Dealing with Christmas gives Jewish kids life skills
I couldn’t disagree more with your editorial and with the actions of Talia regarding the benign Christmas traditions at her daughter’s public school (“Issue driving school flap isn’t Santa, it’s inclusion” and “Mom’s alarm over Santa visit roils San Jose parents,” Jan. 1).
We live in a society where Christmas is a secular tradition. Talia’s perceived need to rail against this was not only needlessly antagonistic toward her community, but was also a lost opportunity for her daughter to develop some valuable life skills.
I was the only Jewish child in my elementary school in Amarillo, Texas, and while the other children learned and sang Christmas carols, I was given the opportunity to read in the library. Doing so earned me the respect of my peers and teachers, taught me that life isn’t always perfect or about me, and gave me the opportunity to build some character.
This inane sense today that every child must be coddled, included and never subjected to anything negative is producing a narcissistic, self-important, whining group of children, where everything is about them, with children who never have to deal with adversity and feel that they each are a star entitled to their own perfect little world.
How much better it would have been for Talia to have taught her child to have tolerance for the largely Christian world in which she has chosen to live, to have given her the opportunity to build some inner character by dealing with a bit of adversity, and to have helped her develop some humility by accepting that everything in life isn’t always about her.
Sloane Citron | Menlo Park
Mom’s alarm over Santa was justified
I was horrified to read Dan Pine’s account about the San Jose mom who objected to a class trip to visit Santa. I wish to add my thanks for the editorial in the same issue, as well as my public support for Talia.
The Santa Claus figure is “mere folklore”? An extremely simple Google search produces instant results: “Santa Claus” is the Dutch name for St. Nicholas. The disgraceful vitriol from Talia’s critics betrays noteworthy incivility combined with the intellectual acumen of a parking meter.
Talia, I am so sorry. Thank you for holding San Jose’s Cambrian School District to account.
Vera M. Shadle | Palo Alto
Roger Cohen leads paper’s biased reporting
Esteemed? Roger Cohen? Not by anyone looking for a fair, informed understanding of Israel’s situation (“Esteemed N.Y. Times columnist is steamed about Israel,” Dec. 18).
As CAMERA has documented (Oct. 15), the reputation of the New York Times, the “Newspaper of Broken Record,” for fair, informed reporting on Israel has plummeted, with Roger Cohen leading the way. He has shown no understanding that the Palestinian Arabs still hold to their charters that both call for the destruction of Israel; for Hamas, immediately, for Fatah, in stages.
Arthur Cohn | Portola Valley
J.’s bread and butter: lifecycle news
Thank you for your story about 120 years of J. (“How Bay Area Jewish journalism has survived, thrived for 120 years,” Jan. 1.). However, you left out one salient fact: This publication, probably since its inception and whatever format, also has served as the social history of our Jewish community through the birth, death, engagement and wedding announcements that run weekly. These sections probably still are and always will be the most read sections of the paper.
My tenure at the newspaper (1973-1991) spanned from those upright typewriters through the computer network, and while those announcements were our bread and butter, the news always revved us up to provide the latest stories with a Jewish twist.
Peggy Isaak Gluck | Foster City
Scarier than Trump? Trump’s followers
Maybe we should make all Muslims wear a patch, ban them from travel, schools and libraries. Maybe we could intern them. Then we put on brown shirts and trash Muslim businesses, homes and mosques.
Trump wants to make “temporary” rules that apply to Muslims to keep America safe and strong. Trump is not scary. His followers are. Their idea of making America safe and strong makes Jefferson, Washington, Lincoln, Hamilton and Franklin turn over in their graves. Trump’s idea of American values are expressed in lies, slogans and spewed venom.
What is even sadder is the other Republican candidates’ lack of backbone in refuting this cartoon of a man. Trump is laughing at all of us. All the publicity he gets makes him more vile and aggressive and continues to make him stronger. The America he wants has nothing to do with a land of freedom, liberty or the pursuit of happiness. His justification is his material wealth. No sense of morality, social justice, decency and humanity are in his nature.
It would be easy to laugh him off, but millions of people who call themselves Americans could easily have followed the monsters of the past. History is repeating itself.
Norman Weiss | Orinda
Trump phenomenon is not normal
Under normal circumstances I could not agree more that people with differing political views should be treated with respect. After all, our views are shaped by our own backgrounds and experiences.
However, the Trump phenomenon is anything but normal. In my lifetime, I have not seen a politician whose total focus is to appeal to the worst instincts within us: instincts that view the world as us against them, innuendo, put-downs and falsehoods. It is a sad commentary that in the few short months that Trump has been on the stage, he has managed to insult one of the world’s largest religions, women, Hispanics and people with disabilities. No, Trump and those who support him only deserve the same respect he has given everyone else, which is none at all.
I fortunately was not around during the McCarthy era nor the Hitler/Mussolini rise to power, but I imagine the demagoguery was distinctly similar. Let’s hope the result is not the same.
Barry Hoffner | Sausalito
Rabbi Zarchi, a local treasure
When “Jew in the Pew” columnist David A.M. Wilensky wrote about his experience at Shabbat services at Chevra Thilim (“Mural helps deliver a moral: You never know what you’re going to get,” Dec. 18), unfortunately he missed the most wonderful part of the services there — Rabbi Shlomo Zarchi’s stirring talks.
Rabbi Zarchi is one of the Jewish treasures in the San Francisco Bay Area. I’ve never met anyone like him. He’s a sixth-generation Kabbalah scholar, starting when he was 5 years old. I find his Wednesday evening Torah study group amazingly inspiring and spiritually very deep and meaningful. His messages are accessible, no matter what a person’s Jewish knowledge or background.
Judy Einzig | San Francisco
‘Shlonged’? Don’t think so
Regarding Donald Trump’s assertion that Hillary Clinton got shlonged: I have no problem with the word shlong. But “shlonged”? I don’t think so. (We wouldn’t say that someone got “penised.”) I think Trump was confused and that the Yiddish word he meant to say was “shtupped.”
Alan Wald | Pacifica