We can all get along
This January, something extraordinary happened in Palo Alto. For the first time in Bay Area history, a Jewish and Muslim majority audience of 357 people came together for an evening focused on peaceful coexistence and intercommunal unity. In today’s political climate, this is no small feat.
Called UnityJam, this powerful benefit concert brought together Jewish and Muslim musicians to support nonprofits Abraham’s Vision and the Salman & Samina Global Wellness Initiative. Headlined by Pakistani Sufi rocker and U.N. Goodwill Ambassador Salman Ahmad, tabla player Muhammad Saleem, and klezmer duo Elizabeth Schwartz and Yale Strom, the night’s music ranged from a funky “Hava Negillah” to a rocked-out athan (Muslim call to prayer), from Punjabi ballads to Chassidic niggunim. Between songs, Jewish and Muslim students from Abraham’s Vision’s conflict transformation programs spoke about their positive visions for the future.
Given the fact that Jews and Muslims commonly understand one another in light of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is important that people know about events like UnityJam. It is not often one sees a room packed with kippot and hijabs (Muslim head coverings) where college students and septuagenarians alike are dancing with one another, side by side.
Megan Martin | Daly City
Operations Associate
Abraham’s Vision
Yiddish fine points
I appreciated your recent article by Dan Pine regarding the Palo Alto Yiddish Festival (“Mamaloshen alive and well at Palo Alto’s Yiddish Culture Festival,” Feb. 5). However, it lacks important information because it appears to suggest that the only two dialects in Yiddish are Galician and Lithuanian (and even these basic terms were not translated for the unfamiliar reader).
Until 1942, the main Yiddish dialect was central Polish and not the ones in the article. Every distinct region of Europe had its own dialect that developed over time. The article lacked this information and I would have appreciated more of that discussion for my own education on the subject.
Mordechai Pelta | San Francisco
Undermining Israel
Rabbi Chaim Schneider’s letter on J Street (Feb. 5) is anathema to the prevailing mood and view of the majority of Israel’s citizens and its elected government.
What a hypocrisy — a Torah teacher, who lives safely in the USA, is telling Israel’s citizens that their security, collective will and government policy need to change to meet his notion of political correctness, so he and his ilk will “feel good” about Israel … Never mind Israel’s security, eight wars of survival and sacrifices; forget the 15,000 Katyushas and 8,000 Kassams landed on Israel’s homes; disregard the multitude of compromise offers rejected by the Palestinians.
Having just returned from a long visit to Israel, I can convey a sense of the mood ‘encountered there: a deep aversion to U.S. Mideast policy; a detest of Obama and his pressure on Israel to give in to Abbas’ unrelenting demands; and the feeling that a Jewish fifth column in the U.S. (J Street) and Israel (Peace Now) is cooperating with the enemy, undermining Israel’s standing in the world and demonizing the IDF and Israel in the Media.
With friends like Rabbi Schneider, J Street and NIF, Israel needs no enemies.
Sam Liron | Foster City
Beware of dishonest criticism
Israel is losing the war of public relations. Too many of Israel’s detractors engage in inaccurate, dishonest, indecent language about Israel. This dishonesty seriously contributes to a massive misunderstanding of Israel’s historical, legal and moral rights to the land. When Palestinians say, “It’s all Israel’s fault,” most representatives from the Israeli side just say, “They’re right.”
The drive to delegitimize Israel is succeeding. Israel is alone as a Jewish state in a sea of 56 Muslim states, 22 of them Arab. Israel has plenty of outside critics. While we must be sensitive to the right of groups like J Street to self-criticism, which ultimately is a good thing, we must remember that smothering intimidation prevents Arabs and Muslims from their own much-needed public self-criticism.
There are important books about illegal immigration of Arabs into Jewish-mandate Palestine, about the 900,000 Jews expelled from Arab lands, about Israel’s historical and biblical ties to the land, about Israel’s offers of peace and rejection. Heed what is being said and explore both sides. We must respond forcefully and knowledgably to our outside critics and especially to our internal critics — who claim Jewishness but parrot the Arab narrative and the Palestinian “cause.”
Sheree Roth | Palo Alto