Readers discuss the ADL, day schools and the Democratic Party.
ADL Unfair in its Protestations
The regional chair of the Anti-Defamation League attacked both freedom of speech and the ZOA while utilizing serious inaccuracies (“Printing Attack on ADL Unjustified,” Aug. 11).
Firstly, she opposes the Exponent’s right to publish legitimate criticism by the ZOA of the ADL, writing that she “was puzzled and chagrined that the Exponent printed the national president of the ZOA’s” criticism. Secondly, she falsely claimed that the ZOA called her organization “weak.” We never used that word, and merely complained that the ADL wouldn’t state outright that Rep. Hank Johnson’s calling Jews “termites” is anti-Semitism. Finally, she absurdly called the ZOA’s appropriate criticism of the ADL’s actions “hate speech.”
It’s painful to see a storied group like the ADL revert to name-calling, inaccuracies and attacks on free speech in order to defend themselves.
Morton A. Klein | Merion Station
Day Schools Are Not the Only Answer
I am greatly disturbed by the tone and content of the lead article in the Aug. 25 issue, “Endowment Fund for School Choice Seeks $40 Billion for Jewish Day Schools.” Although in quotation marks, the fourth paragraph denigrates every other method other than day schools of keeping our children as Jews. The idea that a Jewish group would seek to suck out of the Jewish community such an overwhelming amount of money to support what only a small percentage of the Jewish community would even want for their children is most unfortunate.
I do not seek to answer the article’s charges, but only to suggest that if a small percentage of that sum were spent to make membership in all Jewish synagogues free and fund their educational opportunities as well, it would bring about the great result we all hope for ourselves and our children.
When you publish an article like this one about an organization that has raised a total of $3,000 and makes outlandish statements, you should have a rebuttal in the same issue.
Sidney Margulies | Wynnewood
Today’s Democratic Party Doesn’t Feel Like Home
As a liberal Democrat who has voted that way since George McGovern was the party’s nominee for president, I, unlike one recent reader, am deeply conflicted about this year’s election (“Plenty of Jewish Issues on Democratic Side,” Aug. 25). The champions of liberal causes have, unfortunately, taken up as well the so-called Palestinian cause.
Sometimes their support of the Palestinians takes the form of civil protest, as in the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, but other times it’s not so civil. Jews on campus are being harassed and bullied by the proponents of these causes.
The candidates who speak out for Jewish lives, for the most part, are no longer the liberal Democrats. The party is no longer home to the likes of Harry Truman, Hubert Humphrey, Scoop Jackson and Walter Mondale. That is the dilemma for us old-time liberal Democrats.
Zachary Margolies | Philadelphia
