What exactly did Chabon see in the West Bank?
In your May 6 article “ ‘Worst thing I have ever seen’: After tour, Berkeley author Chabon decries ‘cruel’ Israeli occupation,” the reporter seems to have left out important parts of the story.
Despite some 1,800 words of saying how Michael Chabon concluded that he saw a “cruel Israeli occupation,” Forward reporter Naomi Zeveloff did not include any examples of what Chabon saw except for one line saying that he saw Jewish settlers illegally taking over houses. Chabon’s conclusions sound highly intriguing and worthwhile to understand, but there was no data for readers to examine for themselves.
I hope you have a follow-up article on what he actually saw so that we readers can see along with him. Or do we have to wait for the book?
Judy Einzig | San Francisco
Chabon needs history lesson
It is obvious that Mr. Chabon has a “Yiddishe herz” (a Jewish heart) that suffers when it sees others suffer. But should he not ask, “How did it come this? Did it really have to be this way? How could it have prevented?”
Sadly there are two narratives to the Arab-Israeli conflict:
The Arab view: We Arabs have lived in this land since time began. Then foreign colonialist Jews came from Europe and invaded our land, later helped by Europeans feeling guilty over the Holocaust, of which we were not guilty. In 1948, Jews drove us out by force and took our land. The Jews never had a presence in this land and have no right to be here. With Allah’s help, we will drive them out and take back what is ours!
The Jewish view: The land of Israel is our ancestral home. We have lived here continuously for at least 2,500 years. Our history and archeological sites are undeniable. Though driven out, we have always been here and were always a majority in Jerusalem. When we started to return in numbers in the 19th century, the land was empty and full of disease. Only through our building up of the land did Arabs (who first arrived in the eighth century) come in numbers to enjoy the economic boom.
The Arabs have refused a two-state solution at least six times since 1935. War and refugees in 1948 would not have occurred if the Arabs had not stated a war. In 1967, a war was forced upon us, and though we offered to return all conquered land in return for peace, the offer was refused. Prior to ’67, there were no Jewish settlers — and no peace, either.
Now, Mr. Chabon, if you can reconcile these two views you are far more able than all our presidents since Harry Truman.
Martin L. Engel | Piedmont
Educator’s legacy goes beyond one local school
The April 28 article by Alix Wall about Farkas Center founder Jim McGarry (“Catholic educator makes survivors’ stories his life mission”) only briefly referred to the Helen and Joe Farkas Center for the Study of the Holocaust in Catholic Schools at Mercy High School in San Francisco, Jim’s legacy.
As a member of the Farkas Center board since its inception, I know how grateful the center is for J.’s coverage of our events over the years. Our signature program has been the annual Courage and Spirit speakers series, during which every day for two weeks, Jim brought different survivors to Mercy to speak about their experiences in the Holocaust.
What was omitted is that Jim made the same survivors available to teachers in other Catholic schools. Thus, thousands of Catholic schoolchildren over the years have been able to hear oral histories from the survivors themselves, students who otherwise might not have access.
I understand that the focus in Ms. Wall’s article was on Jim and not on the center, whose mission is, in part, “to honor Holocaust survivors and to bring them together with today’s students,” and to “connect this difficult history to how we act locally and globally today so that the slogan ‘Never again!’ can become a reality for all peoples.” In a world full of religious prejudice, hatred and xenophobia, it must be refreshing for your readers to learn about an organization like the Farkas Center at Mercy High School.
Miriam Zimmerman | Belmont
Professor emerita, Notre Dame de Namur University
SFSU president’s naivete is unsettling
Implicit in the notion of a “teachable moment” is the belief that a lesson had to be learned, as San Francisco State University President Les Wong wrote in his May 6 op-ed (“S.F. State and a teachable moment”). The idea that, in 2016, Wong was unaware of the existence, intolerance and ferocity of SFSU’s anti-Israel movement simply defies credulity.
In 2013, the General Union of Palestine Students at SFSU — which receives university funding, according to the Amcha Initiative campus watchdog group — provided students with stencils for making signs saying, “My heroes have always killed colonizers,” meaning Israelis.
Also, the GUPS SFSU president posted a picture online of himself holding a large knife, captioned, “I love this blade … just holding it makes me want to stab an Israeli soldier.” In another post, he said he wanted to decapitate a female Israeli soldier.
Did Wong think these threats were a joke?
Nor were those isolated incidents. “Israel Apartheid Week” is an annual anti-Semitic hate-fest at SFSU. GUPS thugs have a history of disrupting Israel Independence Day celebrations and pro-Israel speaker events.
One would have to be willfully ignorant to be surprised by the anti-Israel mob that shouted down Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat in April. It is inexcusable for a university president in California to profess such naivete as to find in an eruption of anti-Semitism a “teachable moment.” That lesson should have been learned long ago!
Stephen A. Silver | San Francisco
Jews need fighting skills to defend themselves
Since I moved to San Francisco five years ago, I have heard a great deal about how the Jewish students at San Francisco State University have been spat upon and physically intimidated or assaulted.
Fresh in our minds is the recent rumpus there, when the mayor of Jerusalem tried to speak. Not surprisingly, the campus police were there but failed to act. Why don’t the Jewish students do something? What a shanda (disgrace)!
I grew up in a low-class, anti-Semitic part of New York City, the sole Jewish kid on the block. My father instructed me to beat up others when they said anything negative about Jews, a daily occurrence which started when I was 5 or 6. Taunts of “Christ killer” or “Jew b—d” were hurled at me whenever I left the house, and I did what was expected of me. I soon became the toughest kid in the neighborhood, often asked to protect the other youngsters leaving the after-school Hebrew school classes.
Why aren’t Jewish children and young adults instructed in self-defense and martial arts like I was?
The ZOA provides lessons in Krav Maga, an easy form of self-defense taught to Israelis when they enter the military. I have been attacked during the daytime half a dozen times since arriving here. Despite my age — 70 — I left each of the street thugs writhing in pain on the ground with only one strike. With the huge amounts of money given by the Jewish community, surely some can be given to Jews of all ages to teach them to defend themselves.
Stephen Karetzky | San Francisco