Get rid of CalPERS
In a forceful editorial (“CalPERS must comply with Iran divestment law,” April 16), your newspaper says that “CalPERS [the California Public Employees’ Retirement System] has openly flouted the law” by refusing to comply with state legislation — legislation that prohibits CalPERS from investing in companies doing business in Iran.
No rational person would want to invest in Iran, which has a regime that wants to destroy Israel and denies the occurrence of the Holocaust.
However, the main problem with CalPERS is that is an incompetent investor. Between the end of June and Oct. 10, 2008, CalPERS assets declined by more than 20 percent (the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 23, 2008).
On Feb. 24, 2010, the Wall Street Journal reported that CalPERS made bad investments in Manhattan’s Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town. These investments, according to the Journal, “involved ousting low-rent tenants.”
On April 4, 2010, SFGate.com, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle, reported that California Treasurer Bill Lockyer called CalPERS a “system that invites corruption.”
CalPERS should be abolished. Let CalPERS members do their own investing.
By getting rid of CalPERS, there will be no controversies about an unruly and obnoxious government organization that invests in Iran and loses massive amounts of money.
Richard S. Colman | Orinda
Anti-Semitism is a loaded term
Yitzhak Santis, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council’s Middle East Project, made a valuable contribution in his April 16 letter regarding the Sabeel conference.
Mr. Santis corrected the sweeping condemnation of “every speaker” at the conference attributed to him by j., granting that there were “notable exceptions,” including a workshop leader who “made a sincere attempt to address anti-Semitism and how anti-Semitism is sometimes wrongly put to use in discussions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
I made two presentations on anti-Semitism at the conference. I appreciate Mr. Santis’ statement and write to underline its significance.
Anti-Semitism has played a critical role in creating the conditions for this conflict. The Zionist movement was a direct response to European anti-Semitism. Our community’s then-vigorous debate about Zionism was abruptly halted by the Shoah.
Additionally, anti-Semitism, as Mr. Santis understatedly puts it, is “sometimes wrongly put to use in discussions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Unquestionably, anti-Semitism does arise in this context. However, it is equally true that our most thoughtful gentile allies can be wrongly tarred with this brush. The facile charge of anti-Semitism halts debate and therefore impedes a solution. We should think, and think again, before we employ this loaded term.
Glen Hauer | Berkeley
U.C. senate finally got it right
Thanks are due to the courageous staff at Berkeley Hillel and our own local JCRC, among others, for leading the charge against the anti-Israel divestment measure recently passed by the ASUC Senate. Thanks, also to ASUC President Will Smelko for his veto of this odious, one-sided and hurtful divestment measure.
The facts are irrefutable; targeting Israel unfairly does nothing to further the academic reputation of a great university like Berkeley and needlessly poisons the atmosphere of discussion and thoughtful discourse for students across campus and around the U.C. system. Shame on those that proposed such a hateful and lopsided resolution and thanks to those student leaders who saw how unfair their initial votes were and changed their votes leading to the defeat of this measure.
As an alumnus of the U.C. system, I followed this issue with great interest and I am glad that finally the ASUC senate appears to have finally done the right thing. Like Dracula I suppose the resolution isn’t quite dead until the wooden stake is pounded through its heart, but in the end it appears that the right outcome was obtained and at least for now the community can breathe a sigh of relief.
Steve Lipman | Foster City
Thanks to organizers of South Bay event
I want to take a moment to commend the organizers of the Yom HaZikaron ceremony at the Flint Center in Cupertino last Sunday evening, April 18, for taking great efforts to make the ceremony accessible to non-Hebrew speakers.
I was able to easily follow along with the printed Hebrew/English booklet. I felt welcome and felt I too could access the drama and importance of the moment. Yet I don’t think it compromised the intrinsically Israeli nature of the ceremony.
I felt honored to participate in this event with our wonderful Silicon Valley Israeli community.
Bobby Lent | Hillsborough
Attendance too small
This past Sunday, April 18, I attended a Holocaust Remembrance event at the Holocaust Memorial in Lincoln Park near the palace of Legion of Honor.
This year, as in the past 15-plus years, the Greater San Francisco Lodge No. 21 of B’nai B’rith read some of the names of some of the 6 million victims of the Holocaust. The names are provided by B’nai B’rith international, courtesy of Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Israel.
This was a very meaningful event for me, and it’s a shame that the event was not well-attended except for a few politicians, clergy and members of AEPi fraternity at San Francisco State University.
Perhaps next year, religious schools, youth groups, etc. could also benefit from this event.
While the memory of the Holocaust is a difficult one, it is important that the current and future generations do not forget what happened.
We must never forget!
Rob Ruby | Fairfax