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Friday October 26, 2007

Letters

Recognizing a holocaust

Any time we don’t recognize genocide we lay the groundwork for more. There’s no good reason to deny genocide, ever!

By international definition, what the Ottomans did to the Armenians during WWI was genocide.

Neither today’s Turks nor their government had anything to do with it. Today’s Germans are uncomfortable acknowledging the grandparents’ sins. We don’t hold them responsible for it; though we do insist that they acknowledge it happened, and thereby caution against the same mistake.

So Turkey’s sensitivity to this old charge is understandable. Yet it shouldn’t preclude recognizing both the old Ottoman sins and the modern Turkish distance from them.

We teach in our “Extremes of Hate: Holocaust Studies & Critical Thinking” program about the “Six Simple Steps from Discrimination to Extermination.” It’s all too easy and the path is well worn.

Santayana’s quote about those who fail to learn from the past being doomed to repeat it may seem hackneyed. That is, until you remember who said this: “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” — Adolf Hitler persuading his associates that a Jewish holocaust would be tolerated by the world.

Bart A. Charlow | San Jose president, Silicon Valley Conference for Community & Justice

An old story

In Ellen Horowitz’s op-ed piece, she castigates Ann Coulter for expressing her wish that non-Christians (like us) convert to Christianity. Horowitz has joined the legions of Jewish left-wingers who are “shocked, shocked” to discover that Christianity actually means it when it advocates conversion.

It is a core belief of religious Christians that people must accept their savior in order to be “saved.” Christianity has been proselytizing for a couple of millennia (I believe they claim it to be around 2007 years, even before Rupert Murdoch was born). Contrasted with some uncivilized and bloody periods of crusades and inquisitions, the past five centuries have seen mostly peaceful efforts of persuasion. As Christians it is their duty to persuade, and as Jews it is our duty to resist.

Chastising Coulter for proselytizing is like criticizing Jews for kashrus. In order to understand the critic’s motives, you have to look at what’s really going on. In Coulter’s case, her caustic, glib, entertaining and accurate zings at the left is what bugs them (like a conservative Don Rickles in a dress — now there’s an odd metaphor). Anyway, enjoy the humor or change the channel.

Art Zeidman | Walnut Creek

Promoting violence?

Saudi Arabia is running a private school in Fairfax County, Virginia which is suspected of offering a curriculum that promotes violence against Jews and Christians.

A federal panel has made requests to examine textbooks and other teaching material. The school has refused to comply with the request.

Acting Director-General Abdulrahman Alghofaili is quoted as saying “I think they went to Saudi Arabia and saw some curriculum there and thought we are teaching the same curriculum.” This statement confirms what many have suspected is being taught in Saudi Arabia itself.

The fact the school refuses to turn over material from the Virginia school tends to imply the same is being taught here. Did I hear someone say the Saudis are our friends?

Dan Calic | San Ramon

Going both ways

In response to the article “Organization that helps abused women gets a boost” (Oct. 19 j.), I’d like to point out that men are victims of domestic violence as well, in very high numbers, and they have no outreach and few services.

The latest fact sheet from the Centers for Disease Control states: “In the United States every year, about 1.5 million women and more than 800,000 men are raped or physically assaulted by an intimate partner,” and also states that one-fourth of intimate partner hom cide victims are men, at www.cdc.gov/

ncipc/factsheets/ipvfacts.htm

Harvard Medical School just announced that women are just as violent as men in relationships; the study found half of heterosexual domestic violence is reciprocal, with women initiating most of it, and women committed71 percent of the non-reciprocal violence.

Although men are less likely to report the violence, virtually all randomized sociological research worldwide shows women initiate domestic violence as often as men and men suffer one third of the injuries.

The neglect of these victims is a very serious and hidden problem. When male victims don’t get help, their children suffer long-term damage by the exposure regardless of severity.

Marc E. Angelucci | Los Angeles president, Los Angeles chapter, National Coalition of Free Men

Applauding French Jews

The news of the dedication of a site in a Paris park honoring Israeli captives Regev, Goldwasser and Shalit speaks volumes about the guts of French Jewry.

These folks are surrounded by a hostile Muslim population that outnumbers them 10 to one. They have suffered multiple heinous hate crimes committed against them, and must take their lives in their hands when they wear outward symbols of their faith.

For all that has been said of the cowardice of the French, that certainly doesn’t apply to their Jewish community, or the mayor of Paris who facilitated the dedication. Bravo to them.

Desmond Tuck | Menlo Park

Whom to trust?

When a yeshiva high school airbrushes its wayward son out of a class reunion photo, the issue is far greater than the community’s response to intermarriage. The issue is, “Do Jewish leaders lie”? The undisputed answer is yes — some Jewish leaders change documents to fit what they wish were true, not what is actually true.

Gary Rosenblatt, editor and publisher of The New York Jewish Week, to whom New Yorkers look for truth, defends the liars (Sept. 7 j. view). Now I’m forced to wonder, what else is a lie?

Is the Torah the word of God, or was it altered by some ancient yeshiva? Was the land promised to Isaac or to Ishmael?

Can I trust the photographs I’ve seen of the Holocaust? And even though I still believe, will the non-Jewish public believe?

It is not the Jews who marry potential Jews who should be shunned. It is the liars.

Steven J. Alexander | Santa Clara