Abandoned Jews
I was outraged to read what was written in your March 10 letters to the editor, as well as a recent article in the Jerusalem Post, about the Ethiopian Jews that the Israeli government and Jewish Agency have abandoned in Addis Ababa.
This is a national disgrace.
If most American Jews cared as they should about the Jews of Ethiopia, then they would boycott donating to the Jewish Agency and buying Israel bonds until both institutions get it in their heads that either they apply the same standards to people who actually want to be practicing Jews, just as they did with 250,000 people who they brought from the former Soviet Union who admitted their only connection with Judaism was having a Jewish grandparent.
Here, Jews do not want to admit it — as opposed to in Israel where people are more blunt — but this is racism, pure and simple. I went to law school and all of the excuses are just counter-arguments and babble.
Mordechai Pelta | San Francisco
2 core values
The JCRC membership’s overwhelming approval of a statement in favor of same-sex civil marriage (March 3 j.) is not surprising because, fundamentally, it is a very Jewish statement.
It reflects two of Judaism’s most precious core values: love of family and love of justice. In its efforts not only to obtain the rights but to assume the obligations of marriage, the gay and lesbian community has demonstrated its own love of family.
Its struggle for equality has been about the right take on traditional family commitments — to support and nurture children, to use commingled financial assets for mutual benefit, to care for each other in times of illness.
The JCRC, by consensus, recognized that a “separate but equal” (aka different and lesser) marital status for gay and lesbian couples would relegate them and their families to legal and social second-class citizenship.
Advocating for nothing less than bona fide marital status is in keeping with the basic Jewish value of striving toward and seeking to bring about justice.
Holly Ullman | Stanford
Film Fest protest
A film accusing Israel of planning the massacre of Muslim Arabs by Christian Arabs in Lebanon in 1982; a film condemning Israel’s separation barrier without considering the terror attacks that led to its construction, and blaming Palestinian Arab violence against women on the Israeli occupation; a film that glowingly profiles an Israeli woman in a kaffiyeh who runs a children’s theater group in Jenin while she encourages violence against Israel (and indeed four of her students go on to become suicide bombers).
Where were these films seen? At a fund-raiser for al Awda or the International Solidarity Movement? No, they were featured at the 2005 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
A Feb. 17 letter in j. has led to the formation of a new group interested in constructive engagement with the SFJFF on this issue. We seek to expand the astonishingly narrow perspective on Israel presented at recent festivals. Let’s help to ensure that the 2006 film festival displays the good and bad of Israel, honestly, fairly, and in context.
Film selections are due to be made
in the very near future. Please join the discussion by joining the Yahoo
group FilmFestProtest: http://groups.
yahoo.com/group/FilmFestProtest.
Michael Harris | San Rafael
‘Forums for enemies’
J. reports Cindy Sheehan has made “purported” statements against Israel? Sheehan’s various anti-Israel statements are easily found on the Internet. Remember the letter to ABC’s Nightline? “Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC neo-con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel.”
In the Aug. 9, 2005 issue of Counterpunch, Sheehan is quoted as saying, “You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you’ll stop the terrorism.”
It is an embarrassment but not surprising that Sheehan was an honored guest at yet another Bay Area Jewish community center (March 10 j.). I never cease asking why the organized Jewish community bends over backward to create forums for the enemies of Israel and the Jewish people.
I wonder when the Peace and Justice Centers or Barbara Lubin will invite Benjamin Netanyahu as their featured and honored speaker.
Lisa Cohen | Menlo Park
A fraud?
As a mother, and having a son who is serving in the Nachal Haredi unit in Israel fighting terrorism, I understand what it is like to have a child involved in war.
I pray for my son’s safe return, and mourn Cindy Sheehan’s loss. However, she is being disingenuous when she states she does not have ties to anti-Israel groups (March 10 j.). Her involvement not only with the Gold Star Families for Peace but with ANSWER, SUSTAIN and traveling with ex-CIA agent Ray McGovern proves her statements false.
Code Pink, another good friend of Sheehan, has links on its pages against Israel and the “illegal occupation.”
One should be judged by the company one keeps. If you go to any of the abovementioned Web sites, look at their links and pictures. You can see for yourself.
Until Sheehan purges herself from these “human rights groups” who advocate for a one-state solution, she should not be invited to speak on any bimah in any synagogue.
When David Duke of the KKK endorses her, buyer beware! While I am all for dialogue, I dialogue with people who at least honest. Sheehan has proven herself to be a fraud.
Allyson Rowen Taylor | Valley Glen
Boycott boycotters
Since Columbia, Tufts and Duke all have active divestment campaigns, let’s start our own boycott and divestment campaign — no Jewish students to enroll or re-enroll in these colleges.
They all have heavy Jewish enrollments, and they would surely notice when they start losing students. Charge!
Marion R. Colton | Daly City
Uncle Mickey
I enjoyed Joanne Hartman’s March 10 column and thought I’d share an experience. When I was a freshman at Cal in the ’50s, newly arrived from the East Coast, I got friendly with a pledge to my fraternity visiting from the UCLA chapter. He invited me to stay at his home when I would come to Los Angeles for a football game.
I did, and he lived in a beautiful home in Brentwood a few doors away from Jane Powell. His parents owned a luncheonette across from L.A. City College. He talked a lot about his Uncle Mickey, in whose flower shop he worked.
That night at a party at this home, the phone rang and I answered it to a gruff voice asking me who the hell I was. I answered and asked who he was. He said: Al’s uncle Mickey, and did I know who he was. I really didn’t and handed the phone to one of the local guys, who whispered, “It’s Mickey Cohen.”
My one and only contact with the Jewish gangsters.
Incidentally, Ben Hecht — in his book “Child of the Century” — details some of the support that Mickey gave the founding of Israel.
Jon Levinson | San Carlos
Jewish mobsters
Jews were very involved in the mob back when (March 10 j.). One of the biggest mobsters of all was Maier Suchowljansky, better known as Meyer Lansky, a Jew from Grodno, Poland. Lansky helped put Cuba on the map as a destination resort. He controlled a huge empire of illegal activities over a period of four decades in the mid-20th century. When the U.S. government went after him for tax evasion in the ’70s, he tried to make aliyah but was denied for obvious reasons.
More than a few immigrant Jews who grew up in the tough neighborhoods in New York were associated with the mob, either directly or indirectly. Some actually participated in illegal activities (and ran them such as Lansky and his gang). Others had legal jobs and businesses which were bankrolled by the Italian mob.
For the Jews it was a way to get started in business since few banks would lend them money, and for the gangsters it was a way for them to look like they ran legitimate businesses. The rag trade — the huge (at one time) N.Y. dress business — was one of the most common and prominent.
Anne Fuchs-Chesney | San Francisco
‘Offensive’ column
The March 10 column by Joanne Catz Hartman about so-called Jewish gangsters on Alcatraz was offensive. Imagine the family of any Jewish prisoner anywhere reading this very cutesy piece.
I actually know a family who had a relative at Alcatraz. They suffer to this day — from humiliation, shame and lack of understanding. And now to read an article that compares criminology to football is just insensitive and very immature sounding.
If the columnist is so interested in Jews at Alcatraz, or any other prison for that matter, then do the research and then posture intelligently about facts, instead of what I read as making fun of a group of Jews who may have broken the law.
I find taking what is a very serious issue for one person and making it into something tongue-in-cheek by another as inappropriate journalism, especially given that the subject matter was cloaked in a quest for Jewish knowledge.
Sherri Morr | San Francisco
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