Ethnicity op-ed has it backwards
Sara Sarasohn’s article, “Adding a Jewish ethnicity checkbox to California forms would erase our diversity” (online July 14) has the problem exactly backwards.
For me, this isn’t really about California policy or legal categories, since I don’t live anywhere near California. It’s about how we understand ourselves. Recognizing Jewish ethnicity does not erase Jewish diversity; it acknowledges that diversity exists within a shared sense of peoplehood. Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Beta Israel and other communities are distinct branches of one ancient people. Their different histories don’t make “Jewish” an invented or purely religious label.
Sarasohn may personally experience Judaism mainly as a religion, but that perspective doesn’t define everyone else’s reality. Many Jews understand themselves as part of a people with a shared origin, history and cultural memory that goes beyond belief or practice.
Her reference to not calling her grandmother “zayde” is especially telling. She suggests an assumption that “Jewish” primarily means Ashkenazi, and then rejects Jewish ethnicity because she does not see herself reflected in that narrow frame. That is precisely the inversion at the heart of her argument: applying a limited lens to a broad identity, and then concluding the identity itself is flawed.
Framing everything through broad categories like white, Black and Asian can also miss the point. Those labels might describe aspects of appearance or social experience, but they don’t capture how many Jews understand themselves, as part of a people with deep historical and cultural continuity. Jews predate those modern concepts of race and religion by millennia.
Jewish identity cannot be reduced to a portable religion detached from ancestry and collective memory. Even if unintentional, that way of thinking can flatten something much more complex. It can also, inadvertently, echo narratives that have recently been used by antisemites to deny Jewish peoplehood altogether.
Jacob Uriel
New York
What’s to admire in Elon Musk?
Couldn’t Rabbi Dov Greenberg have found someone else to present as a great visionary besides Elon Musk? (“Mars, Torah and the two images in Elon Musk’s office,” July 10) Why is becoming a trillionaire something to be admired? Just a fraction of his fortune could do so much good for the suffering people of the world, but he wants to go to Mars. His relentless gutting of essential government departments eliminated much of what makes a great democracy work for its people. Please try harder.
Merry Luskin
Oakland
Hamas attack was a response
Regarding “Yearbook image justifying Oct. 7 attack prompts investigation at Berkeley High” (online July 14), it is unfortunate that this article does not include any perspectives from students or parents who worked on or did not object to the photo in the Berkeley High yearbook.
Anyone who supports the photo would hopefully have made clear that “Oct. 7th was a response, not an attack” is both historically accurate and does not in any way justify the Oct. 7, 2023 attack. No one should deny that friction between Palestinians and Zionist settlers has existed since the beginning of the last century. Similarly, the Israeli siege of Gaza has been widely reported. Whether one agrees with either action, they are facts, not to be denied or ignored.
It is unfortunate that Israel’s supporters — a declining minority — falsely attempt to brand factual statements as somehow antisemitic. This tactic, commonly called “weaponizing antisemitism,” dilutes the true meaning of antisemitism and, if anything, makes it worse by denying facts on the ground and giving true antisemites one more reason for their bigotry.
Seth Morrison
Albany
Genocide accusation is false
George Z. Banks’ accusations of racism and genocide by Israel (Letters, July 8) are demonstrably false. In fact, Israel is the least racist country in the entire Middle East. As the Middle East’s only functioning democracy, it includes people of every race and ethnicity, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and grants them all dignity, respect and basic rights.
Regarding the genocide accusation, Israel makes great efforts to minimize civilian casualties, much more than other Western countries in similar situations, even while those civilians are being used as human shields by their own leaders. In the meantime, Hamas, which has an explicit policy of genocide against Jews, puts great effort into maximizing civilian casualties among Israelis.
The constant flood of malicious and defamatory accusations against Israel is largely driven by the Palestinians’ deceitful propaganda campaign of falsely accusing Israel of the very crimes of which they themselves are guilty. If you want to know what crimes the Palestinians are committing, just look at what they accuse Israel of doing and you’ll have your answer.
Martin Wasserman
Palo Alto