local synagogues and day schools of all denominations, helping to keep hundreds of Bay Area girls healthy and Jewish. We thank j. and Slingshot for helping to publicize our work and the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, the Silicon Valley Jewish Community Federation and many local individual donors for their financial support.
Donors, clergy, school directors, group leaders, parents and girls are encouraged to learn more about the program at www.roshhodesh.org.
Corinne Taylor-Cyngiser | San Francisco
San Francisco Bay Area Coordinator,
Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing!