Golden Age of Expansion
I am a recently retired baby boomer who turned to Jewish Family Service’s Freda Mohr Multipurpose Center and Eichenbaum Fitness Center for reconnection to the Jewish community, which is aiding me into this life transition of retirement (“JFS Expands Its Own Heart in the Heart of L.A.,” April 3).
How excited I became after reading in the Jewish Journal of the generous, thoughtful lead gift the Gunthers, Lois and Richard, are contributing to our Jewish senior community.
The Gunthers possess wisdom in recognizing the value a new building will have for our community on Fairfax Avenue.
Thank you, and thank you again Mr. and Mrs. Gunther and Jewish Family Services, for we deserve to represent our growing Jewish senior population in a grand building. Many blessings.
Dakota Sands via email
More Listening, Less Talking
I’m a quiet-mouthed person. God gave us two ears and one mouth — the more to listen than to speak (“Let’s Leave Obama Out of Our Seders,” April 3). This is an excellent article with lots to think about. How about each of us has four children inside of us? We can be knowledgeable, arrogant and sometimes do not know how to ask. Maybe all of us, good and bad, have all these qualities.
Barbara N. Roff via jewishjournal.com
Comedy Conundrum
I watched Trevor Noah’s show on HBO and I found him very funny (“The Day After for Trevor Noah,” April 3). He was not politically correct, which made him funnier.
Ilbert Philips via jewishjournal.com
I believe he wouldn’t have gotten away with it if he weren’t part of a certain minority group, which he also disparages. Shame on you, Comedy Central.
Elizabeth Crawford via jewishjournal.com
Trevor Noah’s mom is biracial and Jewish. His father is Swiss, so most probably white. We don’t know any details. In apartheid South Africa, with that family composition, he must have had a bullying hard time, unless they had money and he went to a private school. His humor, if you can call it that, comes across somewhere between juvenile and sophomoric, like most tweets. I’m betting he’s insecure, not quite sure who he is or wants to be, and has layered on this obnoxious persona the same way he tried to acquire “Black American” lingo to impress the Apollo Theater audience. I wonder how that went over. They are tough customers.
Leona Rund Zions via jewishjournal.com
Hop on the Bus, Gus!
This is a terrific article and it’s wonderful that Joel Epstein included [Wilshire Boulevard] Temple’s investment in Koreatown as helping to enrich the communities that make up Los Angeles (“Stop Waiting for the Bus,” April 3). The temple is blessed to be on Wilshire Boulevard, which is well traversed by buses, and we’re especially excited to be equidistant between two subway stops (two blocks in either direction!)
I think that today’s youth and young adults, in general, and Jewish youth and young adults as a subset, are becoming increasingly comfortable with the use of public transportation — especially if they have lived and gone to school or worked in cities where people have historically used buses, subways and trains. I see that trend among Jewish friends, family and neighbors and it gives me hope!
Karen Schetina via jewishjournal.com
Democracy or Dictatorship?
I work for La Opinion of Los Angeles. I and others here wonder why a Jewish publication would print a cartoonist’s vitriol on a regular basis of Israel’s democratically re-elected prime minister. Do you know if others at the Journal agree with Steve Greenberg’s vitriol toward Benjamin Netanyahu, and why?
Raffi Padilla, LA Opinion
Our Children’s Keeper
I do believe what God did next — while at one time I would not have, I cannot help but believe now (“Pharaoh Said ‘No.’ You Won’t Believe What God Did Next.” April 3). And I agree that the Jews gave us much more than monotheism — God, through Jacob’s noble descendants, gave us the knowledge of the nature of God — that God isn’t an abstract, imperceptible power (though much about God is unknowable) but, according to Moses and the prophets, God is literally like us as we are in his image, and he continues to deal with us as his children.
John Zimmerman via jewishjournal.com
Correction
In the April 3 issue of the Jewish Journal, a photo caption in the Moving and Shaking section incorrectly spelled American Jewish Committee past President Fredrick S. Levin’s name.