Iran dialogue gets no respect
Thank you to Sheldon Whitten-Vile for his response to my Oct. 2 op-ed, “How quickly we forget: Mideast regime change is a failing policy.” His response, apocalyptic as it is in parts, suggests that expressing disagreement with respect is still possible.
Unfortunately, such dialogue was sorely lacking within the Jewish community when it came to the Iran nuclear deal and President Obama’s Middle East policy. But Whitten-Vile, without explanation, suggests that the Bush administration’s Iraq regime change mission was successful, and then he proceeds to blame Obama for the disastrous aftermath.
Aside from Dick Cheney and his fringe sympathizers, I am not sure anyone seriously maintains that the Iraq invasion was a success or that it made Israel safer. On the other hand, that Bush’s Iraq fiasco caused a destabilization of the region, led to the growth of Islamic terrorist groups and set the stage for Iran to fill a Middle East power vacuum is mainstream thought. And that is not Obama’s fault. For all the mistakes that Obama can be accused of, at least he veered away from a policy of invade now and pay the consequences later.
Finally, someone still has to explain to me how stopping Iran from developing and acquiring nuclear weapons for 15 years is a bad thing.
Mark Pasach Cohen | Oakland
I wish I had my family’s papers
Re: Alix Wall’s Holocaust fatigue (“Let the suffering end with me,” Oct. 9): My parents were Holocaust survivors, but my grandparents didn’t survive. How nice for Wall that she knew her grandparents and that she has the option to choose not to edit her grandfather’s work. Parents and grandparents generally hope their offspring will be happy. If not editing her grandfather’s writing makes Wall happy, more power to her.
I’d have loved to have more from my grandparents than a very few photos. I don’t have family papers to work with; I opt to continue learning as much as I can about the Holocaust — not because I revel in suffering, because I don’t, but as the only way I have to deepen my understanding of the forces that nearly decimated my personal family and forever altered my people’s presence in the world.
Esther Erman | Mountain View
True Jewish noir master is Chabon
Re: the cover story about Jewish noir fiction (“Writers go to the dark side in Jewish noir anthology,” Oct. 9), it’s criminal that Lyn Davidson failed to mention the best and most Jewish of all noir literature: “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” by the Bay Area’s own Michael Chabon. It may not have been practical for Kenneth Wishnia to include anything by Chabon in his anthology, but an article that discusses this topic should at least mention this noir masterpiece. And it can’t get much more noirish than a novel set where the daylight is brief and the nights are so long.
Harvey Katz | Reno, Nevada
Affordable housing for S.F.
Election Day is almost upon us, and there is much on this year’s ballot that is important to those of us living in San Francisco. How many of us have wondered how the rapid changes in the city’s housing situation will affect our own living conditions, our peaceful existence?
I know I have. I live in a wonderful building owned by a caring family, and I feel that I can afford to relax. But what of teachers? What of social workers and small business owners? What of young people trying to find an affordable place to live as they start on their careers?
There is no easy solution in a city like San Francisco, bound as it is on three sides by water. But there is one ballot proposition that makes a start: Proposition A, the Affordable Housing Bond issue.
Why am I supporting this bond issue? Because it will create new affordable housing for low- and middle-income families, seniors, veterans and the disabled. It will protect renters by maintaining affordable rental housing in neighborhoods across the city. It will assist teachers and first-time homebuyers, offering loan assistance to both groups. There will be no increase in taxes; as other bonds are paid off, new money is raised for affordable housing. And an independent citizens’ oversight committee will ensure that funds are spent properly.
The San Francisco Jewish community has been an important part of the city since the Gold Rush days. Today’s San Francisco needs our involvement and our support to help keep it a city for all.
Rita R. Semel | San Francisco
Why isn’t everyone more outraged?
What civilized world thinks it’s OK for parents to be murdered in front of their children?
What civilized world thinks it’s OK for children on bicycles to be attacked and stabbed?
We think it’s horrible when gunmen attack schoolchildren, college campuses or movie theaters. We don’t try to justify the minds of the deranged. Why, when atrocities happen in Israel, do we ignore our values and provide justification for the terrorist and for the Palestinian government officials that are inciting the violence?
In the Mideast, Israel is the only stable democracy, and is a longtime friend of the U.S. Why aren’t we outraged that children and parents are being attacked and murdered while the terrorists are hailed as heroes? And why do Facebook and YouTube allow incitement to more violence to be propagated on their sites?
Wendy Harris | Santa Clara
‘Land for peace’ not a Jewish concept
Yonkel Goldstein said that “we should try to understand what led that Palestinian youth to wield a knife” (Letters, Oct. 16). If he wants to use that reasoning for one side, he must use it for the other side as well.
Therefore, he should try to understand why Baruch Goldstein gunned down so many Arabs in Hebron during Purim of 1994. He should try to understand why David Raziel, the first leader of the Irgun, conducted such a vicious terror campaign against Arabs in the late 1930s and early ’40s. He should try to understand why some Israelis are attacking mosques, churches and Arabs today.
Land for peace is a non-Jewish concept. Goldstein admits in his letter that God gave Israel to the Jews. That means that no one else has any right to live in Israel, period. Yiftach (Book of Judges, chapter 11) was offered peace in exchange for land and he turned it down. Go read the chapter.
Neal Wohlmuth | San Francisco