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Criticism isn’t anti-Semitic

In her June 25 column (“When it comes to Israel, I’m on middle ground — and it feels unsettling”), Stacey Palevsky wonders if her questioning of some Israeli policies and actions will run afoul of Jewish institutions, and she refers to people who criticize those policies being called anti-Semites.

Any regular j. reader knows that Stacey is not anti-Semitic and is very positive on Jewish life and culture. The idea that mainstream Jews consider any criticism of Israeli action to be anti-Semitic is one of the hateful lies propagated by those who seek to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state.

For an example of a true anti-Semite, one only needs to turn to the Letters section of the same issue of j. to see the name Norman Finkelstein invoked by a member of “Jewish Voice for Peace.” JVP is a radical group that supports BDS, which is nothing but a slick repackaging of the racist Arab boycott of Israel. And Finkelstein is a notorious rabid hater of the Jewish state as well as a discredited academic.

Allen Leibovitch   |   San Jose

Outrage is misplaced

I am disturbed by the trendy attitude of young, liberal American Jews towards Israel. On June 25, writer Stacey Palevsky is “unsettled” and “on middle ground” and asks “Do we support Israel’s right to defend itself, or do we support Palestinian rights?”

Being two generations removed from the Holocaust, these young Jews ignore statements from Iran and Hamas, who want to destroy Israel (read Jews). When I was young during Hitler times, my sense of outrage was the murder of 6 million Jews, who were uprooted, shipped in cattle cars, gassed and sent up chimneys.

Today Ms. Palevsky is outraged by the detention of an elderly Palestinian woman at a border checkpoint. I don’t approve of all of the actions of Israel, and I would like change. I don’t approve of everything in the U.S. either, such as racist immigration laws in Arizona. But that does not put me on “middle ground” in my overwhelming support for the U.S. Continued “middle ground” by American Jews could help Israelis end up under ground.

Ed Schoen   |   Richmond

Policy sustains occupation

A New York Times exposé (July 6) details the U.S. organizations, both Jewish and Christian, that support the settlements in the West Bank with tax-deductible contributions. Unfortunately, our own Jewish Community Federation includes such organizations among its approved “Donor Advised Funds.”

A quick search of www.sfjcf.org/endowment/resources/

donors/approvedorgs/ yielded:

One Israel Fund/Yesha Heartland Campaign, West Bank– located American Friends of Ariel, Bat Ayin Yeshiva, Bet El Yeshiva Center and Beit Orot, Central Fund of Israel (not what it sounds like…), Friends of the College of Judea and Samaria, and the Hebron Fund.

The federation guidelines on Israel-related programs passed last February proscribe organizations that “undermine” Israel as a “democratic Jewish state.”

Yet, if these organizations committed to keeping the Occupied Territories get their way, Israel will be neither majority Jewish nor democratic.

I discussed this with top federation staff in May, but these organizations remain on the list, while those on the left (JVP, American Friends Service Committee, Lawyers Guild of America, etc.) were summarily removed when the guidelines were passed. The Jewish community needs to wake up to the danger posed by these organizations using our communal institutions to promote the settlements and sustain the Occupation.

Rachel Biale   |   Berkeley