Guns kill people, and people kill Jews
Do American Jews need guns? Janet Silver Ghent’s June 26 column “Are Jews and the NRA natural enemies?” intelligently discusses the matter of Jews and gun control.
In his 2013 book “Gun Control in the Third Reich,” author Stephen P. Halbrook writes: “If the Nazi experience teaches anything, it teaches that totalitarian governments will attempt to disarm their subjects so as to extinguish any ability to resist crimes against humanity.”
However, the United States, despite some alarming events in which government power has suppressed civil liberties, is not a totalitarian state. Japanese Americans, who were cruelly put in concentration camps during World War II, might wish to disagree.
The main threat to Jews in America — at least right now — is that a crazed individual or a group of anti-Semites might attack a Jewish institution such as a synagogue.
But the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., of Sept. 11, 2001, combined with Iranian threats to destroy Israel, suggest that Jews everywhere have to think more carefully about protecting themselves. American Jews might benefit from obtaining the counsel of Israeli Jews, a group continually under the threat of extinction.
Richard S. Colman | Orinda
Sages, Torah support Second Amendment
In Janet Silver Ghent’s column, she implies that (in her words) because “Nearly every major Jewish organization is on an NRA enemies list,” it is somehow either inappropriate or inadvisable for Jews to support the provision of the Constitution that ensures the right of the people of this country to keep and bear arms.
To be sure, most American Jews seem to harbor either an instinctual fear of firearms or a desire that the possession and responsible use of them by law-abiding citizens is, at best, antiquated or, at worst, dangerous to the health and safety of the general population. The proper question, I submit, is why do they feel this way?
Our sages, and the Torah itself, not only recognize the inherent right to self-defense but, in certain instances, actually command us to exercise that right. God has not commanded us to be pacifists but rather has obligated us to defend our lives and those of our communities against those who would do us harm.
Ms. Ghent does identify an essay titled “Why Jews Hate Guns,” which can be found at www.jpfo.org. That essay, which favors the possession and proper use of firearms, addresses 10 arguments that give rise to most American Jews’ aversion to firearms.
I acknowledge that any public support of the Second Amendment has the potential for causing many within the Jewish community to view the speaker with suspicion, if not hostility. My goal here is to make clear to members of our community that the role of private possession of firearms in the United States is an exceedingly complex one and, moreover, that not only our sages but the Torah itself are fully supportive of the rights embodied in the Second Amendment.
Stephen C. Becker | San Jose
S.F. school board has homework to do
Regarding the Arab Resource and Organizing Center plan to teach anti-Zionism via Arabic-language instruction in the S.F. Unified School District (“Arab group’s partnership with S.F. schools raises alarm,” June 26): AROC is a project of the Tides Center, which gives access to great amounts of money and expertise from the Tides Foundation, which funnels (launders) vast amounts of money from America’s most venerable foundations: Rockefeller, Carnegie, Gates, Mellon, Packard, Kellogg, Hewlett, Heinz, MacArthur, etc. The groups are anti-Zionist and hold anti-American values, and want to destroy immigration laws, American sovereignty, the market economy and especially want to destroy Israel.
The groups are presented as hardscrabble and grassroots, nickel and diming for donations, but they are actually creations of an octopus network of extreme leftist foundations with a net worth of billions of dollars. This shift has occurred in the last several decades as the heirs of the original capitalists — who generated the wealth, the heirs being products of indoctrination in current humanities and social sciences — came into control of these foundations. Tides shares its nonprofit tax-exempt 501c3 status with these groups unlawfully but has not been legally challenged, as far as I know.
Thyme S. Siegel | Walnut Creek
Summer assignment: Write to school board
The Arab Resource and Organizing Center is teaching young people on college campuses about Israel oppression and all-means-justified Palestinian struggle for their human rights. Obviously it is working. Now they are positioning to start teaching much earlier — in elementary schools — to achieve even better results.
I urge everybody disturbed by this development to write to the S.F. school board and the S.F. schools superintendent protesting any work by an anti-Zionist organization in San Francisco schools. Many thanks to the Jewish Community Relations Council for being vigilant and discovering this ploy. Many thanks to Dan Pine for writing this article.
Anastasia Glikshtern | San Francisco
Hillary Clinton no friend of the Jews
Ron Kampeas’ article about Hillary Clinton tells only the surface story of her behavior and actions toward Israel and the Jewish people (“In Hillary Clinton’s journey, a history of Jewish kinship,” June 26). What the writer conveniently leaves out in his lauding and whitewashing is how Ms. Clinton really feels toward the Jewish homeland. She is not pro-Israel. Far from it. She regularly berates Israel for being an occupying force in Judea and Samaria, and she regularly blames the Jews for Palestinian suffering and loss of dignity.
Political pundits have called Ms. Clinton tone-deaf and ignorant of both history and context. Her repeated comments demonstrate that she supports efforts to pressure and marginalize Israel while letting the Palestinians off scot-free. In 1999, Ms. Clinton was filmed embracing Suha Arafat after she sat smiling through Ms. Arafat’s anti-Semitic tirades.
Barry Gustin, M.D. | Berkeley
Too many Israelis left out of religious life
In her June 19 column, Sue Fishkoff introduces the Bina in the Neighborhood project promoting pluralism, democracy and social action in Israel (“Jewish values and social action, coexisting in Israel”).
In the same issue, an article on page 3 about WZC election results (“U.S. vote for World Zionist Congress tilts liberal”), Vivian Saper says: “Israel needs to recognize Masorti Judaism, and there have been instances where it has not.”
On page 6, Limmud Bay Area 2015 highlights the panel “Jerusalem of the People,” whose moderator Elisheva Mazya refers to the four tribes that will make up Jerusalem: secular, national religious (Modern Orthodox), ultra-Orthodox and Arabs. Anyone else see a connection?
As the daughter of the Conservative/Masorti rabbi who founded the Masorti synagogue in Tsfat in 1976, and a one-time resident of Jerusalem myself, I can respond to Ms. Saper that it’s far more than “instances.” In the 26 years that my father z”l served his community, he received not one shekel from the Israeli government, nor could he perform a wedding ceremony recognized by the state. I ask Ms. Mazya, where do the many Jerusalemites who are neither secular nor Orthodox fit in?
There are thriving Progressive and Masorti communities throughout Israel who are touching the lives of once disenfranchised Israelis who had no spiritual home. Isn’t it time, finally, for an inclusive perception and vision?
Sara Yakira Heckelman | San Francisco
Rossmoor’s Jewish roots go back to 1868
I enjoyed your story on Rossmoor’s Jewish community (“Chai on Life,” June 12). Its Jewish roots are much deeper. In 1868, Joseph Napthaly, a Jewish electric railway entrepreneur from San Francisco, began acquiring the land along Tice Creek. He eventually owned the massive tract on which he maintained a vacation home and a major winery. After he died, his estate sold it to Stanley Dollar, whose estate sold it to Ross Cortese for the eponymous “Rossmoor.” So almost 150 years ago, there were Jews in Walnut Creek living at “Rossmoor.” The sole remnant is the nearby neighborhood Napthaly named for his wife Sarah, Saranap.
Art Zeidman | Walnut Creek
Adding fuel to the fire
As with Jerusalem, the State Department has decided what is to be considered as part of Israel. No act of the Knesset or of Congress deserves to be taken into account, as far as the State Department is concerned. The following is from “Place of Birth Names in Passports,” www.tinyurl.com/pgoz3et (page 11).
a. Background. As a result of the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the Government of Israel currently occupies and administers the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. U.S. policy recognizes that the Golan Heights is Syrian territory, and that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are territories whose final status must be determined by negotiations.
b. Birth in the Golan Heights: The birthplace that should appear on passports whose bearers were born in the Golan Heights is SYRIA. (Capitalization appears in original document.)
Apparently the State Department is not aware that Israel annexed the strategically important Golan Heights on Dec. 13, 1981 and that ISIS controls a sizeable portion of what was once Syria, a country whose continued existence is no longer certain.
The State Department’s policies will in no way contribute to peace. Instead, they will add fuel to the fires raging all over the Middle East.
Julia Lutch | Davis