Letters to the Editor: UC Irvine, Shalhevet, Holocaust Documentary

Standing With UCI’s Jewish Students

We applaud UC Irvine Jewish students who are effectively countering the Muslim Student Union’s [MSU] bigoted and divisive campaigns, and urge Jewish students to attend UCI in ever-larger numbers (“Is UC Irvine Safe for Jews?” April 16). We have worked closely with UCI students since 2001, supporting them in every way, from funding speakers and events to brainstorming and guiding them about organizing responses and proactive events, supplying materials on controversial topics, funding and participating in their retreats and advocacy training with Hillel, among other efforts. Our YouTube video of [Israel’s U.S.] Ambassador Michael Oren’s UCI talk on Feb. 8 exposed the MSU’s bullying tactics to over 700,000 viewers.

Since 2001, we have watched the pro-Israel Anteaters group blossom from six students into a vibrant, self-confident coalition standing up proudly for Israel and enriched by close camaraderie. The challenges also mold leaders such as UCI graduate Maya Rozov, who says the difficulties changed her life in positive ways. She now works for StandWithUs. It is imperative that Jewish students attend UCI to form a larger percentage of the student body. The anti-Israel faction should not win by scaring away Jewish applicants and making UCI Judenrein. At UCI, Jewish students can stand tall, make a difference and gain invaluable education about life, character and leadership.

Roz Rothstein
International Director
StandWithUs

Respect, Don’t Sacrifice, Community

Shalhevet School is unique in its emphasis on creating a just community wherein each member is respected and each voice is valued. Sacrificing some to save others, as the Shalhevet board decided to do when it made the decision to close the early childhood, elementary and middle schools to preserve the high school, is not a just act (“Shalhevet to Close 3 Schools Because of Financial Woes,” March 26). Sacrificing some to save others is not a respectable moral value, not a Jewish value, and not even a pragmatic value. It rarely works, and it is not justified because it does not treat each person as valuable in her own right. Instead of unilaterally deciding to snap their lower schools shut, the board could have considered consulting with the affected parents and staff. Had parents and teachers understood the financial situation of the schools, they could have come together to fundraise innovatively, as some are now doing in the efforts to save the Shalhevet lower schools. Let’s hope they succeed. Joining together to save an institution is the just response to a crisis.

Rivka Weinberg
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Scripps College, Claremont

Where’s the Balance?

Clearly the “fair and balanced Fox TV” approach to reality is becoming the model for The Jewish Journal and that is most disturbing. Dennis Prager is one thing, but all your letters to the editor are from the lunatic-fringe-group Tea Party right wing. Is this really where the L.A. Jewish community is these days? If you are truly representative of our Jewish values then we’re really in serious trouble.

Mark Aronson
West Hollywood

Bombing Auschwitz Rail Lines Was Not a Viable Option

Tom Tugend (“New Holocaust Documentary Goes ‘Against the Tide,’ ” April 9) reviews a new film, “Against the Tide,” and a play, “The Accomplices,” about Hillel Kook, who came to the United States in 1940 to form a Jewish army to save European Jews from the German death machine.

Tugend repeats the canard that arises every few years, that the United States and Britain should have bombed the rail lines at Auschwitz. In the 1940s, bombing accuracy from 25,000 feet altitude would have placed about half the bombs outside a three-mile radius of the intended target. Bombs aimed at rail lines would have killed hundreds in the barracks during each raid and made life even more miserable for the survivors.

Kook’s effort to set up a Jewish army in the United States was futile. The American and British armed forces could not invade Europe until building up a huge force in 1944 involving thousands of ships and aircraft. Yet Kook, who called himself Bergson, thought his amateurs could somehow invade the continent and rescue Jews. Even had he dropped isolated agents by plane, they would have been arrested within days of their arrival (as were American and British agents). What was his Jewish army supposed to do?

Tugend and the scriptwriters take Mr. Bergson/Kook at face value, without asking embarrassing questions. Bergson’s activities after the entry of the United States into World War II were fanciful.

Despite their uncritical outlook, “The Accomplices” and the films are worth watching. Sadly, millions of Jews, mostly Poles, were murdered in cold blood during World War II. There was nothing that could have been done to stop the killing except ending the war as quickly as possible.

Myron Kayton
via e-mail

Correction

An article on a documentary about schools going green (”PBS Features Schools’ Growing Eco Awareness,” April 16) attributed the slogan “No child left inside” to the wrong school. The slogan is used by Patuxent Elementary School in Upper Marlboro, Md.

THE JEWISH JOURNAL welcomes letters from all readers. Letters should be no more than 200 words and must include a valid name, address and phone number. Letters sent via e-mail must not contain attachments. We reserve the right to edit all letters. Mail: The Jewish Journal, Letters, 3580 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1510, Los Angeles, CA 90010; e-mail: letters@jewishjournal.com; or fax: (213) 368-1684.