The first caucus before this caucus
There’s one tiny error in the Oct. 30 report about Darrell Steinberg running for mayor of Sacramento. You state he was part of the “inaugural” California Legislative Jewish Caucus formed in 2014. This is contradicted by history.
A Jewish caucus existed in 1986 when I was elected to the state Senate. I was a member, although I didn’t genuinely believe in the rationale for its existence. The chairman was the late Assemblyman Tom Bane, who wasn’t even Jewish. (His wife was.) In a strongly contested election for the U.S. House of Representatives, Mr. Bane, without notice or approval of the Jewish caucus, sent a mailer in support of the Republican candidate, the late Dr. Bill Filante, a Republican Assemblyman from Marin County. This misrepresented support of Filante by the Jewish caucus, which consisted almost wholly of Democrats, including Bane. An immediate meeting was called by the late Sen. Leroy Greene, a Sacramento Democrat, where not only was Bane criticized for his unauthorized act, but the Jewish caucus voted to dissolve.
The concept of a Jewish caucus contributes to the compartmentalization of society, including the state Legislature. That’s why Jewish legislators in 1988 terminated the Jewish caucus, which should never have been revived. I guess each generation must make its own mistakes.
Quentin L. Kopp | San Francisco
Stranglehold on civil rights in Israel
I congratulate Uri Regev and his son on their family simchas (“Trip to Bay Area for Israeli religious freedom rabbi will include a special father-son moment,” Nov. 13). As the son of a Reform rabbi, I am also grateful for his efforts to establish a Reform presence in Israel.
However, the present strategy of Rabbi Regev’s organization, Hiddush, has done virtually nothing to break the stranglehold that the narrow-minded Orthodox haredim hold on Jewish religious life in Israel. This inequality has been the unchanged modus operandi since the establishment of the state in 1948.
In my view, a much more militant stance is needed, one in which the existing laws are called what they are: anti-Semitic bigotry. It is ironic that the State of Israel, which was born on the ashes of the Holocaust, where we say “never again,” can tolerate institutions that abridge the very civil rights of Jews it was created to protect in the first place.
I believe that the time for polite dialogue about such a fundamental and basic issue is long past. We should be angry and not be afraid to let the Jewish world know our feelings and indignation.
Jonathan Feinberg | San Mateo
France in Israel’s shoes?
The recent attacks by Islamic terrorists in Paris were horrendous and can’t be justified. But it is also true that the Arab terror attacks in France do not justify a disproportionate French response.
Yet, exacerbating the cycle of violence, French President Francois Hollande has vowed revenge. And in a disproportionate response that shows no concern for innocent Arab civilians, France has launched scores of sophisticated supersonic jets to bomb Raqqa, the Syrian capital of the Islamic State. By contrast, only eight militants allegedly attacked France, using suicide vests and a few guns — instruments of oppressed people everywhere.
France needs to do more to halt the cycle of violence. The first step should be a gesture to the Islamic State, such as France’s immediate withdrawal from Corsica and offer to share Paris as two capitals for two peoples.
Seth Watkins | Menlo Park
Apartheid practiced by PA
Visiting friends in Israel, my son and I recently ate dinner in an Arab Muslim restaurant in a Druze town called Tarshiha that is next to a Catholic village near the Jewish village of Kfar Vradim. Nearby are villages where Bedouin, Greek Orthodox, Sunni Muslim and Shia Muslim live.
In northern Israel, the “tribes,” as they call each other, respect each other, the leaders talk to each other, and people not only tolerate each other but shop in each other’s stores and share family holidays. This is happening in the democratic Jewish State of Israel.
In contrast, in those parts of the West Bank ruled by the Palestinian Authority, there is real apartheid as Jews are forbidden to live there (no Jews live in Ramallah), and children are taught victimhood, hatred and martyrdom. This is the reality here, as difficult as it may be for your J Street and JVP readers to accept, but your other readers might like to know.
Larry Feinstein | San Carlos
Know thine enemy
I read Sue Fishkoff’s Nov. 13 column, “Reciting each other’s prayers — it’s a start,” and was shocked and dismayed. Your analysis indicates that the concept remains strong of “let’s all sit in a circle and sing kumbaya and all will be well.”
Islam defines itself as the only true religion; all others must be destroyed, whether by converting nonbeliever infidels to the true religion or killing them. The first rule of war is: Know your enemy.
How does one convert to Islam? One simply has to say the following with clarity of intention, either privately or in public — preferably in Arabic, but in any language one understands: “Ash-hadu an la ilaha ill Allah” (I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah). “Wa ash-hadu ana Muhammad ar-rasullallah” (And I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah). Thus, having sincerely spoken the words she wrote in her column, Fishkoff or Rabbi Donniel Hartman have converted to Islam!
Fred Korr | Oakland
No need for HIAS?
I agree with every word of Alex Ryvkin’s letter (“Is HIAS bringing our enemies here?” Oct. 30). Tragically, children from the Middle East are taught to hate Jews both at home and in school. The Anti-Defamation League has documented the anti-Jewish propaganda. If there are no more Jews in need, there is no more need for HIAS.
Esther Harris | Hillsborough
Holy mandate won’t save us
In his letter “Obeying Almighty will save Israel” (Nov. 6), Martin Wasserman states that “If God is with us, no nation will be able to harm us.” He writes that Israel should open up all of “Judea and Samaria” to Jewish settlement, and that Israel should “eliminate anyone who forcibly opposes this effort.” Like ISIS, he claims to have a mandate from God.
Wasserman believes that we have to merit God’s support by ceasing our rebellions against him and adhering to his commandments. So when we didn’t do that, we brought the Holocaust upon ourselves?
Daniel Yanow | San Francisco
Heed Rabin’s last words on peace
The following is from Yitzhak Rabin’s last speech before the Knesset, in which he makes it clear he had no illusions about some need to “understand the Palestinian narrative in order to achieve a lasting peace.” That fictional narrative, which Rabin did not buy into, was met with a diplomatic military man’s clear-headed analysis of what Jewish survival requires (“Remembering Yitzhak Rabin,” Oct. 30).
“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity [note that Rabin does not use the word “state”] which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”
“We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”
“And these are the main changes, not all of them, which we envision and want in the permanent solution:
A. First and foremost, united Jerusalem, which will include both Ma’ale Adumim and Givat Ze’ev — as the capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty, while preserving the rights of the members of the other faiths, Christianity and Islam, to freedom of access and freedom of worship in their holy places, according to the customs of their faiths.
B. The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.
C. Changes which will include the addition of Gush Etzion, Efrat, Beitar and other communities, most of which are in the area east of what was the “Green Line,” prior to the Six-Day War.
D. The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.”
This, in Rabin’s own words, was the only realistic “promising peace process.”
Julia Lutch | Davis