Britain’s history of hating Jews
No one should be surprised about British anti-Semitism appearing in the wake of the June 23 British referendum over leaving the European Union (“British Jews worry that Brexit vote has unleashed bigots,” July 8).
Britain has a long history of hating Jews. In 1189-1190, Jews in York, England, were massacred. In 1290, King Edward I expelled the Jews from England. Oliver Cromwell in 1655 let them back in.
So far, no major group in Britain has blamed the outcome of the June 23 referendum on the Jews, British or otherwise. But Jews should not be surprised if some entity blames the Jews for the recent fall of the British pound, the turbulence on British stock markets and the anti-immigrant fervor now gripping Britain.
Richard S. Colman | Orinda
Elie Wiesel, witness against the enemy of indifference
Re: “Never shall we forget Elie Wiesel, 1928-2016” (July 8), Elie Wiesel wrote about the Holocaust, Judaism and many other subjects in beautiful prose with searing honesty and deep introspection. He survived Auschwitz and then told its harrowing story to the world, through his books and, ultimately, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which is a part of his legacy.
As prolific and eloquent a writer and storyteller as he was, Wiesel was less a chronicler of the Holocaust than the personification of the Shoah survivor. Just as Anne Frank — young, precocious and irrepressibly optimistic about human nature even in the face of genocide — symbolizes the Holocaust victim, Wiesel — wounded beyond measure, struggling to reconcile his faith with his experiences, yet unbowed and resilient — became the embodiment of those who lived through it. It is remarkable that the two were born less than a year apart, because it is as difficult to imagine Frank in her old age as it is to envision Wiesel in his youth, so great a toll did the Holocaust take on him. For the rest of his life, he carried on his shoulders the unimaginable burden of personally assuring that the 6 million Jews who were murdered in the Shoah would be remembered.
Though soft-spoken and frail in appearance, Wiesel became a powerful champion of human rights, an advocate for Israel and the Jewish people, and the conscience of the world. Yet more than anything, Wiesel considered himself a witness against humanity’s most insidious enemy, indifference. He once told me: “We must all be witnesses to memory.”
With Wiesel’s passing, the world is truly diminished, one of its greatest moral voices now silenced. The burden of witnessing and perpetuating memory now falls to us.
Stephen A. Silver | San Francisco
Emigres got ‘soft landing,’ top education at Hebrew Academy
When my family and I moved to San Francisco in 1979, arrivals in the community from the USSR were at their peak. The émigrés had many, many adjustments to make. One of them was their children’s education. San Francisco public schools, like most urban school systems of the day, and even now, were troubled. From a Russian Jewish parent’s point of view, even though they fled the anti-Semitism there, the Soviet schools were better.
Hebrew Academy, bolstered by financial and moral support from the community, especially the Jewish Community Federation, provided an alternative and a “soft landing” into the American system and provided a quality Jewish education the students’ parents had been denied.
Rabbi Pinchas Lipner’s vision and hard work resulted in generations of Jewishly knowledgeable students who went on to great success in higher education and their professions. This is a time to be thankful for Rabbi Lipner’s good works and to pray for his recovery.
Greg Smith | San Francisco
Leaving the land of unicorns
Yet another misguided column from the J Street crowd — this one from Molly Freeman, an idealist who appears to have never read a recent PLO website or listened to one of its speakers (“Spoon-fed Middle East ‘realities’ do not give full picture of conflict,” July 8).
Yes, it would be lovely if all parties in the Middle East could see the “humanity” in the other and move on to the business of coming up with a solution. However, when one party to the dispute (Mahmoud Abbas) has the temerity to accuse rabbis of poisoning West Bank water supplies, celebrates suicide bombers as “martyrs” and can’t bring himself to display an accurate map of the region in his headquarters (Israel appears to be “missing”), I’m afraid we must leave the land of unicorns and deal with the ugly reality on the ground.
These are not people who respond to decency and logic. They embrace a fanatic, spiteful, self-defeating mindset that is held in check only by the strength of Israel’s military might. Time to grow up.
David L. Levine, M.D. | San Francisco
The facts don’t add up
Your July 8 JTA article “Israel authorizes 1,400 new homes for West Bank” reports that it was “primarily in response to the rash of Palestinian attacks … since September 2015.” The U.N. secretary-general condemned the action. Every American president, Democrat and Republican alike, has officially stated that the settlements are the greatest obstacle to peace. Joe Biden, in a recent address to J Street, expressed “overwhelming frustration” with the Israeli government’s obstruction to a two-state solution. In the final days leading up to Netanyahu’s re-election, he made the campaign promise that there would never be a Palestinian state while he was prime minister.
When is America going to realize that Israel’s current trajectory is not aligned with America’s interests? The U.S. gives Israel $3.1 billion a year in military aid (about $500 for every man, woman and child). Biden said this represents 20 percent of Israel’s defense budget. What are we getting for our money? In the last assault on Gaza, there were 1,500 Palestinian civilian deaths (some 500 of them children), representing 67 percent of the total. Fewer than 70 Israelis died, five of them civilians, representing about 7 percent of the total, according to figures on gazadeathtoll.org. These facts do not support the view of Israel as an indispensible ally against terrorism in the Middle East.
John Lovejoy | Corte Madera