Prager and Dershowitz

Prager and Dershowitz
Like two boxers, Dennis Prager and Alan Dershowitz stepped into the ring of The Jewish Journal as Dershowitz defended himself against Prager’s question in the article, “Why Doesn’t Alan Dershowitz Join the Right?” (Jan. 30). Prager executed his fight plan by his usual ranting against the evils of the left and falsely accusing all the left to be anti-Israel. He employed his usual tactic of painting the left with a broad brushstroke by taking a few examples and applying them to the entire left, just as he uses unsubstantiated statistics on his radio show.

Dershowitz didn’t dance around the issues. He specified his commitment to supporting the Constitution, separation of church and state, stem cell research, strong unions, checks and balances, opposition to the unitary executive and other issues for the betterment of our society. Many of these issues are opposed by a vast majority of the right.

Dershowitz condemned the hard left for their anti-Israel views. He vowed to continue to fight to increase support for Israel within the mainstream of Democrats and liberals. Further, he stated, “I will not be kicked out of the left by its anti-Israel extremist fringe.”

As a reader of this opinion section and thus referee of the boxing match of Prager vs. Dershowitz, I declare Dershowitz the winner by a clear knockout. The outcome was not surprising because Prager was only able to fight with his right hand.

Leon M. Salter, Los Angeles

As luck would have it, I was listening to Bob Dylan singing “Idiot Wind” when I picked up The Journal and began reading Dennis Prager’s absurd column questioning Alan Dershowitz’s failure to disassociate himself from liberal politics.

Prager’s chutzpah knows no bounds. He wants Dershowitz to be a one-issue thinker. He chides him for not abandoning everything he believes about social justice and the value of secularism in politics, because he differs from much of the left on Israel.

Prager’s mentality is indistinguishable from all those, whether religious or secular, who know with unbecoming smugness that they’re right and moral and that anyone whose views differ must be on the side of immorality.

Dylan’s “Idiot Wind” blows pretty hard when Prager mounts that high horse.

Mort Kamins, via e-mail

The chasm between Alan Dershowitz’s ecumenical worldview and Dennis Prager’s provincial view is a microscopic re-enactment of the cataclysmic and macroscopic turmoil that has roiled not just the United States and Israel but the whole world. Prager, like his conservative automatons, reacts reflexively to any and every issue, generating an answer with the moral clarity of one who purportedly knows the truth.

Dershowitz and his Democratic polemicists react reflectively and conscientiously to life’s conundrums, generating as many, if not more, questions than answers.

In 1847, the Rev. Theodore Parker defined moral treason as “holding my peace when my country is in the wrong and I knew it.” By that definition, Prager, conservative Republicans and the religious right were tried in a court of public opinion, and as the outcome of the congressional and presidential races overwhelmingly confirmed, found guilty and sentenced to the pastures that they normally graze at — pastures of hate, fear and avarice.

Marc Rogers, Sherman Oaks

Thank you for the Dershowitz-Prager dialogue (“Why Doesn’t Alan Dershowitz Join the Right?” Jan. 30). It is Dershowitz who speaks for me and the 78 percent of Jews who voted for Barack Obama.

The 22 percent of Jewish rednecks, led by Prager, are generally rich and/or Orthodox and are desperate to bond with Christian Americans. These Jews preach the same line as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh: anti-choice, anti-gun control, anti-gay, limitation on medical research and free speech and the State of Israel can do no wrong. They seem to dismiss the evangelical Christian right’s belief that eventually all Jews must convert to Christianity.

Martin J. Weisman, Westlake Village

Day School Survival
Our local day schools have responded responsibly to the current economic crisis with the common objective of helping ensure the affordability of a Jewish education (“As Economy Tanks, Schools Seek Survival Tactics,” Jan. 30). 

Our school, for example, has taken on the challenge aggressively, increasing our tuition assistance budget nearly 35 percent and drawing an enthusiastic response from our own families to an appeal that raised well over $100,000 in one evening, all of it targeted to enable children to stay in the school and for new families to enter.

However, it would be a mistake to think only of the immediate crisis. Day schools have been caught in a Catch-22 for years: It is expensive to run a high-quality educational institution. High tuitions push out lower- and middle-income families. Yet the Jewish community needs day schools in order to assure the future of Jewish community leadership.

Even as we respond to the short-term need, we should put our minds to a greater, long-term solution. Only a large community-based fund for tuition assistance can assure that all children can receive the high-quality, integrated Jewish and general education they deserve — and that the Jewish future demands.

Rabbi Laurence Scheindlin, Headmaster, Sinai Akiba Academy

Thank you for the very important and topical cover story on the growing challenge for middle-class families to send their kids to Jewish schools. With two boys at Shalhevet on full tuition, we know the pain.

The respected Dr. Bruce Powell noted that we cannot make formal Jewish education out of reach just 63 years after the Holocaust.

I couldn’t help but notice the irony of the ad on the next page soliciting funding for the L.A. Holocaust Memorial, which I can assume will need millions.

We were all affected by the Holocaust. But when will we learn that investment in Jewish survival must be in education, not memorials?

Neil J. Sheff, via e-mail

The crisis that has gripped our day schools can be assuaged if addressed at the communal level. For example, a united Jewish community could provide the votes needed to pass a school voucher initiative. Vouchers would be used to offset the cost of secular courses at day schools.

Synagogues must also revisit the curricula of their religious schools to include greater study of our texts, rituals and Hebrew, as well as our customs, history and social action. More robust programming, which many of our shuls offered in their formative years, should appeal to families that moved to day schools but can no longer afford them.

It will also mean a return to more hours and days for religious schools. To help families, especially those with two working parents, take advantage of their programs, synagogues should offer meals and busing for their students.

Smaller shuls would also benefit from combining their schools. Consolidation would provide the critical mass necessary for an interactive learning environment. The Bureau of Jewish Education can play a vital role in facilitating that process.

The solutions are there if we are willing to work together while acting and thinking outside the box.

Leonard M. Solomon, Los Angeles

Torah Portion
How sadly ironic that Rabbi Isaac Jeret uses Parsha Bo and the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart as justification for the attacks on Gaza (“Hardening Hearts, Protecting Our Freedoms,” Jan. 30). He seems to be the one hardening his heart today, based on his lack of expressed compassion for the suffering of the Palestinian people under the Israeli occupation and the recent Israeli attacks.

No, we are not Pharaoh, and the Palestinian leadership and extremists, especially Hamas, must share the blame for their people’s pain. But demonizing all Palestinians (as evil Pharaohs) and acting without concern for their suffering will prolong the conflict and diminish our security — and our humanity.

Lawrence Feinberg, via e-mail

Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield
I want to thank you for including Rabbi Gershon Winkler’s “Tribute to an Old Friend” (Jan. 23) in The Jewish Journal. Although I only knew Rabbi Aryeh Hirschfield by association, the article helped me understand why the P’nai Or Congregation in Portland has felt such a deep loss with the tragic death of their “Rebbe.”

I would like to make one addition. Among the survivors is Robert Hirschfield of New York City. He was Rabbi Hirschfield’s older brother.

May his memory be for a blessing.

Elka Caplan, via e-mail

Another Viewpoint
Marty Kaplan is a described as a “weekly columnist.”  In “Liberal Parents, Liberal Children” (Jan. 30), he states that he favors “Bill Moyers over Bill Kristol.” Moyers recently accused Israel of state terrorism in defending itself against Hamas terrorism. Moyers stated that violence was “genetically encoded” in Israelis.

Kristol is a forceful supporter of Israel, America and the free world’s right to defend itself against Islamofascism.

Kaplan is a leftist. I find no comparable weekly columnist who is center-right in the Jewish Journal and writing about politics. Isn’t it about time?

David Schechter, Los Angeles

Politicizing Peace
Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater, national secretary of Brit Tzedek V’shalom, claims to be “nuanced” in his perception of the conflict in the Middle East but insists that the “strongest pro-Israel position possible” is “pro-peace” (Letters, Jan. 30). Is that necessarily so?

Everyone wants peace, but the politicizing of peace as the principal goal of a foreign policy may actually contribute to its opposite.

One of the heaviest contributors to the rise of Hitler’s war machine in the 1930s was the militant pacifism of so many well-intentioned groups in America, Britain and France. Iran’s sophisticated policy of aggression, which uses surrogates (Hezbollah and Hamas) to threaten Israel on all of its borders does not invite a “peace policy” from Israel or from its supporters.

Evacuating the settlements at the present time or bending to the demands of Hamas could very well unleash a conflict that would make all the clamorers for peace regret their intensity.

Peter Brier, Altadena

Political Debate
Hussam Ayloush brings an interesting perspective to the issues (“Political Debate: Yes; Bigotry: No,” jewishjournal.com, Jan. 29). I like his compressive approach to the problem.

As a Muslim I, too “ … condemn even the slightest attempts at defaming, demeaning or blaming Judaism or its followers for Israel’s …” actions. Muslims and Jews need to sit down and talk.

Talking is the only way to embrace each other and solve our problems. Ayloush’s article is a very important step in the right direction. Thank you for publishing it.

Hasan Hboubati, via e-mail

I am glad to see Hussam Ayloush was allowed to present his opinion in the Jewish Journal (“Political Debate: Yes; Bigotry: No,” jewishjournal.com, Jan. 29). Like Ayloush, I believe Israel’s actions and atrocities against the men, women and children in Gaza have nothing to do with Judaism.

Hopefully, American Jews, whether culturally Jewish or religiously Jewish, will condemn as I do the massacres in Gaza. And I hope they will contact the Israeli Consulate or Embassy to request that all Israeli war criminals in Israel responsible for the barbaric acts against innocent Gazans be brought to justice in Israeli courts as soon as possible.

Kathleen O’Connor Wang, Diamond Bar

Moral Authority Sacrificed
In its desire to confiscate the area that was set aside in the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan for the Palestinian people, Israel sacrificed its moral authority by stealing, lying, concealing crimes, depriving people of their basic human needs and rights and massacring civilians in Lebanon and Gaza (Letters, Jan. 30). They’ve lowered themselves to the level of thieves and terrorists and violated the golden rule of Jewish ethics: What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.

How tragic that because of Israel’s unethical behavior, Israeli civilians are more at risk of becoming victims of terrorism, and anti-Semitism has increased everywhere. How embarrassing it must be for Israeli citizens having to justify their nation’s crimes in the name of security for Jews at the expense of Arab children’s lives.

My sympathies go out to Israelis and American pro-Israel Jews for the daunting task they have in reconciling their conscience with the attempt to defend Israel’s indefensible conduct. Shalom.

Sue Gray, Carbondale, Colo.