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Friday October 19, 2007

Letters

Neglected novel

Amy Klein does a nice roundup (“When Abraham met Sarah,” Oct. 12), but appears to have missed one of my favorites, Joseph Heller’s King David memoir, “God Knows.”

The book opens with the unforgettable line: “Abishag the Shunammite washes her hands, powders her arms, removes her robe, and approaches my bed to lie down on top of me … “ and also includes David’s evaluation of his most famous kid as not being very bright. “He really was going to cut the baby in half.”

Barry D. Bayer | Homewood

JNF ‘shock’l

I was in shock a few days ago when I heard from Israel TV that the propert purchased by the JNF for settlement will be on sale not only for Jews but to Arabs as well.

JNF was founded in 1901 by the Third Zionist Congress. The fund collects money with blue boxes. The property was purchased with the money contributed from Jews in the Diaspora. I lived in the Republic of Moldavia and every month the Zionist organization sent me to open the blue boxes and collect the money.

In the Diaspora Jews lived very poor, but for the JNF no one withheld donating money. How irresponsible it is of Israel’s leaders to have the intention to sell the property acquired by Jewish tzedakah funds. I think if JNF will sell the property, the Jews who donated the money have the moral right to demand the money back.

Khaim Sayfer | San Francisco

Dishonoring victimsl

As if the incendiary canards lobbed by Walt and Mearsheimer were not bad enough, now the authors are being quoted in numerous media outlets saying that “U.S. support for Israel’s brutal treatment of the Palestinians relates to what happened on Sept. 11.”

If I may be so bold as to say, “Hogwash!”

Even bin Laden has failed to link the Palestinian issue to his list of grievances leading to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. I’ve seen a lot of cheap publicity stunts in my day but this one takes the cake.

Now we are left with two of America’s supposed most preeminent political scientists to make the claim. Is there no end to their chutzpah? Blame the victim and you are sure to get some cheap press.

Argue all you want about the plight of the Palestinians but 9/11 was based on a twisted, inauthentic view of Islam and not out of any altruistic attempt to make up for supposed brutal treatment of Palestinians by Israel or to chastise the U.S. for its legitimate, strong support of Israel.

Walt and Mearsheimer’s latest screed is sadistic and twisted and dishonors the memories of those who perished that day and since.

Steve Lipman | Foster City

A legacy of caringl

No no, tell me it’s not true. I am seriously bummed that Woody Weingarten is leaving j. I love j./the Jewish Bulletin and have for decades. I have always felt that we are very lucky to have the best Jewish journalists in the country working at j. Thank you Woody, Marc Klein, Nora Contini and others. I have read every word of the paper, every Friday afternoon for, don’t tell anyone, 45 years. Woody has shown great compassion for the community and the newspaper glows from his good judgment.

I think Woody and others were a key part of what I call a tipping point of “Holocaust consciousness.” Working with survivors and their testimonies for nearly two decades, I heard thousands of survivors say, “No one cared.” But in 1993-94, “Schindler’s List” came out, the Holocaust Memorial and the Simon Wiesenthal Center opened, oral history projects flourished and j. journalists decided that they would truly never let us forget the Holocaust. I think we witnessed a transition from massive disinterest in the Holocaust to what we see now, when the Holocaust has taken their rightful place in world history. Now everyone cares, just like Woody and j. have from the start.

Lani Silver | San Francisco

Best wishesl

Let me add my thoughts to the articles printed about Woody Weingarten’s retirement from j. I write this letter, as I occasionally do, in my unorthodox style that, nonetheless, always comes from my heart.

Beside my belief that you are more to me than just the managing editor of your paper, I am certain that all who have come in contact with you feel the same way.

I am convinced that your retirement is not because of age, for looking at it in

today’s way: Age 70 is just the beginning of middle age.

J. needs your expertise and excellence of contribution.

Should a new guy replace you, work with him or her for the next 10 years to make certain that he or she appreciates what it means to be the managing editor of j. (I try, of course, to make light of what hurts.)

I personally will miss your verbally expressed reasons for not printing some of my letters to the editor.

I wish you health and happiness and may all your future wishes come true.

I was always proud to let anybody know that you were my friend and the respect I felt for you.

Gershon Evan | San Francisco

Who’s a Jew?

I — and I would imagine most Jews knowledgeable about our religion — am offended by Mordechai Pelta’s Aug. 17 letter which flatly states that Karaites are not Jews.

In fact, whether Karaites are or are not Jews is a matter of long and loud debate, going back centuries if not millennia, and is a matter of community-by-community minhag (custom).

In some times and places Karaites and “rabbinic” Jews could intermarry without conversion; in other times and places the authorities required conversion.

The fact that Karaite Jews do not accept the authority of the oral law does not automatically make them non-Jews. By that definition the majority of Jews in America and Israel are not Jews.

David Philips | Seal Beach

A comparison

David Harris (Aug. 30 j. view) wisely counsels that “in a perfect world, Armenian and Turkish historians would sit together and review the archival material, debate differences, and seek a common understanding of the past” as regards the 1915 deaths of large numbers of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. I would suggest that this same advice is just as relevant to the events surrounding the creation of the state of Israel and the co-occurring dislocation of large numbers of Palestinians.

At present, each side’s narrative of what happened almost 60 years ago is totally different, so much so that one’s personal comprehension of the events ends up of necessity being a choice of beliefs rather than a recital of impartially vetted historical knowledge.

It will be hard for the parties to thresh out a principled political solution to the conflict without some commonality of view regarding the circumstances of how they got there.

Steven Tulsky | San Rafael

More members

Just to let you know that the quoted number of households cited in the Aug. 30 j. story about our synagogue is quite out of date. We are now at 721, not 660, and due to Rabbi Dennis Eisner’s outreach we are getting on average three calls a day to discuss membership.

He is a great asset, not only to us but to the community as a whole.

And thank you for the very positive article.

Celia Maurice | San Mateo

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