Letters: Week of September 23rd, 2016.

Where Is Our Desire to Give?

David Suissa’s ingenious dovetailing of the story of Adam Krief and the Perutz Etz Jacob Hebrew Academy highlights an even bigger crisis in the Jewish world: the lack of giving (“Saving Adam Krief and Etz Jacob,” Sept. 16). At a recent bone marrow registry drive for Adam, I was excited to see many lining up but even more dismayed and even shocked at those who refused to test. I am excited to see how many young Jewish families are living in nice homes, in beautiful neighborhoods and driving luxurious cars but even more dismayed and even shocked that they refuse to donate money to schools, synagogues, hospitals or anything. 

What is it about this generation that celebrates a half-finished meal or a trip to Croatia on Facebook but we rarely see the same numbers of posts for donations, drives or projects that could improve the lives of one family, one community or one world? I hope that as we enter this time before the High Holy Days, that each one of us will reflect not only on what we have achieved for ourselves, but what we have provided for others. What are we willing to give up so that collectively we can gain so much more?

Tamar Andrews

Los Angeles

Add These to the Roster

Regarding your article on Jewish players with Hollywood  (“Jews Shined Among Stars on Hollywood Minor League Team,” Sept. 16), you missed at least one: second baseman Mike Chozen (1945). 

Inasmuch as you included an off-field employee of the Stars (Irv Kaze), it might have been good to mention probably the greatest and most creative concessionaire in baseball history. In an era when the only souvenir you could get at the ballpark was a cap and sometimes a yearbook, Danny Goodman with the Stars and for 25 years with the Dodgers (where his title was “Director of Advertising, Novelties and Souvenirs”) revolutionized the marketing of an array of “branded” items.  Now, even the lowest-level minor league clubs have souvenir shops with countless items available.  

Another worthy of mention would be Mark Scott, the Stars’ radio play-by-play man for a number of years.  

Bob Hoie
San Marino

Thoughts on ‘Ethnic Cleansing’

I truly enjoyed reading the article by Shmuel Rosner, because it emphasizes the fact that there are multiple opinions on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion that the Palestinians want to ethnically cleanse their potential Palestinian state for peace (“Why Netanyahu Is Right and Wrong About Palestinian ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ ” Sept. 16). Specifically, the article details how the demand for Jews to vacate the “Palestinian territory” may be outrageous, yet calling the demand an “ethnic cleansing” may be taking the situation too far. 

However, I do believe the author fails to mention that the Jews who live in “Palestinian territory” are in fact not forced to stay there by the Israeli government “to use as a negotiation card” or to get “sympathy from outsiders.” Rather, the people who currently live in what may become a Palestinian state have lived there all their lives and it is not in the government’s place to extract them whenever it becomes too much of an annoyance to Israel — as demonstrated by the disaster of Gush Katif, in which 8,600 people lost their homes during relocation out of the Gaza strip. While Netanyahu’s fiery statement may be brought into question, the right for Israelis to remain in their homes may not.

Shira Razi

Student at YULA High School

Palestinian Agenda 

Rob Eshman, surely you jest (“Ethnic Cleansing? Really?” Sept. 16). Have you ever read the Palestinian charter? Not only are you a Palestinian sympathizer but now you have become a Palestinian poster boy. If the Palestinians gained a state acceptable to them, in short order, Hamas would be nose-to-nose with Israelis.

As a practical and realistic matter, all countries have been taken from others with no exception. The only truism in this regard is that a country that possesses and controls its land, and can keep it, owns it.

C.P. Lefkowitz

Rancho Palos Verdes

Thanks for Supporting Troops

I enjoyed Ryan Torok’s article “A Home Away From Home for Lone Soldiers” (Sept. 16). Yasher koach for all those people who give of themselves, help support those soldiers and provide them a home away from home.

Adi Ohana

Los Angeles

Torah Wisdom

It was quite gratifying to read Rabbi Judith Halevy’s comment on Ki Tetze, “When You Go to War” (Sept. 16) with her emphasis on how a relatively minor commandment in ancient “primitive” times about how to sensitively treat an unmarried female captive should be a model of moral behavior for soldiers and all citizens in modern times as well.

Yona Sabar

via email

CORRECTION: A community story about Big Sunday (“Nonprofit Big Sunday’s Employment Program Is All About Working Well,” Sept. 16) ran under an incorrect byline. It was written by Eric Bazak.