Free to distort?
Thanks to Cindy Ross for attending the talk by Alison Weir (Feb. 17 j.).
Weir claimed to provide accurate information about the Israeli-Palestinian issue but presented inaccurate, distorted information.
I have been following Weir and other Israel-bashing speakers, including many Middle East professors from our illustrious universities, for a few years now.
Sometimes I am alone in an audience speaking up for Israel. Sometimes a few of us come to listen and ask questions. Speakers are pushing the Palestinian narrative to our neighbors and kids in universities, community centers, newspapers, religious institutions, etc.
These speakers have every right to peddle their views. But if they are the only ones speaking, unchallenged, then freedom of free speech only serves to perpetuate lies and distortions.
We must educate ourselves on this issue of such importance to Jews. Pick up a copy of Alan Dershowitz’s “The Case for Israel” for starters. Join your synagogue Israel Action groups. Attend speeches from both sides of the issue. Ask questions.
Our Jewish community organizations bring many good speakers to counter the Israel detractors. Support them. We must listen, learn and make some free speech of our own.
Sheree Roth | Palo Alto
No ‘Jewish lobby’
I’d like to commend the reviewer of my recent speech in Fairfax for getting one point right: Israeli forces kill Palestinian children (approximately 700 since the intifada began — almost six times more than the Israeli children tragically killed during this period).
Unfortunately, that’s about it. Rather than address each strange distortion, I will mainly point readers to the many articles I have written on Israel-Palestine at www.ifamericansknew.org and invite them to a future presentation.
I must, however, ask for a retraction of one particular phrase. I did not, do not, and have never spoken of “the Jewish lobby.”
While the author may wish to blame all Jewish Americans for the organizations that work on behalf of Israel-right-or-wrong, I consistently meet Jewish Americans (and Israelis) who oppose Israeli atrocities. The phrase that I feel is correct, and therefore employ, is “the pro-Israel lobby.”
Regarding the author’s remarks concerning the event: It is unfortunate that she was uncomfortable that the gathering included African Americans and foreigners, and that it was held near a mosque. Perhaps she was even more uncomfortable that some of those correcting her errors were Jewish — maybe that’s why she forgot to mention this fact.
Alison Weir | Los Angeles
Not demons
I am one of those Palo Alto Jews who opposed an eruv energetically — a 20-year resident and proud Jew that Rabbi Yitzchok Feldman and j. writer Joe Eskenazi find so incomprehensible and worthy of contempt (Feb. 17 “Wire to wire”).
Considering that j. devoted three pages and a cover to the subject of eruvs, including 17 inches to the Palo Alto portion, you could have spoken to and quoted one person about why we opposed the eruv. Instead, you described us with sarcastic quotation marks as ignorant “concerned citizens” engaged in a “wicked onslaught of Not-In-My-Back-Yard activism,” and threw in a reference to a quack anti-Semitic Web page.
This is neither a fair nor accurate portrayal. Feldman’s bitterness is understandable, but demeaning his political opponents as irrational and ignorant of Jewish law is contemptible. It also helps explain the opposition to his endeavors.
As for j., is it too much to ask that one group of Jews not be demonized simply because it disagrees with another?
Dr. Marty Klein | Palo Alto
Berkeley ghetto?
Rabbi Yair Silverman, don’t we have enough problems without your eruv mania (Feb. 17 “Wire to wire” cover story)?
While you are at it, why don’t you encircle Berkeley with barbed wire and call it a ghetto? You could walk through the restricted area to your heart’s content on Sabbath or any other day provided you don’t allow non-Jews in your sacred area.
Besides, what did we do during biblical times when we did not have any wires? I suppose we had to use wireless eruvs. Now there is a thought for you.
Bud Zimmerman | San Francisco