Show will go on
We at Traveling Jewish Theatre are delighted to be able to give you an update on our fundraising efforts, reported by Dan Pine (“Final Act? Budget crunch puts TJT in peril,” June 27).
We have made our goal! That is to say, we reached our first benchmark of raising $100,000 from our community by June 30. A big thanks to all who supported our effort. Because of you, there is a future for Jewish theatre in the Bay Area.
Now we have to raise another $50,000 by Sept. 30 in order to be eligible for special funding from a number of foundations that have been supporting us. Please visit www.atjt.com for upcoming season announcements and up-to-the-minute news. Our correct mailing address is 499 Alabama St., No. 127, San Francisco, CA 94110.
Can’t wait to see you all at the theater.
Corey Fischer and Aaron Davidman | San Francisco
Co-Founder and Artistic Director
Traveling Jewish Theatre
‘Overly dire’ picture
Your story regarding Traveling Jewish Theatre (“Final Act?” June 27) paints an overly dire picture of the future of the acclaimed Jewish theatre company.
In fact, the Koret Foundation recently awarded the company $75,000 to help reduce debt and stage a robust 30th anniversary season. The Jewish Community Federation also just made a one-time emergency allocation of $35,000 to TJT and several other Jewish foundations are considering similar grants to help sustain this regional gem.
Moreover, we have encouraged and assisted the company in cooperating with other Jewish organizations, including a new and promising collaboration with the JCC of San Francisco.
We are hopeful, and have good reason to expect that with strong community support TJT will continue to be a flourishing contributor to the Bay Area’s vibrant cultural arts scene.
Gale Mondry | San Francisco
Chief Program Officer, Koret Foundation
Lacking balance
Dr. Michael Cooper’s deep compassion and noble professional commitment to seek out and heal sick Palestinians must certainly be respected (Local voice, June 27). It is, however, striking that at no point in his most literate and sympathetic portrait of those Palestinian women and children, for whom he mounts his indictment of Israel’s security wall, does he similarly suggest that the Palestinians consider discarding their murderous aims against Israeli women and children.
The frustrations that Palestinians undergo become his atrocity-laden lamentation. His reliance on United Nations’ denunciations of Israel lends zero credibility to his critique; given the United Nation’s spurious history of “balanced” attacks on Israel.
Had he just once mentioned that Israel is a country that is constantly forced to defend the very existence of its women and children by deterrence, such as the wall, he could have earned a measure of endorsement. He did not. Why? Because his political linkage, in tune with a majority of leftist critics, insists on a selectively altered landscape, one which trains its laser-like lens only on Israel in order to reward the Palestinians, even as they constantly fail to moderate their deadly objectives.
Ernest H. Weiner | San Francisco
Executive Director
Northern California Region
American Jewish Committee
Build more bridges
I was inspired by Michael Cooper, MD describing his biannual pediatric cardiology clinic for needy children in Ramallah, beyond the wall.
He reminded me of Dr. Robert Stern (“New diagnosis: UCSF pathologist off to East Jerusalem,” Dec. 21, 2007), who similarly taught this spring for eager Palestinian students at Al Quds University, East Jerusalem.
And I remember Palestinian obstetrician Izzeldin Abuelaish, with his long history of crossing from Gaza to deliver the babies of Israeli women.
Their experiences match my own, traveling to the “enemy” Soviet Union in 1984 to lecture on trauma and discover only equal humans, tears of gratitude, eagerness to engage and live beyond war.
Over 35 years in my San Francisco pediatric dental practice, treating 17,000 diverse children, my experiences overcoming fear paralleled those of Cooper and Stern: The emotional and physical walls we construct are excessive and easily overcome.
Bridges we build to one another, beginning at the heart, help our exaggerated fears atrophy and allow us to get creative together.
One last reminder is the July 16 anniversary of our Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue of San Mateo — the oldest of its kind — proving that transforming walls into bridges is closer at hand than most people imagine.
Len Traubman | San Mateo
Suffering on both sides
Dr. Michael Cooper has compassion when he practices medicine in Ramallah, and is concerned about the inconvenience to the Palestinians by the
wall and check points, etc.
Surely there should be equal sympathy for the Israeli civilians who have been intentionally killed, injured and traumatized by Palestinian terrorism. The terrorism is the reason for Israel’s defensive actions. Suicide bombers have disguised themselves as pregnant women, hidden in ambulances, worn stolen Israeli uniforms. Before the increase of terrorism in 2001 the Palestinians had easy movement through the West Bank, and access into Israel for medical care, education, jobs, and commerce.
The present situation is inconvenient for both Palestinians and Israelis. The latest example is the thousands of Palestinian rockets fired into Israel after they withdrew from Gaza. Too bad some of Dr. Cooper’s compassion was not shared by the Palestinian leadership of Arafat, Hamas, and other terrorists. Unfortunately, they allowed the Palestinians to suffer rather than cease their foolish and unobtainable goal of destroying Israel.
Norman Licht | San Carlos
Palestinian paradox
Dr. Michael Cooper writes with dedication in relation to the patients that he cares for in Ramallah. Doctors are trained to provide the best care possible in all situations. Medical care includes caring for ill and injured patients, but also includes preventing illness and injury by every means possible. In this health-care scenario, Israel has suffered thousands of deaths and injuries from terrorists who have been dedicated to the death and injury of as many Israelis as possible.
This has been carried out by men, women, boys and girls who wear explosive devices who cross over into Israel by walking, or sometimes riding in cars or ambulances, with the intent to kill and maim as many Israelis as they can, usually by focusing their explosives on gatherings of people in shopping areas, restaurants, schools, hotels and buses.
Since the walls and checkpoints have been in place, the number of terrorist events has diminished, with a decline in deaths and injuries. It is a paradox that the Palestinian people voted as a majority for a government dedicated to the destruction of Israel and its people and at the same time seek medical care in Israel without careful individual examination.
William L. Schwartz, MD | San Francisco
Retired UCSF Clinical Professor
of Medicine
Fight isn’t over
Thank you, j., for the timely and powerful coverage of gay and lesbian weddings in California. Many of my gay and lesbian friends tell me that they are walking taller now than ever before and are realizing how significant a civil rights victory this is not only for the state, but for the nation.
Contrary to what Gary Neuman wrote (Letters, June 27), this issue is far from over. Religious extremists are once again rallying and were successful placing an initiative on the November ballot that would write discrimination against a whole class of people into the California constitution.
If their anti-marriage initiative is successful, it will set a dangerous precedent that every Jew, regardless of their beliefs, should be concerned about. This issue is one of fundamental equality. It is about treating all loving couples fairly. Writing anything into the constitution that turns any group into second-class citizens should frighten every one of us.
Robert B. Daroff | San Francisco
Justice not served
Some clarification may be helpful in the matter of same-sex marriage. Many believe that the California Supreme Court has overstepped its judicial boundaries in its 4-3 decision to call the ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. The critics of the court believe the issue is one of definition of marriage and that four justices have, for the first time in history, negated an institution held sacred for millennia by all major religions.
Although the justices stated that the issue is one of discrimination in the area of civil rights, others may disagree. This judicial act is not the same as the court’s throwing out the ban on interracial marriage. All major religions historically permitted interracial marriage. Remember, Moses married a black woman.
Most of us do not want to deny homosexuals the joy and happiness of a blissful, loving, intimate relationship. We support civil partnership union incorporating all the social, familial, and financial privileges and advantages of heterosexual marriage.
But changes in the historically accepted religious definition of marriage should be accomplished, at the very least, by state legislation and not by four judges, especially since the recent California vote to ban same sex-marriage was about 69 percent to 31 percent.
Edward Tamler | San Mateo
Israel needs iron fist
The current Israeli government is corrupt, Godless and dangerous, and cruelly suppresses dissent and majority opinions — and controls a liberal media with false and misleading information/image to the world.
The Talmud teaches: “If someone comes to kill you, you must kill him first.” Israel’s enemies (radical Islam), inside and outside Israel, are trying to kill all the Jews there, and its “PC” government stands idly by instead of preventing another holocaust. Who cares what Condoleezza Rice, the world or the Arabs will think?
The following “uncomfortable” truths provide the only practical, realistic and effective solution:
Israel should attack and disable Iran ASAP; Israel’s current government must be removed and replaced with God-fearing, Jewish leaders who truly respect life, especially Jewish lives; Gaza, Sinai and all other Jewish Lands currently being occupied by Arabs must be returned to Israel;
The Temple Mount must be returned to Jewish control to stop the Arab daily desecration and destruction of its Jewish archeological traces; Any “hostile” Arabs living in Israel (unless they’re peaceful and law-abiding) must be expelled; All terrorists must be swiftly executed in a timely fashion.
Most Jews feel this way, though many dislike admitting it, even to themselves.
Aaron Seruya | San Francisco
Guilt by association
If Dan Calic’s list of “what has been revealed” about Barak Obama (Letters, June 27) had validity, I’d be concerned. However, Sen. Obama is not responsible that Hamas praises him or someone he knows is under indictment.
Using Calic’s logic, I am immoral because a teenage friend got pregnant; a lawbreaker because the husband of an old friend was imprisoned for fraud; a closet lesbian because my favorite high school teacher might have been; and a home wrecker because I’ve known a few.
If attacks are justified, bring them on. Otherwise, let’s judge this man by who he is — a very big supporter of Israel, for starters — and what he can do to get this country back on track.
Victoria Zackheim | San Francisco
Myopic view
I found the June 27 article “Musician gets ‘new start’ at Ner Tamid” highly misleading, biased and infuriating.
The first few paragraphs emphasize Achi Ben Shalom’s acquittal — acquittal? — and his bouncy comeback. To say that Ben Shalom was acquitted is such a partial truth that it amounts to a lie.
The real truth is buried a third of the way down the article: Ben Shalom was acquitted of charges that he committed a lewd and lascivious act with a girl younger than 14, but was convicted of assault and battery.
All along, this has been a controversy where only one side has had a voice through the media. In such a situation, it is the reporter’s duty to not get caught up solely with that side of the issue, to not see things from only that perspective. You have failed in that duty.
Yes, Achi is a talented guy who was a huge asset to the community. Yes, he is/was well-known, well-liked and well-connected. But none of that is a reason to excuse his wrongdoing or to sweep it under the rug. I hope you’re not doing that.
Iris Greenberg-Smith | Berkeley
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