Letters to the Editor: Arnold, Winograd, Carter, Hitler, Saturday Night Fever

Enough Is Enough With Higher Taxes

I have just finished reading Raphael J. Sonenshein’s item on Governor Schwarzenegger and need to make a few comments (“Is Arnold Serious?” Jan. 15). At some point raising taxes ceases to increase revenue. California has reached this point. By raising taxes on “the rich” we simply encourage them to leave the state, which lowers our tax revenue.

The article also falsely claims that we are faced with the choice of either cutting prisons or universities. If only we had an easy choice like that. California is in such a financial fix that it will have to cut both prisons and higher education. Additionally, cuts are going to have to be made in medical assistance to the poor.

Since the state legislature is essentially controlled by state employee unions, the necessary cuts are not going to made and the state government will either collapse or be forced into bankruptcy. It will be interesting to watch.

Susan Jordan
Hollywood

Winograd’s Lingo

Thank you for [Tom Tugend’s] article on the Harmon/Winograd race (“36th District Race Heats Up Over Israel,” Jan. 15). Sadly, when Winograd flings the “extermination” blood libel, as she was quoted in your article, most Jewish Journal readers do not know that the Palestinians have been enjoying a population explosion since 1967, and may very well believe what Winograd says. Demographic information shows that Palestinian population has increased approximately 250 percent since 1967, an almost four times increase!

Shirley Lewis
Westwood

Who Saved the World From Hitler?

Eric Brill states in his letter, “it was the Red Army that saved that world from Hitler” (Letters, “How Hitler Was Defeated,” Jan. 15).

Frankly, it was the American worker who saved the world with the massive production of planes, tanks, arms, etc.

Brill should read statements from the Russian government before and after June 1941. He forgot (or didn’t know) that the USSR and Nazi Germany had signed a non-aggression pact the year before.

Perhaps Brill hadn’t known that in many Ukranian and Russian villages and cities, the people were surrendering to the Nazis in order to escape from the horrors of the Josef Stalin regime, but were slaughtered by the Nazis

Brill should also read more history books and learn how America armed the world in the fight against Hitler.

And, one other thing: Our American troops would have gone into Berlin if allowed to by the top leaders. But, the three major powers, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, agreed to let the Russian Army enter Berlin first.

Not that the Russian Army wasn’t valiant, for they were. But they were not the only ones who saved the world from Hitler.

You disappoint me, Mr. Brill. Get your facts straight.

Jean Strauber
Encino

The information provided by Mr. Brill is wrong, either by design, oversight or misinformation.

Hitler invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. The Soviet-German Friendship treaty was signed on September 28, 1939. On June 22, 1941, the German Nazi axis invaded Russia.

Between 1941 and 1945 the United States provided war materials to Russia valued at over $150 billion, in today’s currency. Between 1941 and 1945 there were 8.7 million (not 20 million) Soviet soldier casualties including those killed and disappeared. During the Stalin rule era, there were over 40 million civilians among those that were directly and indirectly attributable to Stalin orders.

When Napoleon invaded Russia, he completely underestimated the harshness of the Russian winter which made it impossible for the French supply lines to reach his army. This was the main cause of Napoleon’s defeat in Russia. It cost him then over 4 million soldier casualties.

Apparently Hitler believed he could beat the Russian winter. Wrong. Hitler’s move in favor of our good luck. It cost Hitler the loss of the Russian front. The $150 billion in today’s dollars of war materials the United States gave Russia, were significant in helping Russia defeat the German army in their territory.

Russia and Germany were bound by a Friendship treaty until mid-1941. Russia did not defend other European countries until Germany broke their pact by invading their territory. The Red Army did not save the world from Hitler. It didn’t do anything while the Nazis invaded most of Europe. There is nothing to admire in the shameless way Russia behaved. Without the war materials help provided by the United States, Russia would have had a much more difficult time expelling the German troops.

This information was collected from the Internet by someone who at age seven was taken out of Poland by his parents in May of 1938, fourteen months before Hitler invaded Poland. Those who we left behind, my grandparents, their children and grandchildren, were all assassinated and obliterated by the Nazis. No one [else] in our family survived the war.

Abel Plockier
Los Angeles

Anti-Semitism in ‘An Education’

Thank you for publishing Irina Bragin’s accurate and compelling review of the movie, “An Education” (“British Film Gives ‘An Education’ in Anti-Semitism,” Dec. 4). I found the movie to be the most blatant example of anti-Semitism I have ever experienced in a movie shown to the American public. I would hope voices will be raised in protest and the movie be left bereft of any type of award or recognition.

Gene Mestel
Indio

Evaluating Fishel

My brother says that directing is 90 percent casting (“Fishel Reflects on Challenging Tenure,” Jan. 15). I believe the same can be said for running a large nonprofit such as The Jewish Federation. John Fishel is too modest to share that one of his greatest strengths is his ability to recruit and retain terrific people, many of whom I worked with when I was with the JCCs. They are bright, professional, caring and a lot of fun. Jay Sanderson is very lucky to be handed such a great group of dedicated people to work with.

Jeff Kaplan
Studio City

Me thinks thou overly praiseth John Fishel and hardly mention his great failure.

Your “Community” piece on Fishel’s 17-year tenure (“Fishel Reflects on Challenging Tenure,” Jan. 15) as head of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles (JF) overstates his role in the success of the Koreh LA reading program, while it gives little space to his failure in preserving the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles (JCCs). I sat in the meeting when he promised to continue to support the Westside JCC if it could show community support by raising a certain amount of money within a specified period of time. The members of the WJCC rose to the challenge and accomplished the goal. Then what? Fishel reneged. Today the JCCs are a semblance of their past glory; most have closed for lack of financial support (isn’t this one of the main reasons why the JF was formed)? Credit for the survival of the few remaining goes to their members. Further, many of us believe that the JF may have been largely responsible for the financial failure of the JCCs.

As for the $550,000 contributed by the JF for the Birthright Israel program to send young people to Israel, think what more could have been done if the inflated salary and bonus paid to Fishel (about the same amount as its contribution to the program) had been added to the support of the program—or to the JCCs.

Fischel states that he “always took time to gather … information … to do what was best for the Jewish community.” If that were so, then he would not have failed the JCCs. You point out that (despite tireless efforts by hundreds of volunteers) the JF’s fundraising has been disappointing in recent years (even before the current recession). Reason: Many of us no longer donate to the JF because of its failure to support the JCCs. 

Yes, I agree with Fishel: “It’s healthy to have change.” It was long overdue…. I hope his successor, Jay Sanderson, can restore the community’s perspective and respect for The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.

George Epstein
Los Angeles

Harman v. Winograd

As the generation of pro-Zionist Waxmans and Harmans is replaced by the generation of leftists like Winograd (who believes in the no-state solution: no Jewish state), one anticipates soon a time where the case for a Zionist entity will be aided mainly by non-Zionist Haredim and Zionist Christians. Let us not forget that Democratic Jews overwhelmingly voted for the Palestinian’s candidate for president.

S. Newman
Los Angeles

I thank the Jewish Journal for graciously inviting me to debate my opponent in the June 8, 2010 Democratic Party primary. Given the diversity of opinion, I look forward to a robust and open debate, not only on issues pertaining to Middle East peace, but also on single-payer health care, immigration and citizenship, and the transition from a war economy to a new Green economy.

Let’s pack the house, wrestle with critical issues, and do some serious soul-searching.

Marcy Winograd
Marina del Rey

I regret to hear that the wonderful Rabbi Shevitz was treated disrespectfully anywhere at any time. But I’m also dismayed that your response was to dismiss an entire community as “that stretch of crippled Nirvana called Venice.” Venice is a vibrant, multifaceted community including many caring and creative individuals. I hope you will revisit your comments.

Marilyn Russell
Los Angeles

No Coed Cavorting

In response to David Suissa’s Jan. 15 article, “Saturday Night Fever”: I am a YULA High School alumni from the class of 1983. YULA has always discouraged students of opposite genders from communicating with each other. The rabbis even used to refer to chaperoned NCSY and Bnei Akiva events as “Sin Weekends.” Most of the teachers who taught Judaic subjects strongly encouraged all their graduates to leave Los Angeles after graduation and to attend yeshivah on the East coast or in Israel. As a result of this conditioning, the majority of former YULA students abandon Los Angeles and seek out opportunities to meet elsewhere. If parents are interested in placing their high-school age offspring in a healthy and balanced social environment, they should consider a coed modern orthodox school like Shalhevet. Shalhevet would be a more likely school to host an event where young graduates could meet each other. To expect YULA to host a coed singles event in Los Angeles is as unrealistic as expecting a 2010 YULA Christmas Party.

Gerry Corn
Los Angeles

Carter’s Non-Apology

Karmel Melamed is right to repudiate the value of Jimmy Carter’s “apology” to American Jews (“Jimmy Carter…I don’t accept his bogus apology!” jewishjournal.com, Jan. 5), because it was no apology at all.

Carter did not retract even a single one of his past harsh and monstrous criticisms of Israel; to the contrary, he indirectly reiterated and affirmed their accuracy, simply saying that he is sorry that his “legitimate” criticisms [that were] meant to “improve” Israel [instead] “stigmatized” Israel. In other words, he regrets that calling Israel an apartheid state, human rights abuser and war-monger has somehow harmed Israel’s image. Oh, really?

Had President Carter apologized by writing a major article or holding a press conference on the subject, in which he repudiated past statements, we could have given some credence to it. But just as there is no forgiveness on Yom Kippur without an honest and sincere accounting for specific sins, there can be no meaningful apology without an explicit heartfelt repudiation of his past statements.

If Jimmy Carter wants to be taken seriously, he should make it explicit which statements, views and acts he withdraws and no longer advocates or believes—that would amount to a meaningful act of contrition and lend his personal authority against what he previously said and did. Short of that, an apology such as he has offered is insulting, worthless and constitutes no apology at all.

Morton A. Klein
National President
Zionist Organization of America
New York

Access to Healthy Food for Poor

Mr. Matz and Mr. Petty are absolutely correct: Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.‘s vision went far beyond civil rights into a far more comprehensive agenda of societal Tikkun: ending the war paradigm and standing with the poor (“A Modern Heschel-King Alliance: The Struggle for Food Access,” Jan. 15). King recognized that equality required removal of the shackles of poverty which, as the Talmud teaches, is like a load on a donkey: The further it falls down, the harder it is to pick up.

The barriers to a good life for the poor of Los Angeles are many, and many of these barriers stem from injustices built upon commonplace presumptions about the poor, immigrants and skin color. However, our tradition reminds us that people are created in the Divine image: No child born into poverty should be unable to eat healthy foods because their parents cannot afford to live in the wealthier parts of this city. Increasing access to healthy foods is a matter of justice, a basic commitment to ensure that all can enjoy “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” We desperately need a Grocery Reinvestment Ordinance to ensure healthy foods and good jobs in all parts of this city.

Rabbi Jonathan D. Klein
Executive Director
Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice: CLUE-LA
Los Angeles