Save the Jewish Healing Center

How can the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation take out a full-page ad about their support activities while allowing the Bay Area Jewish Healing Center, which supports Holocaust survivors, people who are grieving, etc., to be closed due to lack of funds? Rabbi Jon Sommer has helped me through many losses and he will no longer be available to most existing clients! If the state has a surplus, why is the Federation doing nothing to stop this closure?

Melody Marks
San Francisco

RELATED: Everyone comes to the hospital. With the Jewish healing center closing, who will be there for you?

We love CCJDS

Thank you for including the Contra Costa Jewish Day School in your recent cover story (“Pandemic’s impact on Jewish schools: more students, more financial need,” May 27).

As Emma Goss reported, there have been exciting changes with a “Covid bump” of increased enrollment and impressive rates of retention as these new students blossom academically and personally and their families become a part of each school’s vibrant Jewish community.

Situated on the beautiful, 12-acre Temple Isaiah campus, just off Highway 24 at the west end of Lafayette, CCJDS is ideally located to serve families from throughout the East Bay. Indeed, more than one-third of our families live in Oakland, Berkeley and other areas west of the Caldecott Tunnel. There are also families who come from Martinez and Richmond/El Sobrante, and points in between. The school offers transportation, too, from designated areas, making it very convenient for busy families.

We love our school, and thank you again for sharing CCJDS with your readers.

Piera Willner & Anya Hasanov
Richmond

Chesa Boudin ‘gave so much’

I was absolutely gutted by the recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin (“Chesa Boudin recall fight had prominent Jewish backers on both sides”, June 8). He gave so much to the city during his three years in office. He helped end the cash bail system, directly addressed gun violence by filing suit against ghost gun manufacturers and beefed up resources for members of the AAPI community during the swell of hate crimes. And so much more. All while facing the threat of recall.

He is a multilingual Rhodes scholar with an intimate knowledge of the criminal justice system, and we are unlikely to get anyone like him again. I felt so hopeless when I saw that he lost. Then I read the fiery “concession” speech he gave and I felt hopeful again. Because that’s Chesa Boudin — giving himself to us until the very end.

Alison Doniger
Berkeley

A shanda at the cemetery

Please help to decry a travesty beyond measure that took place on Father’s Day. All adult Jewish children need to unite to protest union cemetery issues that put politics before basic Jewish tenets, i.e. “Honor thy father and thy mother.” I arrived Sunday, June 19 at Hills of Eternity cemetery in Colma with flowers to honor my beloved father and grandfathers, only to find half the cemetery was open and the other half, containing the mausoleum, Portals of Eternity, was locked shut — which prevented me from honoring my father and grandparents.

The holiday of Juneteenth seems to have taken hold over Father’s Day, which is a long and time-honored show of respect which I, as a lifelong Jew, have always adhered to. No contingency plan for a groundskeeper or someone else to unlock the mausoleum was provided, so I was not allowed to honor my loved ones. Allowing the outside portion of the cemetery to remain open while keeping the mausoleums closed was discriminatory and antisemitic. Heads need to roll, someone should be fired and a public apology given.

Michele Woolfe Avramov
San Francisco

A swastika is a swastika

I just read your second article in a few weeks that had something to do with swastikas used by different cultures (“Uproar over historical pre-Nazi swastikas forces Bay Area summer camp to cancel sessions,” June 16). Regardless of what has been said about the use of swastikas in Hindu, Jain and Buddhist traditions, a swastika is a swastika to the majority of Americans. I daresay there are other venues for explaining symbols than publicly displaying one that is abhorrent to millions of people. Museum exhibits, documentaries and oral presentations are just a few examples for the Hindu community to clarify the difference between the German Hakenkreuz and the Eastern swastika.

In these frightening, inexplicable times, couldn’t we find more meaningful subjects to discuss than to argue about the wisdom of displaying swastikas?

Karen Levi
Potomac, Md.