Your Letters

Mordechai Vanunu

The Jewish Journal always has its fair share — some would say more than its fair share — of left-leaning articles and analyses regarding the situation in Israel. But your headline, “Vanunu: Hero or Traitor,” is beyond the pale (April 23). This man was convicted by the Israeli judicial system — lauded for its independence and fair-mindedness — of the highest crime against the state. Your headline inappropriately implies that one could just as easily view Vanunu as a hero, when this view is held by only the fringe left wing in Israel.

Jeff Kandel, Los Angeles

JCC Closure

Why can’t The Jewish Federation of Los Angeles step up to the plate and assist in the survival of the Valley Cities [VCJCC] (“Conejo JCC Red Ink to Bring Closure,” April 16)? VCJCC has countless parents and community members who have been working around the clock (since the edict was delivered by Randy Myer, Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles [JCCGLA] board president, on Feb. 24) to find either the money themselves or a buyer to purchase the Sherman Oaks property prior to the June 30 closure date. Purchase offers for VCJCC have been made to the GLA board and there was no response or even a counteroffer.

The GLA board has made every effort to thwart Valley Cities efforts to remain open to continue it service to the community: a community of young and old, black and white, Jewish and non-Jewish people. VCJCC operates the finest nursery school and elementary/middle school after-care programs in the East San Fernando Valley. Their programs are tailor-made to set up a support system for working parents –whether they are two parents working or a single parent-/grandparent-style family.

Close to $500 million in construction is planned, under way or has just been completed at JCCs in the United States. Why is Los Angeles the only city in this country that cannot support the Jewish Community Centers?

Cathy Robbins, Sherman Oaks

Pro-Life, Pro-Choice

The two articles on abortion in your April 23 edition failed to deal with the real point of division on the subject (“Pro Life, Pro Choice, Pro Healing”). Most reasonable people would agree that there are extreme human exigencies that would justify an abortion during the first trimester of a pregnancy. Harping on this point is like yelling at the participants in your daily minyan for not going to shul enough.

The real point of division is over late-term or partial-birth abortions. As a pregnancy progresses, there comes a point when one crosses the line from abortion to infanticide. There is an ever-growing cacophony of voices on the left who have no problem with infanticide. At this point, people of integrity must stand up and be counted; loudly saying, “Morally speaking, I have nothing in common with someone who advocates infanticide.”

Rabbi Louis J. Feldman, Van Nuys

Yom HaShoah

Julie Gruenbaum Fax produced another excellent example of succinct and perceptive journalism describing a complicated subject (“Yom HaShoah’s Uncertain Future,” April 16).

Unquestionably, effective memorials for future generations must continue to evolve. At the same time, the organized Jewish community must continue to serve the needs of the survivors. The experience of surviving the Holocaust exacerbates the usual issues imposed by age. Professionals at Jewish Family Service and other similar agencies work with compassion and commitment to meet these expanded needs. Maintaining existing programs and developing new ones will only increase ways to help survivors.

In addition, we must intensify the fight for reparations and restitution. Our tasks include finding ways to shorten complicated application processes, easing unreasonably high standards of proof and developing new opportunities for the Holocaust aggressors to compensate their victims or repay the profits they reaped.

Caring for Holocaust victims and advocating for their compensation offer living tribute to them and provide practical memorials to all who perished.

Mark A. Rothman, Holocaust Services Advocate Bet Tzedek Legal Services

Harold Schulweis

Thank you so much for publishing the excerpt from Rabbi Harold Schulweis’ sermon on the appropriate Jewish response to Mel Gibson’s film, as well as other attempts to portray the Christian story as fact (“Danger in Not Knowing Our Story,” April 16). It is important to remember that Christians are simply stating their beliefs concerning events recorded nowhere but in their own religious documents, and even there, many years after the events recited. In any case, we are not required to acquiesce in the Christian theological interpretation of events. Once again, Schulweis has hit the mark.

Phyllis Sorter, Santa Monica

Correction

The April 23 Op-Eds by Jonathan Schanzer and Jeremy Pressman were submitted through the New Voices program at the Center for Israel Studies at the University of Judaism. The project enables young Americans and Israelis to debate the major issues of the day affecting Israel. For more information, visit www.uj.edu/cpo.

Rabbi Harold Schulweis’ opinion column, “Danger in Not Knowing Our Story,” summarizes, in a succinct yet thoroughly inclusive and instructive manner, the foundational tenets that underlie the essence of the Jewish story. This story, moreover, has pragmatic and salutary ramifications in the real world, ramifications that have enabled mankind to pursue, and attain, a degree of psychological, physical, spiritual and fiscal health and wealth.

The Jewish story has enabled, and propelled, Jewish scientists, pedagogues, doctors and artists to question and push the envelope of life, resulting, ultimately, in the genius of Einstein, the vaccines of Salk and Sabin, the insights of Freud and the musical magic of Bernstein. This pantheon of production has not only resulted in Pulitzer prizes across all domains, but also, out of all proportion to our infinitesimal demographics (i.e. Jews comprise .02 percent of the world’s population, yet have received 12.5 percent of all awarded Pulitzer prizes).

The Jewish story has elevated questioning to an exalted status, questioning the status quo and challenging accepted dogma. This inquisitiveness, and the concomitant lessons derived from it, has resulted in a Jewish history devoid of any expulsions, inquisitions, pogroms, Holocausts and genocides

The Jewish story is thus a story whose ending is still evolving but whose universal message may provide the anodyne to the world’s most persistent and malevolent evils.

Marc Rogers, Thousand Oaks

Universal Health Care

Thank you very much for Nancy Sokoler Steiner’s article on Universal Health Care (“Can Universal Care Cure State’s Ills?” April 23). It was clear and to the point. It’s obvious that universal health care is financially within our reach as a society. The question is just so politically charged. When you come right down to it, there are big forces in our country whose view is that not everyone needs to have at least a minimum standard of health care. Otherwise, how will we be able to tell rich from poor, advantaged from disadvantaged? The Zay Gezunt Coalition believes that Jews have a vested interest in securing health access for every person in our society. Anything less is an insult to our collective humanity.

Eric A. Gordon, Director Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring Southern California District

Talmudic Error

Lamelle Ryman’s Talmud reference in, “Pro-Life, Pro Choice, Pro-Healing,” is in error (April 23). She wrote: “The Talmud says in tractate Sanhedrin that saving one life is the equivalent of saving the entire world.”

This common misquotation represents the sanitized version of the Talmud.

The passage correctly reads as follows: “Whoever destroys even a single life in Israel, Scripture regards him as if he had destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a single soul in Israel, Scripture regards him as if he preserved the entire world.” (Steinsaltz Talmud, Sanhedrin 37a, Vol. XVII, p.68.)

Rabbi Jacob Neusner’s “Mishnah” also supports Steinsaltz’s edition of the Talmud, yet is even more specific as to whom the teaching actually applies: “Whoever destroys a single Israelite soul is deemed by Scripture as if he had destroyed a whole world. And whoever saves a single Israelite soul is deemed by Scripture as if he saved a whole world.”

Sanhedrin 37a is often inappropriately applied to anyone saving anyone’s life simply because most English versions of the Talmud have been redacted.

Neither the Talmud nor the Mishnah support such an application. The Talmud and Mishnah teach that the verse applies to Jews and to Jews alone, to the complete exclusion of non-Jews.

Wes Nettles, Valparaiso, Ind.