Jonathan Tobin is wrong (“Jews Don’t Need a Heritage Month, and Neither Does Anyone Else,” May 11) about why various groups need heritage months, which provide opportunities to teach important aspects about those who’ve landed on our shores.
For centuries, it was through our country’s white Anglo-Saxon Protestant founders and their descendants that the story of America was told. With much information to impart, teachers inevitably concentrate on teaching the larger stories. However, it’s important that other immigrants tell their stories of how they arrived and the welcome they received.
Instead of ignoring other cultures let us learn about them, celebrate their history and appreciate their contributions to our society. If it takes a heritage month to do so, so be it.
Tobin shouldn’t employ hot-button catchalls of anti-wokeism like tribalism, diversity, equity, inclusion, intersectionality and critical race theory, which seek to divide us instead of allowing us to learn from one another.
I don’t need Jewish Heritage Month or Jewish Heritage Night at sports stadiums, but if other Jews are kvelling in that attention, gay gezinteh hait.
We would live in a better country if all Americans learned the backgrounds and challenges facing all other immigrant groups as well as those experienced by the diverse Native American tribes who were here to welcome the first European immigrants.
Paul L. Newman, Merion Station
