Put some skin in the game
I am reading about the recent demonstrations on college campuses. It seems like the prevailing sentiment or central demand is that universities divest from companies linked to Israel or businesses that are “profiting off its war with Hamas.”
I respect what students are saying. I actively protested the Vietnam War. The best action we could take back then was to resist the draft and oppose Richard Nixon.
Just over 13 years ago, ever since it was disclosed that Chinese manufacturers used toxic chemicals in manufacturing kids toys and clothing, my family has boycotted purchasing Chinese-made consumer goods and clothing. It has been personally costly but certainly worth every extra penny spent.
That brings me to today. How can students convince universities and citizens convince their cities to divest from their investments related to Israel?
Are Berkeley students ready to put skin in the game? How will they boycott or divest? Are they willing to do any of the following:
- Stop buying life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical equipment invented in Israel?
- Stop buying less costly generic drugs made by Israeli manufacturer Teva?
- Stop buying or using apps, phones, computers, gaming technology invented in Israel like Waze, WhatsApp and Nvidia products?
Are concerned citizens like those in Hayward ready to put skin in the game? The Hayward City Council voted to divest funds from investments in Caterpillar, Chevron, Hyundai and Intel. Will the citizens of Hayward:
- Request that their home builders not use Caterpillar equipment?
- Stop buying Hyundai cars?
- Stop buying or using phones and computers that have “Intel Inside”?
I believe “skin in the game” is the way to get UC Berkeley and local city councils to take students and citizens seriously. Can students and citizens do it?
Of course, I believe there is a much better option. It is time to come together, move beyond the past and “give peace a chance” before the situation gets totally out of hand.
Mark Rabinovitz
Walnut Creek
Talk to real-life Jewish college students
Michael Harris’ letter (“Anti-Zionism is antisemitism,” April 19) regarding Rabbi Jay Michaelson’s editorial in the Forward is remarkable for its lack of data or firsthand evidence — and for an increasing tone of certainty. If people are genuinely interested in learning and ascertaining the veracity of claims regarding the actual dynamics of “antisemitism on college campuses,” they can engage with two data-driven approaches, one qualitative, the other quantitative, rather than simply repeating what they’ve “heard.”
First, consider spending your own time on a college campus, talking with actual, real-life Jewish students. Ask them what day-to-day reality feels like on their campus. Second, look at peer-reviewed, authentic rigorous studies of antisemitism conducted by experts. Studies by Tufts University professor Eithan Hersch are a great place to start.
Bruce Goldberg
Parent of a college student and Berkeley Hillel board member
Oakland
Stop daydreaming
Per the April 19 article “Tikkun Magazine will shut down after nearly 40 years” Rabbi Michael Lerner has not yet realized that being patronizing does not win people over. Anti-Israel (read anti-Jewish) sentiment, such as erroneously calling Israel an apartheid state, in a Jewish publication (albeit “progressive”) is self-destructive no matter how rational it seems to the writers or editors.
After the Oct. 7 massacre and Iran’s direct attack on Israel in mid-April, condemnation is not enough. It’s time to pay attention to our enemies’ words and actions. We have to stop daydreaming while the threat to Western society by this radical ideology is escalating.
Esther Fuks
San Francisco
Refusing annihilation
Before Jewish sovereignty was reborn in Israel, Hebron (where Jews have lived since Biblical times) was the scene of the most gruesome pogrom outside of Europe. In 1929, Muslim men with swords, clubs, axes and daggers went from Jewish house to Jewish house stabbing, raping, castrating and burning victims alive. Houses and synagogues were looted and torched.
That’s right, an Oct. 7 type of massacre happened nearly 100 years ago, demonstrating that murderous Arab Muslim rage against Jews has long existed independent of Israel.
In 1936 in Tiberias, armed Arabs murdered Jews, including children, and set fire to Jewish homes and the local synagogue. A representative of the British Mandate of Palestine said of the attack, “It was systematically organized and savagely executed.”
Clearly, before the reborn, sovereign State of Israel even existed, as well as now, Muslim leaders were determined to slaughter their Jewish neighbors without remorse and without regard for the fact that Jews have been continuously resident in Israel, often under occupation, since Biblical times. Currently, while rejecting peace, the Palestinian Authority actually pays generous pensions to those who murder Israeli civilians.
The Jewish people do not “elevate the suffering of our own people over that of all others,” but they do intend to survive. Israel realistically assesses the existential threat it has long faced and will act as it must to protect its future from intransigent Islamists who reject every peace offer. Peace is not what Hamas and the Palestinian Authority want. There is nothing “disproportionate” or “genocidal” about recognizing this and refusing to be annihilated.
Julia Lutch
Davis
Don’t blame Israel
In the op-ed “For my grandparents, Zionism was a dream. For my son, it’s oppression,” (April 26) Rabbi Dev Noily referred to the “brutality and injustice of the occupation,” which is misleading. Israel won the Six-Day War in 1967, which gave them control of the West Bank, previously controlled by Jordan. Later Israel gave administrative control of several cities there to the Palestinian Authority, but retained security control. This area was offered to the Palestinians for a state several times and was rejected. Therefore it is not an occupation, and it is also not brutal or unjust. Similarly Israel withdrew all Jews from Gaza in 2005, and look what Hamas created there. The Palestinians need to take responsibility for their future instead of blaming all their failures on Israel.
Norman G. Licht
Palo Alto
Our indigenous rights
Rabbi Dev Noily says that they “wrestled with Israel/Palestine” since their teens when they “first began to hear Palestinian narratives.” And they renounced their “right of return” to symbolically reject that they should have a “backup country” they’ve never called home, “while Palestinians have no access to, or freedom in, the lands their families have lived on for generations.”
It pains me that Noily fails to consider that the Palestinian narrative may not be entirely true. And that they do not stress the need for our people to be acquainted with our own Biblical, historical and legal ties to the land that we, the Jewish people, call home.
I am intrigued by Robert F. Kennedy’s observation back in 1948 in the Boston Post: “The Jews point with pride to the fact that over 500,000 Arabs in the 12 years between 1932 and 1944 came into Palestine to take advantage of living conditions existing in no other Arab state.”
I researched the subject of Arab immigration into Palestine, as I wish students today might do. If you are interested in what I learned, please read my 2016 essay in the Middle East Quarterly titled “Were the Arabs Indigenous to Mandatory Palestine?”
Muslims have scores of countries to call home. The Jewish people have one, Israel, the size of New Jersey. We should not be so eager to give it away, nor feel guilty for claiming our own indigenous rights to the land.
Sheree Roth
Palo Alto