Jews in Crisis IV
Congratulations to Rob Eshman on his excellent editorial onEthiopian Jews (“Jews in Crisis IV,” March 7). Most impressive was his decisionto present it as part of his important series on Jews in Crisis.
Too often, those of us who care about this ancient andZionist community are told that the major Jewish organizations have allocatedall their current aid funds to Jewish communities in need and have nothing”left over” for the Ethiopians. But as his editorial makes clear, theEthiopians are among the Jewish communities that need our help and must betreated as the equivalent of those Jews suffering elsewhere in the world.
It is my pleasure to tell you that the “anonymous” donor whoso generously funds not only the AIDS awareness program in Ethiopia (to Jewsand non-Jews alike) but also provides nutritious twice-a-day meals for Jewishchildren under the age of 6 and pregnant and nursing Jewish mothers is theLloyd E. Rigler-Lawrence E. Deutsch Foundation of Los Angeles. Lloyd Rigler,who directs the foundation, is literally saving the lives of thousands offuture citizens of Israel.
Middie and Richard Giesberg, Los Angeles
Last year, I visited the community in question and wastremendously moved by what I saw. It is impossible to imagine a Jewishpopulation more devoted to their religion, more eager to make aliyah and moreready to serve Israel in any way possible. It is also impossible to fullyunderstand the misery in which they live and hunger they endure unless you haveactually visited their hovels.
I am proud of the role Los Angeles and other Californiacommunities have played in bringing the plight of the Jews still in Ethiopia tothe attention of American Jews — and of the help that has been coming to themvia The North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry from our area.
It is certainly time to bring them all home to Israel and togreatly enhance the aid going to them in Ethiopia. My heartiest thanks to Rob Eshmanand The Jewish Journal for shedding much-needed light on this important, andoften neglected, Jewish cause.
Gail Carp, Mission Viejo
Campus Activism
Roz Rothstein and Roberta Seid’s column on campus activism(“The Need for Campus Activism,” Feb. 14) makes it abundantly clear that thereare two divergent strategies regarding Israel advocacy — both of which attemptto promote Israel’s interests.
One views advocacy as a fight against the enemy, the otheras an educational process. One advocates by claiming that Israel is alwaysright and that those who criticize Israel are anti-Semites; the other advocatesby teaching that as a democratic state, Israel sometimes makes mistakes, andthat engagement with and support for Israel means the pursuit of justice andpeace for both Jews and Palestinians.
Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, Director Hillel at UCLA
Memories of Iraq
Joel Kotkin’s interpretation of Jews’ status in Arab Muslimcountries as livable and even enjoyable, based solely on the accounts of oneIraqi-born Jew who longs for his native community, is an unfortunate slap inthe face to the rest of the Jews of the Near East who endured hardships andpogroms under Muslim rule (“Memories of Iraq,” Feb. 28).
While Kotkin is correct in pointing out Jews’ status in theNear East as dhimmis (non-Muslims), he fails to elaborate on random acts ofviolence against Jews, like the infamous Damascus Blood Libel of 1840, or thatin some Muslim countries Jews were forced to wear patches on their clothing toindicate their Jewishness (sound familiar?), or that many Jews, the Jews ofYemen for instance, lived in abject poverty, social outcasts of theircountries.
Indeed, for every Naji Harkham, there exist many other Jewsfrom Iraq and other Muslim nations who felt very much a part of the “marginal,oft-victimized community of shtetl lore.”
Nir Dayanoff, Los Angeles
Romance in the Negev
I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry in response to LoolwaKhazzom’s column (“Romance in the Negev,” March 7), in which she boasts of heraffair with an Arab Muslim gas station attendant. I think The Jewish Journalshould be ashamed to publish such an article, as by doing so it is an accessoryto the self-destruction of the Jewish people.
Name withheld by request, Valley Village
