Letters: Coping With the Unrest, Trump’s Farcical Photo Op 

More Brotherhood, Less Hate
Mark Schiff’s column about his close relationship with his Palestinian “brother” is so apropos to our nation’s current situation (“A Palestinian Muslim Calls Me His Brother,” May 29). You don’t have to be black to be outraged by what happened in Minneapolis and you don’t have to be white to be outraged by the looting across the country. We are all in this together, whites and blacks, Jews and Muslims and all political foes. We may disagree and may want to protest but there’s a respectful way to do so.
Richard Katz, Los Angeles

Coping With the Unrest
Thank you, Tabby Refael, for expressing your fears and sadness about the present unrest. Across generations, my family and I have also borne witness (“Mourning in Fear,” June 5).

During these challenging times, we must continue to sing Rav Kook’s “Four Songs”: the song of the individual, our people, humanity and the world with all its creations. But as Rav Kook said in 1920, as Arabs raged through Jerusalem’s Jewish quarter, “I speak because I don’t have the power to remain silent.”

During the Watts Riots in 1965, I watched as the city burned;  Holocaust survivor-owned stores burned; and worried that my father, a cigarette and candy vendor out on those streets just trying to support his family, wouldn’t come home alive. My grandfather Chaim screamed, “Kristallnacht!” (he was there).

In 1992, my car crawled down Fairfax, through acrid smoke from Sammy’s Camera store burning, to bring food to my aging, Viennese mother, who Nazi women forced on her knees to scrub with her bare hands a bridge over the Danube, threatening to throw her into the raging waters. While shopping for Shabbat at Ralphs on La Brea, an older black woman with beautiful, sad eyes smiled at me and said, “Now, more than ever, we have to be kind to each other.” We hugged past hate.

Recently, my friend Shira texted me a play-by-play of the looting and fires in the Fairfax area and downtown. Enraged and saddened, I exchanged messages of concern and love with Winnie, a black woman I worked with at Jewish Family Service for years.

Even while we sing Rav Kook’s “Four Songs,” we must never apologize for being victimized. We must raise our fists in solidarity with our community, and stand against the injustice of vandalism, anti-Semitism and hate implicit in the destruction of the livelihoods of innocent Jews.

We must never forget that rationalizations for injustice never bring justice.
Mina Friedler, via email

Trump’s Farcical Photo Op
I wonder if President Donald Trump will follow up his obscene photo op of holding up a Bible in front of St. John’s by  parading in front of a synagogue with a Torah or playing catch with the Quran in front of a mosque. The man’s motives are so transparent even his followers finally should be waking up to what a scourge he is upon our democracy and common decency.
Hal Rothberg, Calabasas

Order Up: Shakshuka
“Breakfast of Kings” (June 5) evokes all the sights, scents and flavors of the amazing breakfasts in Israel..

There is also a Balkan shakshuka on menus here: the classic spicy tomato shakshuka base with fried/grilled eggplant and cubes of salty Bulgarian cheese.
Judy Lampert, Raanana, Israel

Corrupt Leaders
In “Two Questions in Netanyahu Trial” (May 29), Shmuel Rosner discusses how some Israelis and outsiders may find the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unpresidential and, although not illegal, shouldn’t have taken place.

Any citizen in a democratic country should be wholly against any sort of exchanging of gifts behind closed doors, for the sole reason that it may encourage an elected official to enact policy that benefits governments that shower him or her with gifts rather than what’s best for the people.

Similarly, just as I feel we should oppose this behavior in our ancestral homeland, we should do the same in our current home. President Donald Trump has accepted thousands of dollars’ worth of gifts from the Saudi Arabian government. He then circumvented congress, and by doing so, our democracy, and passed a billion-dollar weapons deal with Saudi Arabia, which doesn’t even recognize Israel as a nation.

We should think very carefully about how our elected officials conduct themselves and reprimand them when they put the interests of the people in the backseat.
Marcus Cate, via email

Social Justice and the Environment
Deborah Fletcher Blum’s column struck a nerve  (“A Mask Standoff, June 5). For years, I’ve wondered whether drivers of conventional cars — in preference to driving an electric vehicle (EV) — are disregarding public safety.

Air pollution is a cause of major health problems. There is also an environmental justice component to air pollution –- it is especially dangerous within hundreds of yards of freeways, and it is in just such places, because of socioeconomic reasons, that poor people and people of color are more likely to live.

In this time of Black Lives Matter, those who truly care will want to find ways to walk the walk. Switching to an EV is one such way.

More than 17 million Americans bought new vehicles last year at an average price of over $37,000. Many very good electric vehicles cost less than that, and if you throw in used EVs, almost every car buyer can afford to go electric. In L.A., is driving an EV — rather than a conventional car — just as important for public safety, if not more so, than wearing a mask?
Ben Zuckerman, Los Angeles

‘Fiddler’ to Fiddle Again
I was disappointed to learn that “Fiddler on the Roof” is being remade (“ ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ to Get Movie Remake,” May 28). Why remake perfection?

The original 1971 film, starring Topol as Tevye and directed by Norman Jewison (who isn’t even Jewish), was a masterpiece. It beautifully captured the lost world of Anatevka. Songs like “Tradition,” “Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” “If I Were a Rich Man,” “To Life,” “Miracle of Miracles” and “Sunrise, Sunset” became the soundtrack for a generation of weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs and school plays. Topol was nominated for an Academy Award for lead actor and won the Golden Globe. The score earned composer John Williams (whose subsequent films included “Jaws,” “Star Wars,” “Close Encounters,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “E.T.,” “Jurassic Park” and “Schindler’s List”) his first Oscar.

That said, if it’s going to be remade, I have a casting suggestion for the role of Tevye: Samuel L. Jackson. Just imagine Jackson as Tevye saying after the pogrom scene: “I’ve had it with these meshugge Cossacks in this meshugge shtetl!” Cathartic.
Stephen A. Silver, San Francisco

Soviet Jews
In June 1970, a handful of desperate Soviet Jews tried to leave the USSR by plotting to steal a small plane so they could fly to the West and then go to Israel. These brave Jews had been denied permission to emigrate. They had no guns or weapons. No violence was planned. They’d be the only passengers on board.

They called their plan Operation Wedding and pretended they were all flying to a family wedding. Unfortunately, they were caught and arrested by the KGB. Their trial, in a Soviet kangaroo court, became known as the infamous Leningrad Trial. The two leaders were sentenced to death and the others to long terms in the Soviet Gulag.

The strong worldwide demonstrations on their behalf helped grow the Soviet Jewry movement, which 20 years later, ultimately became successful. Operation Wedding was a key turning point in this great event in Jewish history.
Morey Schapira
Former National President, Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, Sunnyvale, Calif.

Now it’s your turn! Don’t be shy. Send your letters to letters@jewishjournal.com Letters should be no more than 200 words and must include a valid name and city. The Journal reserves the right to edit all letters.