Eating chocolate with a clear conscience
In response to the recipe for orange-chocolate cupcakes (“Succulent treats with adult a-peel,” Feb. 12): Might I respectfully suggest that all recipes published in the J. which include chocolate among the ingredients contain an editor’s footnote recommending that the chocolate have a no-slave-cocoa source. Temple Israel in Alameda has a fair trade chocolate source at www.tinyurl.com/equalexchange-alameda. Try it, you’ll like it.
Using fair trade products is part of the pledge to fight the globe slave trade. Just last week, Congress passed a law barring all imports of products that use forced or indentured labor. Don’t even feed your pets slave-harvested fish. J. readers, take the pledge, please.
CJ Kingsley | Alameda
Three bones to pick
David A.M. Wilensky’s pieces make interesting reading, but his Feb. 19 column, “Women count at only one daily S.F. minyan — this one,” had three notable errors.
1. He writes of “the Jewish practice of saying Kaddish daily for 11 months after the passing of a loved one.” In fact, having the status of a “Jewish mourner” is 11 months only for one’s parents. For all other immediate relatives and one’s spouse, the official mourning period is 30 days. Many answers are suggested for the difference. Rabbi Steven Weil, managing director of the Orthodox Union, offered an answer that I found most helpful: Parents are accorded a longer mourning period as a simple matter of respect — respect stipulated in the Ten Commandments.
2. Wilensky also wrote: “Orthodox communities … do not permit women to say Kaddish.” Not so. In Orthodox synagogues, women who are in mourning do indeed say the Kaddish prayer concurrently with the men.
3. Wilensky also notes that at the morning service, he sang the upbeat Hebrew ditty stating that, as the month of Adar arrives, we increase our joy. However, we are now in a Hebrew leap year, when we add an extra month of Adar. In leap years, Purim always occurs in the second Adar, called Adar II or Adar Sheini, which this year begins on March 11. Thus, the month in which Purim occurs had not started at the time he attended the morning service.
Fred Korr | Oakland
Two more bones
While I’ve been a San Francisco Congregation Beth Sholom member for nearly 40 years, I get to minyan only once a month these days (a Sunday morning) because I have lived in the East Bay for the past 15 years. Two corrections to David A.M. Wilensky’s column:
1. Sunday morning minyan starts at 8 a.m., which is also when it begins on national holidays.
2. The service runs for an hour only on Monday and Thursday mornings (and the intermediate days of Sukkot and Pesach), when the Torah is read; otherwise it lasts about 40 minutes.
I’m there on those Sundays for Chicken Soupers, which has been cooking and delivering food to JFCS clients with AIDS and long-term disabilities for over 26 years (I’m the shopper). I’m also at Beth Sholom on Shabbat some 10 or 11 times a year to leyn the Torah portion. Other times, you can find me at Beth Jacob in Oakland.
Marshall Schwartz | Oakland
Anti-Israel bigotryhas no place at Hillel
I would like to respond to the point-counterpoint op-eds on “Open Hillel” (“Is the Open Hillel initiative needed, or misguided?” Feb. 12). Jewish students today attend university with the greatest intention of becoming educated. Hillels across the country provide a space to engage in Judaism and learn about Israel on both a personal and a world affairs level.
Hillel International welcomes robust, civil debate about Israel and Israeli policy. However, this does not mean that the organized Jewish community has a duty to support and/or facilitate speech that is hateful or discriminatory. To the contrary — we have a moral obligation to condemn and marginalize hatred and discrimination.
As the StandWithUs campus coordinator for Pacific Northwest/Northern California, I know that it is important for students to know that they can explore their views — and others’ views — about Israel. Campuses provide many opportunities to hear anti-Israel viewpoints. Those who demand an “Open Hillel” insist that Hillel — which has a mission to support Israel — open itself to anti-Israel bigotry. Speakers and organizations that contribute to the global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign to demonize, delegitimize and apply double standards against Israel are an example of the latter. As Jews and people of conscience, we have a duty to stand against this bigoted agenda.
Noa Raman | Greenbrae
Campus coordinator, StandWithUs Pacific Northwest/Northern California
Open Hillel proponents missing the essential truth
Arguing for an “Open Hillel,” David Biale and Caroline Morganti criticize International Hillel’s policy that denies programming access to speakers and groups that do not accept the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish democratic state, that support the BDS movement, or otherwise demonize the country.
As a faculty retiree who is a board member of Hillel at U.C. Davis/Sacramento, I note three flaws in their argument:
• It is quite reasonable — indeed, essential — for the major Jewish student organization in the United States to strongly support Israel against its defamers. Israel is central to Jewish identity for us in the diaspora. I see no virtue in giving groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, that deny this and the state’s independence, a platform for their views.
• Maintaining the current policy by no means limits what Jewish students hear about Israel and the Middle East generally. At campuses like U.C. Davis, they are regularly exposed to a lot of aggressive and hateful attacks on the legitimacy of Israel and told about the Zionist bogeyman.
• Our Hillels are not intended to operate as debate societies, Jewish American versions of the Oxford Union. The great majority of students attracted to a Hillel show up for nonpolitical reasons — food, Shabbat celebration, shmoozing, study space, Jewish education, meeting possible partners and the general warmth and welcoming character of the place.
Al Sokolow | Davis
Civil discourse starts with spirit of inquiry
We were thoroughly inspired at Congregation Beth Am by the historic, exciting step forward of 600 Jewish women, men and youth exploring “Holy Discord: The Art of Jewish Dispute,” sponsored by the Jewish community on Feb. 20.
The Havdallah service began: “The study of Torah is the art of acknowledging multiple perspectives,” the wisdom of Rabbi Daniel Roth, director of the Jerusalem-based Pardes Center for Judaism and Conflict Resolution.
This landmark gathering included 24 expert-led circles that helped us explore communication skills to model excellent civil discourse in our homes and community, and among diverse peoples.
In stark contrast we were disheartened by the op-ed “Palestinian narrative is fraught with inaccuracies” (Feb. 19), a rebuke and dismissal of Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman’s sense of “moral obligation” to introduce Palestinian experience into Jewish education. Assuming knowledge of the curriculum’s content, the author labeled as “wrong” the rabbi’s intiative, and how another people has experienced life and history. From our years of meeting so many Jewish youth grieving, even weeping, over how the “other” has been misrepresented or even hidden from them by their Jewish families and teachers — Palestinian youth experience the same — we encourage tolerance for Rabbi Zimmerman’s educational innovation.
Especially we plead for a more fear-free spirit of inquiry and inclusiveness. Israelis and humankind urgently need to engage in the spirit of Shema — listening and hearing anew, experiencing together that “an enemy is one whose story we have not heard.”
Libby and Len Traubman | San Mateo
Teaching Holocaust teachers
In a time when images of political refugees flood the media and hateful rhetoric is spewed by presidential candidates, the lessons of the Holocaust are more resonant than ever. As an educator with eight years of teaching experience, I appreciated the recent article “Holocaust fellowship builds network of ‘master educators’ ” (Jan. 29), describing the efforts of Jewish LearningWorks to strengthen the practice of teachers in a pivotal time in Holocaust education.
Grappling with the emotionally difficult and historically complex content surrounding the Holocaust can leave teachers walking a tightrope between emotionally overwhelming and detached. The Tauber fellowship aims to empower teachers both with knowledge and also emotional fortitude.
As one of these fellows, I returned from Israel committed to continuing Holocaust education for students, but also to other teachers. With that in mind, I am hosting an educators’ workshop on Sunday, Feb. 28 to explore the exclusionary policies in Germany from 1933-1939. All are welcome at this free event. Please contact me at [email protected] with questions or to register. We need to share the lessons of our past, to honor those who have come before us and to guide those who are yet to come. Join us as we continue this important work.
Tiffany Benson | Berkeley
Israel, not J Street, knows what’s best
The letter “The real issue: What is in Israel’s best interest?” (Feb. 5) clearly exposes the J Street dilemma: how to maintain the mantra “pro-Israel, pro-peace” while at the same time trying to adapt both Israel and peace to J Street’s liking. The solution? Recognizing “what we define to be in the best interests and character of [Israel].”
But who empowered J Street to decide what is best for the Jewish state? Israel is a democracy where people make decisions about how they want to be governed, without “advice and consent” from outsiders. Historically, American Jews played a crucial role, mostly through AIPAC, in strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship. All until
J Street arrived on the scene with its pretense that it knows better how to transform Israel into a truly democratic and loved-by-all state: Israel just needs to withdraw from the West Bank. Practically, that would place Israel into a Procrustean bed with Hamas at the south and east and Hezbollah at the north.
Back in the ’30s and ’40s, the American Jewish Committee also was concerned about democracy in the world while a war was raging all over Europe. Thankfully, AJC changed its tune after the creation of Israel, dedicating its resources to support a Jewish state that, while not ideally democratic, is definitely head and shoulders above Middle East totalitarian regimes. Unfortunately, I’m not holding my breath that the same will happen with J Street.
Vladimir Kaplan | San Mateo