IDF training for our college students?
I read in the “BDS on campus” article (“When does ‘anti-Israel’ become anti-Semitic?” May 22) that Liana Kadisha and some of her Jewish friends feel they have to hide their Jewish identity on the Stanford campus, and I cried … with shame.
I have also read in J. that Jewish students at U.C. Berkeley feel they cannot go into the campus library or cafeterias because [Students for Justice in Palestine] and their sympathizers put up “checkpoints” to stop and search students.
Perhaps we need to send our college-age students to the Israel Defense Forces for two to three years of training to get some backbone. I’m sure when they return and enter the universities, they won’t have the issues that J. reports they are having now.
Phillip Doppelt | San Jose
When the Elks Club was for whites only
Regarding Sue Fishkoff’s May 22 column, “Alice in Bocaland,” I grew up in Santa Maria, a small town on the Central Coast. In 1969, when I was in high school, my friend Cheryl Utsunomiya (now known as Kim Miyori) told me that her father wanted to join the local Elks Club, but nonwhites could not be members. That was national club policy.
What made this even more maddening was that every June, the Elks Club would “take over” Santa Maria for an entire week, which would begin with a huge parade, followed by a county fair and rodeo. The students of Santa Maria High School were always involved in these events, and the high school band would lead the parade down Broadway.
Santa Maria has always been a very diverse community, and we all got along very well. So Cheryl and I addressed the student body, suggesting that we boycott everything having to do with the Elks Club in protest against their membership policy.
I was promptly expelled, going into my senior year. The student members of the band refused to march in the parade. Cheryl, the homecoming queen that year, refused to ride on the float, as did all of the runner-ups. In short, the Elks parade, rodeo and other events were very poorly attended.
Over the next few years, the boycott continued, as did the legal battles. I was allowed to graduate with my class, and several years later the local Elks Club elected to remove the “whites-only” admission policy. Today Elks Clubs nationwide no longer discriminate.
When my class of 1970 celebrated our 30th reunion, I received a personal invitation from the current president of the Elks Club of Santa Maria, who was one of my classmates and whose father had been denied admission to the club when we were children. Our reunion was held at the club, a building many of the attendees would not have been allowed in 30 years earlier.
Solon Rosenblatt | Greenbrae
Palestinian soccer bid on shaky moral ground
Thank you for your editorial “Leave soccer out of Mideast political game” (May 22). Fortunately, the Palestinians failed in their bid to have Israel banned by FIFA from competing internationally in soccer and were forced to drop their proposal.
The Palestinian campaign was indeed the very height of “hypocrisy and chutzpah.” If anything, it is the Palestinians who should be banned from international sports competitions for repeatedly politicizing them, sometimes violently. Lest one forget, it was Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas who arranged financing for the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of 11 Israelis, according to Abu Daoud, the terrorist who planned the iconic Palestinian terror attack, as noted in Alexander Wolff’s Aug. 26, 2002 Sports Illustrated article “The Mastermind” (www.tinyurl.com/si-mastermind). And just two years ago, Palestine Football Association president Jibril Rajoub, who is also the head of the Palestine Olympic Committee, told a Lebanese television station: “I swear that if we had a nuke, we’d have used it this very morning” against Israel (www.tinyurl.com/palwatch-rajoub).
Until the Palestinians apologize for and acknowledge the wrongness of the Munich massacre, and replace Abbas and Rajoub with leaders genuinely interested in peace and willing to engage Israel in serious negotiations, they have no moral standing to point a finger of blame at Israel.
Stephen A. Silver | San Francisco
Boycott ads: Libel or freedom of speech?
I complained about “Israel apartheid” ads on Muni buses to [San Francisco Supervisor] Scott Wiener and [SFMTA director of transportation] Ed Reiskin this past February. I got a response from Wiener saying that the ads are awful, but the city cannot refuse them. If they do, they would be sued for freedom of speech violation, lose and have to pay the damages.
Not being a lawyer, I don’t understand how saying something demonstratively not true (Israel’s apartheid, ethnic cleansing, etc.) is the exercise of freedom of speech and not libel.
“Boycott Israel until Palestinians have equal rights” raises questions: Rights equal to whose? Where? What does Israel have to do with it? Why not “boycott France,” for example? It would be as meaningless.
Is there a policy for accepting ads on Muni? If so, is it possible to find out what it is? Is it being followed? How long before ads accusing Jews of poisoning the wells show up on the city buses?
Anastasia Glikshtern | San Francisco
Only in San Francisco
On May 7, Rabbi Larry Raphael and I participated in a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the declaration that transformed Catholic relations with non-Christian religions, held at St. Ignatius Church.
Representatives from Congregations Emanu-El and Sherith Israel, the San Francisco Zen Center, the Vedanta Society, Providence Baptist Church, the Brahma Kumaris Retreat Center, the Center for Islamic Pluralism, the University of San Francisco Ministry and of course St. Ignatius Church were there.
It was a gathering that could only happen in San Francisco, where clergy and laity have been working together since the early ’60s, when Rabbis Alvin Fine, David Teitelbaum and Sidney Akselrad joined Fr. Eugene Boyle to march in Selma with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Then followed 25 years of cooperation via the San Francisco Conference on Religion, Race and Social Concerns.
But that was just the beginning.
In 1988, the faiths got together to provide shelter for the homeless during a wet, cold winter. More cooperation followed in 1989, when the city suffered from the Loma Prieta earthquake. This led to the creation of the San Francisco Interfaith Council, which has responded to the city’s needs for 27 years.
The 1998 commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Charter in San Francisco’s Opera House led to the creation of the United Religions Initiative, today a worldwide organization headquartered at the Presidio and working for international cooperation in more than 80 countries.
Have we solved all those problems? No! There is much work to be done and many more hands needed.
Tikkun olam, the commandment to repair the world, is an underlying tenet of Judaism. This is the work of the interfaith community, symbolized by last month’s service at St. Ignatius Church.
Rita R. Semel | San Francisco
Board member and past chair, San Francisco Interfaith Council