My name is Jon Voight. I am not a Jew, but I have been a great supporter of Israel and the Jewish people.
I have been to Sderot in Southern Israel, and spent time with the most heroic, amazing people, who’ve had to live with missiles attacking them, day in and day out.
A madman, just like Hitler, who wants to eradicate Israel from this earth, is now threatening Israel. His name is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Every Jew should be very concerned about Iran’s nuclear advancements and be very aware of president Obama’s agenda that does not take Israel’s safety into consideration. In fact, he has not scolded the United Nations for trying to intimidate Israel into disarming their nuclear capability, while being very lackadaisical toward Iran’s nuclear advancement. We are seeing the very beginning of a new Nazism at the U.N., cleverly disguised as freedom-loving people for whom Israel is dispensable.
The Jewish people are great liberals, but now it is for the wrong purpose. They must see, and recognize, the wrong being done by the Obama administration, and be willing to express their disappointment and great concerns for the safety of Israel.
Now we have a man called Marty Kaplan. He has a very impressive title. He is a professor at the USC Annenberg School. I shiver to think whom he is teaching. What kind of man can call himself a Jew who ends his recent article for The Jewish Journal with these words: “I hate the idea of my own mortality, for all the obvious reasons. But add to them a ferocious reluctance to turn out the lights without knowing whether Sarah Palin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are finally going to get what’s coming to them.”
Who in their right mind would dare to put a beautiful human being, Sarah Palin, who I know personally is a great supporter of Israel, in the same sentence as a sick killer who wants Israel destroyed?
The demonizing hysteria against Gov. Sarah Palin comes from very fearful people, like Marty Kaplan, who are trying to eradicate her triumphant strength and spirit. Her great moral understanding of how America must survive this onslaught from very biased, weak, left extremists, and her knowledge and experience on energy from natural resources and many other endeavors is very superior. I’m sure she will have a great, important place, and future, in American political life.
My prayer for all America and Israel is for all people of every faith and color to understand the true meaning of democracy. Democracy is the understanding of our great constitution. Jewry is the understanding of the Ten Commandments, and honoring the great Torah.
I pray for all good people to stand together as one mind to reject socialism, communism, Nazism, and any other negative, destructive ism that may exist.
I am deeply grateful for my freedoms and the ability to be able to reach the positive, objective minds of our time.
Jon Voight
Los Angeles
The Journal — One Nay, One Yay
When I brought home The Jewish Journal today, my husband surprised me by saying: “You’re reading The Jewish Left Journal.” Upon reading one paragraph in the magazine, I wanted to tell him that he was so very wrong. What I had brought home was the “The Journal of Weak Jewish People.”
The stories, the opinion pieces, the reports and even many of the advertisements and letters (to the editor) clearly represent that your contributors have not learned anything from our history. We cannot be a weak people, believing that an intellectual concept will solve the problems of our world, or that people who have differing opinions are somehow ignorant.
Keep your thoughts to yourself; they do not represent my thoughts or opinions as a Jew. Should The Journal, one day, be cited as the consummate authority on my religion, I may have to consider another path to God.
Mara Fabian
Los Angeles
My compliments for an excellent newspaper — thorough, general and so adequate in [representing] the Jewish population, Orthodox and secular.
I enjoy your publication and look forward to receiving it in the mail.
I also enjoy the arts and all the information pertinent to entertainment and Jewish life.
Keep up the good work.
Happy New Year and continued success!
Elvira Schwartz
Los Angeles
Obama’s Mideast Policy
I am pleased beyond words that The Journal had the courage to print Lloyd Greif’s article, “Israel Stands Alone” (Oct. 9). His article does much more than expose in detail the dangerous turn that Obama’s Mideast policy has taken. This should open the eyes of every American who understands the contribution the State of Israel makes to the security of the United States, by maintaining the only democracy in the Mideast, which makes Israel America’s only Mideast ally. But, most important, Greif’s article sends a clear message to Obama’s team that their Mideast course places U.S. security in jeopardy. The Journal was fair in giving equal space to Steven L. Spiegel. If your readers will study both articles and take into consideration what they know of Obama’s recent actions they will come to the right conclusion.
Hershey Gold
Los Angeles
Lloyd Greif’s article criticizing President Obama’s approach to the Middle East begins with one half-truth that sets the stage for an entire piece full of partisan misrepresentations and out-of-context quotes. In his third paragraph, Greif writes that Obama’s first call as president “to a head of state” was to Mahmoud Abbas. In fact, according to the Web site PolitiFact, this allegation first circulated earlier this year in a chain e-mail that claimed that Obama was directing more than $20 million to resettle Hamas Palestinians in the United States.
PolitiFact labeled the claim “Half True,” which it defines as a statement that “is accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.” In this case, the facts are that on the morning of Obama’s first day in office, to emphasize his commitment to the pursuit of an Arab-Israeli peace agreement, the president placed brief phone calls to four Middle Eastern leaders — Israeli Prime Minister Olmert, Egyptian President Mubarak, Jordan’s King Hussein and Abbas. While the Palestinians claim Abbas was called first, the White House made no such statement, and as PolitiFact notes, “The issue of who got called minutes before someone else is irrelevant. The point is that Obama’s first calls were to leaders of this region — all of them.”
This is just one of many half-truths that Greif offers.
It is legitimate to have honest disagreements over the policy approaches of the Obama (or any) administration. But the key word here is “honest.” When those like Greif have to resort to these types of half-truths to make their case, the rest of us must wonder not just about the strength of their arguments but also about their true motivation.
Name withheld upon request.
Los Angeles
Which Homeland?
Question for Rob Eshman (“Give J a Chance,” Sept. 18): If Israel is his “one homeland,” then why, pray tell, is he living here instead of there?
Aric Z. Leavitt
Los Angeles
Wind, Mishly’s Actions Are Admirable
I had the privilege of hearing Maya Wind and Netta Mishly (“Following Their Conscience to Prison,” Oct. 9) speak in Los Angeles at a meeting of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace. I was so impressed by their courage and strength in choosing to go to jail rather than serve in the Israeli army.
Not everyone may agree with the political views of these brave young women, but no one can question the moral dignity of their decision to go to jail rather than participate in an army that they passionately believed was engaged in human rights violations.
Stephen F. Rohde
Los Angeles
Kudos to Klein
It had been a while since I last picked up a copy of The Jewish Journal. Fortunately for me, I happened to come across a Jewish Journal stand on Pico, outside the Pico Kosher Deli, and I saw the name Amy Klein on the cover. I could not resist.
Ms. Klein is one of the more interesting writers The Journal has had. I really enjoy reading what she has to say. Although I did not always agree with her take on things in some of her articles, I always made it a point of reading what she wrote. She truly is a gifted and thought-provoking writer.
Thanks for bringing Ms. Klein back to The Journal, even if it is only for one issue.
Jon Gilman
via e-mail
Jewish Schools Need Us
In response to “Returning to Public Schools Is a Mitzvah,” (Sept. 25), I would like to redefine what a Jewish mitzvah is.
I was 18 when I went to Israel for the first time. I met my husband on a kibbutz. When he asked me to marry him, I told him that if we ever go back to the United States, we would put our children in a Jewish day school, should we ever have any children. We did move back to the United States, and we did put our children in Jewish day schools. It was not easy to pay the tuition, even back then. We sacrificed because their Jewish education was our priority.
In 1967, Golda Meir sent representatives all over America to ask for money for ammunition so Israel could survive. It was the beginning of the Six-Day War and Israel needed bullets, etc. I’ll never forget how the Israeli shaliah (messenger) asked us what we could sacrifice for the existence of Israel. Could we give up a vacation, a diamond ring, a new wardrobe, remodeling, etc?
Now I ask the same question. What are we willing to sacrifice to ensure the existence of the Jewish race? Our bullets are the Jewish values and education that we need to give to our children. Our bullets are the knowledge we need to give our children about who they are, where they came from, and why their history, customs and traditions are so important. Only then can our children know where and how to go to make their future successful.
I give kudos and applause to Jewish people in the entertainment industry for giving charity to heart, cancer and diabetes research and cures. It would be beneficial if they could give a fraction of that to a Jewish school, so that children who can’t afford to attend are also given the opportunity. That, to me, is a big mitzvah.
Miriam Fiber
Director of Maohr HaTorah Preschool and Kindergarten
Santa Monica
Just the Facts, Please
This letter is directed to those of you whose opinions support the Palestinians’ side in their disputes with Israel and I support your right to voice those opinions despite my strong disagreement with those opinions. But why can you not find the decency to avoid misstating the facts and trying to alter history?
You expend a great deal of energy bewailing the fiction that Israel attacked Gaza. The fact is that month after month Gaza was attacking Israel with an almost daily barrage of deadly missiles launched into civilian Israeli population centers. The further fact is that Israel finally retaliated after a very long period of such attacks.
The history is clear: Gaza was the attacker and Israel was the retaliator. And Gaza is responsible for the deaths of many of its civilians because it hid so many of its missile launching sites in civilian locations.
It is my further opinion that a large segment of the Palestinian population would be unhappy with a peace agreement with Israel — on any terms whatsoever — since it would deprive them of the keen pleasure of killing Jews.
You may not agree with me but at least I have the decency to label it my opinion.
Lou Charloff
Encino
May 4, 2004, near Gaza: After spraying the station wagon with bullets, the Palestinian terrorists walked up to the four terrified little girls and shot each one of them twice in the head. The 8-month-pregnant mother was shot in her belly at point blank range as she tried to cover her children. Palestinians celebrate and call killing “heroic.”
Three L.A. “rabbis” fast, guess for whom?? Not for the four little girls – [but] for “heroic killers”!!
I am asking members of congregations to express outrage for these “rabbis”: Leonard Beerman of Leo Baeck Temple, Haim Beliak of Beth Shalom of Whittier, and Steven Jacobs of Temple Kol Tikvah, Woodland Hills.
Next fast day is October 15.
Boris Blansky
Having to look for the millionth time at an Obama photo on a magazine cover — any magazine, but especially a Jewish one — reminded me what is wrong with the selling of Obama. Too much of a not-so-good thing.
Obama is truly the new kid on the block, a kid who does not know the neighborhood, yet immediately picks up sides. Sadly for us, he chose the Arab side. He comes from a place where the thinking is that the Arabs were slighted by us — and the Jews preferred — so the way to fix things is to soothe the Arab hurt at all cost. Truth and history and geography do not matter, and slighting the Jewish side is actually a good thing.
We could have told him that it will not work because what the Arabs want is something he will never be able to deliver. They want us out of there. They do not want two states but a Middle East clean of Jews. The P.A. Arabs were appointed by the Arab world to be the arrowhead in this fight or goal. Talking to the Jews does not lead there. Terror does, they think, or better yet, let a naive president, so wanting to show the world that he has what it takes to move mountains, give them Israel on a silver platter.
While Obama does not care all that much for the Jewish historical ties to the land, he actually does not have the power to yank the Jews off their soil. To his shocking disappointment, the Jews did not seem to fulfill his decrees. Worse yet, the Arabs cannot find the strength to do him a favor and simply be nice to the Jews.
It will take a magician to instill in the P.A. Arabs’ mind the concept of peace as we know it. Obama cannot do it. Not only can he not walk on water, he can’t even walk on solid ground. I do not fault him for wanting to crack this particular nut. Sadly there is a problem not only with his capacity of doing this but also with his fairness.
I am ready and willing to be found wrong.
Batya Dagan
Los Angeles
There’s Nothing Wrong with the Right
It’s about time that Mr. Kaplan sticks to the facts rather than twist things around using his articulate vocabulary.
The right in America doesn’t claim that President Obama is a Marxist, Socialist or a Communist as Marty Kaplan writes in his article “How Would the Right Know It’s Wrong?” (Oct. 9).
When running for office, Senator Obama asked the nation to judge him by the people he surrounds himself with. So the right (including Glenn Beck) looked into the background of these people and found that some of them are self-proclaimed Marxists and/or Socialists who later became Obama’s close advisors. Judging the President by his own standards, he is “guilty” by association.
With regard to teaching creationism side-by-side with evolution in our schools — in his “Theory of Everything,” Stephen Hawking claims that there is no proof that the world came to be by a “singularity in creation” (God), or by its own nature of infinite existence. Albert Einstein believed in a God, Stephen Hawking claims he doesn’t believe in it. Until we have absolute proof one way or the other, it’s only fair that both theories be taught to our children.
Danny Bental
Tarzana
Three cheers to T. Puskin, whoever he is, for being sickened by the idiot Kaplan’s linking Palin to the Persian Nazi lover A Mad Jihad (sic). I am sure he’s not the only one. What next, linking Barbara Bush to Saddam Hussein? And to the mentally challenged Helen Colton of L.A., (she is certainly entitled to her opinion), but Kaplan’s articles are definitely not any kind of voice of sanity in an asylum of ignorance. Kaplan’s articles are always ignorant. (And mean spirited too).
Richard Levine
CORRECTION
In “New Choices for New Jews,” (Oct. 9), Rabbi Neal Weinberg’s first name was misspelled.
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