Rabbis ‘enablers’ in police deaths
Your recent article on the “progressive” rabbis who blocked streets as part of the recent protests was very one-sided (“Standing for justice: Bay Area Jews say #BlackLivesMatter,” Dec. 19). Couldn’t you have found even one person who was critical of those rabbis? Doesn’t J. believe in balanced coverage?
I hate to confuse these rabbis with the facts, but what they’re really supporting is mob justice. There’s evidence that Michael Brown was going for the officer’s gun and that Eric Garner was forcibly resisting arrest. Also, you can’t repeatedly say “I can’t breathe” if you really can’t breathe.
By participating in the demonstrations with their tallises, these rabbis have tarnished what they claim to stand for. Their version of Judaism means self-indulgence at the expense of others, and that emotions triumph over facts. By joining the street blockers, these rabbis are supporting their excesses. Those excesses aren’t just blocking streets, breaking windows and looting stores.
Now two police officers have been shot, apparently because of the fueling of emotion that these rabbis helped to foster. Maybe these rabbis don’t have the blood of the officers on their hands, but they are enablers. They contributed to what led to the shootings. I hope their congregations hold them accountable.
Alan Yannow | El Cerrito
#BlackLivesMatter ignores certain truths
The enthusiastic participation of so much of the Jewish community in the Black Lives Matter movement, documented in the Dec. 19 cover story “Standing for justice” and in Rabbi Mark Bloom’s op-ed (“There is a Jewish response to Michael Brown and Eric Garner”), raises serious questions of judgment.
First, the movement focuses exclusively on a small number of police-involved shootings but ignores the enormous toll taken on so many black Americans by crime originating primarily in their own communities. Available data indicates that black people (13 percent of the population) constitute nearly 44 percent of homicide victims. Second, the movement ignores the major role the police play in these difficult and dangerous areas in preventing an even greater loss of life to violent crime.
The recent SFGate article “Oakland police say protests hinder crime-fighting efforts” (Dec. 22) indicates that the Oakland Police Department had the city heading for a 30 percent reduction in homicides until their resources had to be diverted to cover the movement’s many not-so-peaceable assemblies. These additional victims are primarily the young black men whose lives the movement claims to champion. Many would do well to reconsider their positions and redirect their efforts toward the overall reduction of violence in our urban communities.
Steve Astrachan | Pleasant Hill
‘Jewish state’ law lacks consensus
The proposed Jewish nation-state law has been met with strong opposition from major Jewish organizations in the United States (“U.S. Jewish groups oppose Israel’s ‘Jewish state’ law,” Dec. 5). Voicing its opposition to the law, the Anti-Defamation League declared that it promotes “an extreme agenda which could be viewed as an attempt to subsume Israel’s democratic character.” Similarly, there have been strong protestations to the “Jewish state” law among Jewish Israelis. Indeed, sharp opposition to the law within Benjamin Netanyahu’s own coalition government led to its collapse. With such widespread Jewish and Israeli opposition to the “Jewish state” law, it’s ironic that, for at least the past five years, Prime Minister Netanyahu has insisted that the Palestinian Authority recognize Israel as a “Jewish state.”
Netanyahu was happy to accept Palestinian recognition of the State of Israel following the Israeli-Palestinian-American summit on Dec. 15, 1998 as a basis for continuing the peace process. On what basis has Palestinian recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state” become a precondition for peace talks when there is no consensus about the nature and wisdom of this declaration — not within Israel, not within the Israeli government, and not among major American Jewish organizations?
Michael J. Cooper | Lafayette
It’s Pollard’s turn
Your recent editorial made note of the continued stay in prison of Jonathan Pollard (“Alan Gross is free. One down, one to go,” Dec. 19). For 30 years I have championed his cause and remain greatly troubled by the injustice of his case.
You noted that many of those who originally sided with the government and his sentencing are now asking for his release on humanitarian grounds. I, too, pray that their messages reach the sensitive ears of President Obama.
However, it is critical to note that one critic of Pollard all these many years remains silent even until today, and his voice of silence is indeed most significant. That individual is former Sen. Joseph Lieberman. I fear that until Lieberman adds his name to the large list of supporters for the release of Pollard that our “brother Jonathan” will remain in prison.
Simcha A. Green | Berkeley
BDS vote will only make things worse
It is a sad day for once-proud alumni of the University of California at Berkeley, now that the union representing graduate student workers has approved a resolution aligned with the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against the State of Israel (“U.C. student workers say ‘yes’ to joining BDS campaign against Israel,” Dec. 19).
That the university’s tradition of free speech, honed in the 1960s, could lead to this promulgation of hatred and anti-Israel sentiment is not only unconscionable, but also chilling in its effects on academic cooperation. It is reminiscent of the 1930s in Germany during the Nazi rise to power, when gentiles were prohibited from patronizing Jewish businesses and Jewish professors were let go.
The atmosphere on campus is already hostile to Jewish students despite great contributions of Jewish scholars and philanthropists to the health of the university. The resolution will only serve to worsen the relationship between Arab and Jew and will do nothing to promote peaceful coexistence between the two peoples.
Sandra N. Cohen | San Francisco