Millennials Have a Responsibility to Remember
I was a young child when the Holocaust occurred (“Millennials React to New Holocaust Survey,” April 26). Yet all these many years later it still resonates in our family.
The Holocaust is a part of every Jewish person’s heritage. If the schools do not give the topic the pages that it deserves, then we as parents and grandparents must not let the young forget how lucky they are to be enjoying the freedoms as a Jewish person.
Anti-Semitism is growing nationally and internationally, so for the millennials to think that it can never happen again is to put their heads in the sand. It is their responsibility to keep the Holocaust and its horrific happenings a part of every Jewish child’s education about the Jewish people.
Gloria Gelman | Philadelphia
An Interesting Juxtaposition
Joshua Runyan astutely cautions that “dissent is not treason,” lamenting the tendency of “a growing group” both inside and outside of Israel to equate “certain political factions with Israel itself” (“Dissent Is Not Treason,” April 26).
Yet on the preceding page, there is a letter by local Zionist Organization of America officials doing exactly that: denouncing Students for Justice in Palestine and similar groups as being “anti-Israel entities” — for failing to conform to what can only be described as the Likud agenda.
Jesse H. Wohlberg | Philadelphia
Some Questions for Portman
Natalie Portman has stated that her “decision not to attend the Genesis Prize ceremony has been mischaracterized by others” (“Dissent Is Not Treason,” April 26). Question: Is Portman disturbed by those BDSers who now claim her as one of their own as much as she is disturbed by the supporters of Israel who question her loyalty to Israel and the Jewish people?
In the same public statement, Portman beseeched the world to “not take any words that do not come directly from me as my own.” Portman’s reversal of her prior decision to attend the Genesis Prize ceremony was initially communicated via her representative (whom she presumably pays to interface with the public and with whom she presumably communicated her initial acceptance). How much credence should the words of Portman’s own spokespeople now be given in any matter?
Kenneth H. Ryesky | Petach Tikva, Israel
