Clarification onop-ed about guns
In his July 22 letter “Guns aren’t the ‘bad guy,’ ” Aaron Rubin incorrectly states that Rabbi Menachem Creditor and I claimed in our op-ed “Choose life, says Torah — not guns” (July 15) that guns make a person more likely to commit suicide.
Our point was that when a firearm is used in a suicide attempt, the result is much more likely to be lethal — with an 85 percent success rate. We are not reducing the issue to statistics, as Mr. Rubin asserts, but using research to help direct resources to save lives.
Studies confirm that if you prolong the time between the (often impulsive) decision to commit suicide and access to guns, you can greatly decrease the chance of the attempt itself. Moreover, when people attempt suicide and survive, only about 10 percent end up dying from suicide. So, preventing the attempted suicide — in this case by limiting access to guns by keeping them unloaded, locked or out of the house — can save lives.
As Jews, we believe every life has infinite value; the fact that there are also “accidental” deaths from other causes should not stop us from reducing the estimated 20,000 every year from gun suicides. We are not anti-firearm; we are pro common sense measures that save lives.
Eileen Soffer | Mountain View
Merry-go-round of letters on Israel, Palestinian issue
Each issue of J. includes at least one letter invoking the indignities the Palestinians endure and our human responsibility as Jews to help them. There is also at least one letter pointing out that Palestinian leaders’ hatred of Jews and of Israel make a peace settlement impractical. This fight is getting tiresome. Not only are the arguments repetitive, they also do not really contradict each other.
It is true that Palestinians experience many restrictions on their freedom, including some at the hands of Israeli security forces. It is also true that the Palestinian leadership makes progress all but impossible with its intransigence and outrageous propaganda. An approach of eilu v’eilu (rabbi-speak for “both-and”) hinges on recognizing that not only we Jews, but also the Palestinians, are victims. The true story of Palestinian victimhood (not the one you’ll hear from their spokesmen) is that Arab leaders chose to turn their own people into a militia and a bargaining chip to fulfill their sick, murderous dream of throwing the Jews into the sea.
A “both-and” approach has implications for all aspects of the conflict, but I will limit myself to two. As far as coexistence: Palestinians who collaborate in good faith with Jewish Israelis, such as Manar Sarie (“Arava building network of scientists, policymakers,” July 22), should be welcomed. Their actions require courage, as Arab militants routinely intimidate collaborators. And as far as a peace settlement: Our compassion for individual Palestinians need not blind us to the reality of having no one to negotiate with other than double-dealing Fatah and openly genocidal Hamas. Although we must have a plan for what a peace settlement would look like, we cannot get there with the Palestinian leadership that exists today.
Ilya Gurin | Mountain View
A few corrections for article about Maccabi Tel Aviv
Two clarifications are in order regarding “Reliving a 1977 hoops victory that put Israel ‘On the Map’ ” (July 15).
First, the article refers to the “1977 European basketball championships.” Actually, Tal Brody’s Maccabi Tel Aviv team won the 1977 European Champions Cup. Maccabi Tel Aviv has won the annual professional club competition, now called EuroLeague, six times (1977, 1981, 2001, 2004, 2005 and 2014). There is also a separate tournament for national teams called the European Basketball Championship, or EuroBasket; Israel’s best finish was second place in 1979.
Second, although Israel’s “David vs. Goliath” victory over the Soviet Union was indeed a semifinal, the 1980 U.S. Olympic ice hockey team’s “Miracle on Ice” victory against the Soviet Union, to which Israel’s victory was compared, was not a semifinal. In the 1980 Winter Olympics, four ice hockey teams — Sweden, the United States (from the Blue Division) and the USSR and and Finland (Red Division) advanced to a round-robin “medal round” mini-tournament.
Two preliminary-round games — the Americans’ 2-2 tie with Sweden and the Russians’ victory over Finland — were counted, and four additional interdivisional games were played. The United States’ 4-3 victory over the Soviets was merely the first of the Americans’ two medal round interdivisional games. Notably, even after winning, the Americans went into their final game not being assured of receiving a medal at all. Fortunately, the U.S. rallied from a 2-1 deficit in the final period to defeat Finland, 4-2, and clinch the gold medal.
There were no Jews on the 1980 U.S. Olympic ice hockey team, but the words by which we remember their last two victories — “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” and “This impossible dream … comes true!” — were spoken by Jewish American sportscaster Al Michaels.
Stephen A. Silver | San Francisco
Poland’s warmth toward Jews is an ‘antiquarian hobby’
While it’s good to read “Marin JCC visitors find Poland ‘welcoming’ to Jews” (July 15), the article presents its subject without any sense of a larger context.
Poland, which, after the war, practiced “anti-Semitism without Jews,” now appears to have discovered Jews in the absence of a Jewish presence. Out of a population of 40 million Poles there are perhaps 30,000 Jews in Poland. Very few Poles even know any Jews. So this gesture toward Jews seems to manifest a charming antiquarian hobby, nothing more.
May I also point out that the other article on Polish Jews in the same issue gave the date of the Jedwabne massacre, where hundreds of Jews were killed by their neighbors, as 1946. Not so. The date of that horror was 1941, during the war itself. It is true, of course, that Poland did have a pogrom after the war, when about 40 returning Jewish camp survivors were killed in Kielce in 1946.
Manfred Wolf | San Francisco
Editor’s note: Several alert readers noted the date error in the JTA article about Jedwabne published by J. on July 15. It has been corrected online.