Letters to the Editor

Terrorist Would Profit From Book Sales

Paige Gold (Letters, June 16) seems to have misunderstood the gravamen of my opinion column (“Will We Line a Murderer’s Pockets?,” May 26) in The Jewish Journal. I wrote about the recently published autobiography of Abu Daoud, the confessed mastermind of the Palestinian Arab terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics, in which 12 athletes were murdered in cold blood. The book was published in France last year, and a New York publisher, Arcade, now is moving forward with an American edition.

Gold says that the book should not be suppressed any more than Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” should be suppressed because it is useful “to help us understand how such a twisted monster’s mind works.”Indeed, I did not propose that Daoud’s book be suppressed or that his publisher be restrained prior to publication, nor did I call for a secondary boycott of Arcade Publishing. Rather, I urged readers to use their discretion as consumers and to refrain from purchasing the book. The reason is simple: Purchasing a copy of “Mein Kampf” does not put money into Hitler’s pocket; by contrast, purchasing a copy of Daoud’s autobiography will put money into his pocket. Indeed, if Hitler were alive and receiving royalties from sales of “Mein Kampf,” I would urge readers to refrain from further subsidizing Hitler’s future vacation plans or his subscription to the Richard Wagner opera season. If Gold agrees with me, I hope she will join with me and other Journal readers in contacting the editor-in-chief of Arcade, Richard Seaver, by phone (212-475-2633), fax (212-353-8148), or mail (141 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010) to tell him how she feels.

Rabbi Dov Fischer

Soft-Pedaling Homosexuality

Rabbi Boteach attacks Dr. Laura (“Dr. Laura Misguided on Homosexuality,” June 16), not because he doesn’t realize that he is distorting Torah, but because he is trying to make his homosexual friends and his “close relative” feel good. The very way he attracts readers to the article shows how at-home with distortion Boteach is. Boteach devotes the opening paragraph to praising what an “authoritative, moral force” Dr. Laura is. Once Boteach has our ear, he bends it his way at Dr. Laura’s expense. He attacks her research, word and reputation.

But the real victim of this article is our kids. Being gay is not in the order of magnitude of driving a car on Shabbat, as Rabbi Boteach would have us believe. Rabbi Boteach talks about teaching commitment to marriage and children. But articles like this one encourage society to soft-pedal homosexuality, and that makes it an easier choice for children. There is heartache in being gay, such as Boteach shared with his relative.

It is a distortion to compare homosexuality to a treif piece of meat, just like it’s a distortion to say being gay is about as bad as smoking on the Sabbath. Torah cannot be used to make our gay friends feel better. As Dr. Laura often says, “I don’t care about your feelings. Let’s make the right moral decision.”

Carol Arias,Oak Park

Border Dispute

Thomas Friedman’s article (“All Fall Down,” June 2) was trite, sarcastic and highly inaccurate. As Friedman knows, Israel had no desire to invade Lebanon and kill Lebanese, the mission was to prevent Palestinian extremists from launching cross-border terrorist attacks against Israel and to try to prevent Katyusha rocket attacks on Israel.

How far off the mark he is can be seen in his claim that, “Barak may conclude that unilateral withdrawal might be the best way to deal with the West Bank as well – just draw the line that Israel wants, say goodbye and forget trying to reach a deal with the Palestinians.”
The difference in the two situations is that an internationally recognized border exists between Israel and Lebanon, it just wasn’t patrolled by the latter. Israel can risk withdrawing and holding Lebanon responsible for attacks by terrorist groups. With the West Bank and Gaza there is no state-to-state internationally recognized border and any unilateral withdrawal by Israel would guarantee future Palestinian attacks and territorial claims against Israel – claims which could not be settled without a mutually agreed upon border.

Robert Kirk,Los Angeles

Fostering Unity

I was reading through The Jewish Journal and came upon Julie Gruenbaum Fax’ article (“Foster Care,” June 23). It took only the first paragraph to get my blood pressure up and my temper fuming. I don’t like the emphasis put on the fact that the children were from an “abusive Orthodox home” (Chassidic, no less). Abusive homes are found in all religions and in all walks of people. What the author of the article was trying to say, and to gain support around, was the fact that there are too few Jewish foster homes – period. Her emphasis was on this family (that happened to be Orthodox), but what if the family had been Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, or even Renewal? Would that have made the main issue of too few Jewish foster homes any less an issue? Why do we Jews have the problem of not enough foster care homes, not just in L.A. but in most of the major cities in the U.S.?Isn’t it time to start seeing an end to this? Isn’t it time we start opening our homes and our hearts to Jewish children in need, in spite of denomination?

Esther Hamilton,Burbank

Giving Credit to the Wonder of Reading

I’m writing in response to Michael Aushenker’s fine articles on KOREH L.A. and the LAUSD reading program (“People of the Book,” June 9).Please give credit where credit is really due. The credit for KOREH L.A.’s success this year is due to the Wonder of Reading and my leader there, Juliet Snowden.
I have been a volunteer at a large elementary school this past year. I was trained, along with 150 or so volunteers, by the Wonder of Reading at Stephen S. Wise Temple. Carol, the librarian where I tutor my student, told me that this beautiful, fully stocked library would not exist without the $30,000 renovation and $10,000 in new, modern books provided by the Wonder of Reading program.They have provided these books and services in more than 40 LAUSD schools. KOREH L.A. helped greatly to provide more volunteers. We were professionally trained though by the Wonder of Reading, who created the program and placed us in schools with students.
None of us were top volunteers, but we all helped a lot of kids in many ways. The principals and teachers were most cooperative with the volunteers and the Wonder of Reading people to make love of reading a factor for the students.
KOREH L.A. and Wonder of Reading worked together beautifully.

Harvey G. Rose,Tarzana

American Judaism Alive Because of Israel

I read Lichtenstein (“The New Jewish State,” May 19) and Myers (“Yoram Hazony and Zionism,” June 2) on post-Zionism, as presented by Yoram Hazony in his new book “The Jewish State,” and all these experts seem to be talking past each other about different topics.
Perhaps the problem is that the term post-Zionism is poorly defined, being a conflation or merger of many different issues. But the central issue, which Hazony contemplates: What is currently the attitude of Israelis to the history of their predecessors’ struggle for the establishment of the Jewish State? It is this last topic that Hazony really delves into, and which Meyer seems to ignore in his evaluation of Hazony’s study.In any case, all these experts seem to overlook what to me is axiomatic: In the wake of the Holocaust, the viability of American Judaism required the establishment of a Jewish state. If the Jewish state had not been established, then today there would be no American Judaism. Furthermore, if the Jewish state ceases to exist as a Jewish state, shortly afterwards there will be no American Judaism. It’s as simple as that, and anyone who does not acknowledge these points as basic assumptions is, to my mind, not even worth discussing any of these topics with.

Irving Lawrence Selk, Los Angeles