I found Ken Kann’s op-ed criticizing the Contemporary Jewish Museum exhibit about California Jewish history, and in particular the section on the Petaluma Jewish chicken farmers, persuasive and fascinating (“CJM exhibit on Bay Area presents bland Zionist fairy tale,” Feb. 15).
However the response from the CJM was disappointing. To simply say in response to Kann’s thoughtful and informed remarks that California Jewish history is “complex” and that it is an “almost impossible task” to summarize that history is to decline responsibility for both factual errors and errors of omission and commission; that is, bad history.
Kann’s research and writing on the subject were supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He holds a Ph.D. in American History from U.C. Berkeley, and has taught at Bay Area colleges and universities. His comments on the exhibit should have been taken more seriously.
Stephen Shapiro | San Francisco