Students speak truth to power
Jewish students at U.C. Berkeley claim Hillel’s commitment to “Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with secure and recognized borders” is fundamentally political. Hillel CEO Eric Fingerhut claims Hillel is “apolitical” (“Hillel silence on bus policy makes loud political statement,” Nov. 21).
Thank you to the J Street U students for challenging Hillel, the Jewish Federations of North America and the rest of us to take responsibility for our words. We cannot leave our Jewish values on the shelf when democracy is at such risk within Israel. It is our duty to speak truth to power in our American Jewish communities about policies within Israel that threaten its integrity as a democracy and as a secure place to raise future generations.
David Remnick underscores the current crisis in Israeli leadership (the New Yorker, Dec. 1): “Moral leadership, a moral generosity in politics, will not resolve every question — to suppose that it will is a form of sentimentality — but it is an essential part of what is required in Jerusalem and beyond.”
Molly Freeman | Berkeley
J Street Bay Area chair
Think Israel is wrong? Then make aliyah
Consistent with J Street’s approach, not a word was mentioned in the op-ed by U.C. Berkeley students about the security concerns of everyday Israelis. As the recent atrocious events have shown, this is a real life-and-death issue for them. It is therefore particularly callous of a few somewhat arrogant students living comfortably and safely in America to tell Israel how to behave.
Why don’t you kids go there, travel on public buses in the West Bank and get a taste of the situation on the ground? Then if you still think Israel is wrong in its decisions, you make aliyah, you join a party or create your own, and you try to change the things you don’t like, but from inside, not outside.
The problem with J Street and its university offshoot is that they fundamentally despise and choose to ignore the workings of Israeli democracy. Before you complain about alleged discrimination on buses in the West Bank, how about considering that in your insistence on forcing the Israeli government to adopt solutions that its electorate has clearly rejected at the ballot box by electing those in power today, you are behaving in the most undemocratic way. And that’s a much bigger crime than being forced to take security measures in the face of constant Palestinian attacks.
Jean-Jacques Surbeck | San Diego
‘Klinghoffer’ broadens human understanding
Three letters in your Nov. 21 issue responded to my op-ed (“Opera ‘Death of Klinghoffer’ does not romanticize murder,” Nov. 7).
Adam M. Cole says the opera “humanizes terrorism” by giving “beautiful music to terrorists. … It makes them human, with an inevitable if unconscious draw on an audience’s sympathy.”
Mr. Cole is saying that terrorists are not human, that beautiful music makes them human, and thereby we become sympathetic toward them. But they are already human, because they exist, with all the complexity that marks us as human. The music gives them fictional life and a script, but we don’t lose our judgment through our response to the music. It may be argued, as Mr. Cole does, that we should not give terrorists a musical voice at all. But we don’t deny a musical voice to other evil operatic characters — Iago in Verdi’s “Otello” or Baron Scarpia in Puccini’s “Tosca.” What makes terrorists different?
Anastasia Glikshtern believes the opera implies that the Palestinian grievances justify the killing of Leon Klinghoffer. But the opera makes clear that he is killed because he is a wheelchair-bound, elderly American Jew, alone and an easy target. He is killed because of the terrorists’ Jew-hatred, pure and simple.
I raised the fact that Nazis could weep when listening to beautiful music and also kill Jews. Ms. Glikshtern asks sardonically if an opera about “Nazis who loved music and killed Jews” might be coming soon. Maybe, and maybe it will explore how it is humanly possible for the same person to weep at beauty and be a cold-blooded murderer. If the text and music were powerful enough, we might find ourselves broadening our comprehension of what it means to be human. Maybe, as Mr. Cole imagines, the role of Hitler might be sung by a beautiful tenor. Would we then be persuaded that maybe Hitler wasn’t so bad after all? I doubt it. We would more likely wonder anew at the depths of his evil, presented so vividly before us.
I can only thank Malka Weitman, who protested the opera, for her kind letter and rejoice at her willingness to open her mind and heart to other possibilities.
Stephanie Friedman | Berkeley
Polish museum follows time-honored tradition
The Museum of the History of the Jews of Poland is a game changer. The architecturally stunning museum that stands out like a jewel box against the backdrop of drab Soviet-era buildings provides visitors with an opportunity to witness 1,000 years of Jewish life that heretofore was overshadowed by the Shoah. Furthermore, previous Jewish visits to Poland were primarily for concentration camp stopovers to lament the destruction of Polish Jewry before going on to Israel to celebrate Jewish rebirth.
The Taube and Koret foundations and other donors have shifted the landscape of Polish Jewish history from lament and loss to a celebration of life and culture. The builders of the museum are to be congratulated for following time-honored tradition.
When Isaiah surveyed the destruction of the Temple in 586 BCE, he did not despair or focus on the calamity that ended national sovereignty and exiled the Judeans to Babylon. Instead, his majestic words and metaphors of light and hope shine through every comment — “[May] the weary have strength and the spent have fresh vigor.”
The visionary builders of the museum have followed a historic tradition that helps contemporary Jews who are concerned with Jewish survival understand that “what was” must be transformed into “what will be.”
Rabbi Stephen S. Pearce | San Francisco