LETTERS: October 23-29, 2009

Kudos to Jon Voight

Three cheers to Jon Voight (Letters, Oct. 16) for his reflections on the demonizing of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin by Marty Kaplan (“I Want to Know What Happens Next,” Sep. 25). Voight has always been one of the most moral and decent people coming out of Hollywood. He has volunteered his time and efforts on behalf of causes beneficial to Jews and others for years, especially the time he graciously volunteers to Chabad. Kaplan should look into his own leftist nest to find people who actually despise Israel; it wouldn’t take him that long. You will find that many Republicans, such as Sarah Palin and former President Bush, are some of the best friends that Israel will ever have.

Richard Levine
via e-mail

Thank you, Jon Voight, for your great letter. We Jews should be embarrassed that it took a non-Jew to stand up for Israel. We should be ashamed that a fellow Jew, Marty Kaplan, had the audacity to put Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who calls for wiping Israel out and is building nukes to do this, together with Israel’s friend and supporter, Sarah Palin. Kaplan’s statement provides Ahmadinejad with legitimacy to proceed with our destruction. It blurs the difference between good and evil, and breeds reports like Richard Goldstone’s. The world sees that we Jews cannot distinguish terrorists from friends, Hamas from those who gave their lives protecting Israel, and destroyers from our allies and friends. They start wondering if there really is a difference.

The problem is not that one man was bad. The problem is that we Jews fail to rise against him. On behalf of many colleagues, we demand that Kaplan makes an immediate and complete apology to Palin, in a visible location in The Journal. Should he choose not to, his column must be eradicated from The Jewish Journal. We have no interest in continuing to receive an Israel-bashing Jewish Journal just like we have no interest in subscribing to Al Jazeera.

Thank you, Mr. Voight, for the wake-up call.

Henry Kister
Corona Del Mar

I want to thank The Jewish Journal for printing Jon Voight’s letter.

Isn’t it puzzling that some of Israel’s (and the Jewish people’s) most ardent and sincerest supporters are individuals like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, former President Bush, and many other conservatives. This is in contrast to many of your columnists and those ridiculous rabbis on the Westside who fasted (or whatever) for Gaza.

And thank you, Mr. Voight, from one who contributed to that Chasidic group because of you.

Mark Steinberg
Los Angeles

Right on, Jon Voight. You told it better than I or anyone else could have. How about The Journal replacing Marty Kaplan with Jon Voight? Finally we would get a columnist (a non-Jew) who writes positive things about Israel and condemns those who wish harm on her. And he would never ever compare a Democrat with Ahmadinejad.

John Gable
via e-mail

Marty Kaplan owes the community an explanation of his juxtaposition of Sarah Palin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I find his juxtaposition incomprehensible.

I think that Jon Voight’s letter missed the point. Sarah Palin should not be compared to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regardless of whether or not she is a “beautiful human being.” I am a lifelong Democrat. But does that mean I should demonize Republicans?

Amiel Shulsinger
via e-mail

You wasted a good chunk of your Letters page on poor Jon Voight’s latest far-far-right “pro-Israel” Jeremiad about a few lines in Marty Kaplan’s perfectly reasonable article about Israel and the Days of Awe.

Voight’s disjointed rant would be hilarious if it weren’t so pathetic — especially the encomium about his adored Alaskan aerial wolf-cub hunter-cum-energy “expert.”

Sara Meric
via e-mail

Marty Kaplan Responds:

I wish I’d been clearer: Sarah Palin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are both stories-in-progress. That’s the only sense in which I’m comparing them. Different people, different stories, but both unfinished narratives. It would be nuts to say the two of them should meet similar destinies. I may have written a regrettably ambiguous sentence, but I’m not daft.

Protest Obama

Why Do Jews of the World Diddle While Israel Stands Alone?

Neither Steven L. Spiegel nor President Barack Obama have come to grips with Israel’s survival (“Israel Has a Strong, Effective Ally in Obama,” Oct. 9). Lloyd Greif did (“Israel Stands Alone”), but the issue must be seen as almost entirely moral whether it’s a matter of priority, size of claim, right to exist, etc., except for what Israel must do to defend herself and what the United States can do to help. The Palestinian question is moot, irrelevant, a distraction and gets in the way. The moral and practical problem is up to the Jews of the United States, the world and their friends. But presently we act as if the matter was beyond our capacity to influence and we do nothing. Wrong! Unless we get active we may end up with two Holocausts on our conscience shortly, one in the 20th century and the other in the 21st century … unless we get active. So, let’s dump the lefty JNothings and start raising holy hell as Jews, of all political parties, with gigantic meetings in downtown New York, Washington, Chicago and Los Angeles every weekend from now on till the matter is settled to our satisfaction. We must stop all action in the city and speak loud enough for the world to hear, and maybe Obama, too. Target Iran and Obama. We can win if we get into our cars Saturday and Sunday and drive downtown. Youth must lead. Signs, loud speakers, etc. Music! Nothing moves. Obama and mayors can’t put us all in jail. The emphasis must be getting Obama to say: America backs Israel all the way, now and from now on. We the demonstrators are what’s important, not Obama.

Jerry Green
Los Angeles

Threats to U.S., Israel

During the past few months, I have come to the conclusion that the four organizations that pose the greatest threat to the security and well being of both the United States and of Israel are (in no particular order of degree of threat), Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the United Nations and the current administration-led Democratic Party.

We know all about Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and the United Nations is nothing more than a lackey and disguised spokesman for radical Islam and its hatred and jealousy towards Israel. As to the current administration, when are the majority of Americans going to realize that the emperor (president) wears no clothes?

Michael Gesas
Beverly Hills

Veal Equals Suffering

Last month you published in the food section how to eat veal (“Home for Rosh Hashanah With Chef Todd Aarons,” Sept. 18). Yes, your magazine published how to cook up a baby calf that was ripped from its mother, terrified and crying and then confined in a dark filthy factory farm in a crate so that it couldn’t even turn around. Then it was fed only a diet of watery substance so that it becomes anemic, and then it laid there in its own diarrhea for six months until it was dragged out from its prison cell, released from its neck chain and then violently slaughtered. Then you advertised how to cook it up in your magazine. Yum… Yum.

Question, Mr. Eshman: What did this baby do to deserve this horror and cruelty? Why do you advise to your readers to buy its sad little flesh and eat it with such relish?

The treatment of this baby calf reminds me of how the Jews were treated during the Holocaust. Remember that horror? I’m sure that you do and maybe you could apologize for doing another sentient and important being of God’s creation the exact same thing that was done to the Jews. How soon we forget and become hypocrites.

Carolyn Doswell
Studio City

CORRECTION
In the article “L.A. Jews Join Fast for Gaza” (Sept. 25), Rabbi Haim Beliak was erroneously connected with Beth Shalom of Whittier. He is the co-director of JewsOnFirst.org, an Internet site focused on the Jewish stake in protecting the First Amendment.

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