Do your homework and push back
You ask an important question in your editorial “U.C. Berkeley vote serves as a reminder to push back” (April 2), which is “What can the Jewish community do to effectively push back?” The answer is to educate ourselves.
There are so few of us who adamantly believe in the right of Jews to have a Jewish state in the land of our historic beginnings, who actually know a bit of history and who are willing to advocate. We spend too much of our precious time and resources fighting our fellow Jews who have accepted the Arab narrative without doing their own homework.
Too many Jews are weighing in regardless of knowledge, joining any organization that has the word “peace” in the title. Jews are failing to consider such things as Muslims already have 56 states — 22 of them Arab; there were 900,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands; Arabs were recent immigrants into Jewish mandate Palestine too; Muslims and Arabs jail anyone critical of their policies — we don’t.
The Palestinian Authority is educating the next generation that Jews have no historic ties to this land, and we are trying to educate ours for “peace.” Good luck to us.
Sheree Roth | Palo Alto
Neighborhoods are not settlements
Israel possesses east Jerusalem since winning it in the war of 1967, just as Jordan did after winning it in the war of 1947. East Jerusalem was never Palestinian land.
When Jordan controlled Jerusalem for 20 years it prevented Jews from entering the Old City and going to the Western Wall, it destroyed all the synagogues, it damaged gravestones in Jewish cemeteries.
Israel for the past 40 years has allowed all religions to visit their holy sites in Jerusalem, subject to security restraints when needed.
Dore Gold, in “The Fight for Jerusalem,” documented the connection of Jews to Jerusalem for the past 3,000 years. He concluded about Israel and Jerusalem: “No other state or international body can truly protect the peace, freedom and religious pluralism of the Holy City for all mankind.”
The Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem are well established, with large populations that have needs for remodeling and other construction that should be permitted. They should never have been called settlements. This is the reality, as we conclude our seder with “next year in Jerusalem.”
Norman Licht | San Carlos
Follow Sharansky’s example
Many Jewish leaders are saying that Israel has no choice but to bow to U.S. demands on Jerusalem, because Israel is in a weak position and dependent on American support.
This reminds me of Natan Sharansky, when he was a prisoner in Soviet Russia, incarcerated for trying to win the right of Soviet Jews to immigrate to Israel. He too was in a weak position, totally dependent on his jailors, who had absolute power over his life. Yet he flatly refused to cooperate with them, and stood firm against every threat and every bribe designed to make him compromise his principles. He emerged from prison triumphantly, his integrity intact, an inspiration to millions.
Israel’s leaders should learn from Sharansky, define their bedrock principles, and not deviate from them regardless of external pressures. The first principle should be that the land of Israel is the eternal homeland of the Jewish nation and of no other nation, that not one inch of it will be surrendered voluntarily, and that there will be no shared sovereignty in any part of it. An unwavering commitment to principle will produce much better long-term results than the current policy of piecemeal compromise, retreat and surrender.
Martin Wasserman | Sunnyvale
Don’t mix issues
Keeping kosher must be “livable” (“Rabbi to address new kosher seal, ‘livable kashrut’ at PJCC,” Feb. 12)? Shouldn’t it be about keeping kosher because that is what HaShem wants Jews to do?
Rabbi Morris Allen knows very well from growing up in an Orthodox community that not all families keep the same kosher standards. Did he feel isolated from his neighbors who kept a stricter kashrus in their homes? Or did he feel a sense of solidarity with them because they all kept kosher, at least to some degree? And wouldn’t all Jews feel a sense of unity with another if we all kept kosher?
If Rabbi Allen’s hechsher does actually begin appearing on food products, won’t his followers only buy products with his hechsher? What kind of kashrus is that?
Social action is a very good thing, and very much in the Jewish tradition. But to mix it up with kashrus is wrong. If you want to fight for workers’ rights, that’s great. But don’t tie that in with the holiness of keeping kosher.
Rabbi Allen is trying to make keeping kosher about immigrants’ rights and having a greener environment among other things.
Kashrus is one thing and social action issues are something else.
Elizabeth Weisberg
Minneapolis, Minn.
One problem at a time
In Gerardo Joffe’s letter in the March 19 issue (“NIF is no friend of Israel”) he states, “the problem of Israel is not that ‘its democracy is under attack,’ but that it is under constant attack by virtually all Muslims, who harbor an unquenchable death wish for Israel.”
Mr. Joffe has figured it out: One only has to worry about one serious problem at a time. Somebody should tell President Obama that he can ignore America’s angry ultra-right-wingers arming themselves to the teeth and openly talking of sedition and assassination — our only problem is al Qaida!
What a relief!
Katherine Folk | Oakland