Letters

Thank you, Mark Lurinsky

Mark Lurinsky’s opinion piece (“What would mom and dad say,” February 28) struck home with me. My uncle was on General Patton’s staff and witnessed the liberation of at least one Nazi concentration camp. The thought that 80 years later we would see open antisemites (Musk), apologists for Neo-Nazis (Trump), and supporters of Germany’s Neo-Nazi party the AfD (Vance, Musk) running the United States is shocking.

Larry Lipschultz
Montclair

What would our parents think?

Each week when I open up this newspaper, I look forward to the diversity of opinion in the columns, and I especially relate to those that connect us to family stories of people standing up for Jewish people and other marginalized groups who find themselves in harm’s way.

Mark Lurinsky, in his piece “What would Mom and Dad Say” (February 28), resonated with me for that very reason. Mr. Lurinsky makes a good case that what we see right before our very eyes is an administration rapidly moving to dismantle democracy; an increasingly autocratic administration that has flirted with, and expressed support for, known antisemites, whether they be celebrities who have a big platform or members of militia groups that are ready “to stand back and stand by” as directed by President Trump.

Some of those people are walking free right now because Trump mass-pardoned all of the January 6 participants. A vice president of the United States meeting with the AfD? I, too, ask what my parents would think, but I know the answer — they would be horrified by the goals of this newly elected administration, where all of us are less safe with each passing day.

Thank you, Mark Lurinsky, for sharing a clear moral vision that this generation must respond as our parents’ generation did in a dark and difficult time.

Amy Ipp
Livingston

Batsheva Dance Company trumps mob of antisemites in Brooklyn

Last week, we battled cold and wind to arrive at opening night of three performances of the internationally renowned Batsheva Dance Company, straight from Israel, performing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. A mob of jeering Hamas supporters who had taken over most of the entrances and steps of the Brooklyn Academy of Music building greeted us. At the start of an evening of culture and grace, we saw evil. We saw its soulless, empty eyes, just a few feet from us.

Let’s be clear. This was no protest. Historically, protests in this country have been organized efforts to promote social change; they include the Boston Tea Party, women’s suffrage, the Million Man March, women’s rights, anti-Vietnam War, civil rights, and climate change. Ranting mindlessly on behalf of Hamas-sponsored terror hardly qualifies as a protest for national improvement. This mob consists of generationally indoctrinated hate-mongers wired to destroy the United States and, of course, any Jewish presence, worldwide. Indoctrination has been going on since prior to 1948. Thanks to the unbelievable generosity of Western countries, terrorists have been welcomed and, in return, desecrated their hosts.

So-called Palestinian “students,” masked and drunk with hatred, have been given the green light to spread chaos and hate speech by feckless, mystified top educators and New York City’s “ultra-progressive” leaders, who have forgotten the rich Jewish legacy of leading and giving in New York, and elsewhere. There certainly would have been a different response from Mayor Adams down if other cultures and religions received such hateful taunting. Thankfully, the 2,100 attendees did not blink at the mob. Police, while a necessary presence, acted professionally, obviously under orders to merely observe the chaos, like babysitters hoping the kid doesn’t fall from the crib. The hateful mob should have been located across Lafayette Street for everyone’s safety.

The Batsheva Dance Company is a major force on the international dance scene. It was founded by Baroness Batsheva de Rothchild in 1964, and her first choreographer was America’s iconic Martha Graham, who exposed the depths of human emotion through ‘movement language’ and precision. This was a major cultural event straight from Israel.

In honor of the victims of October 7, it is our responsibility to actively and generously support Israeli events and causes. October 7 clearly enunciated that it is impossible to communicate on any level with those who have been indoctrinated by at least three generations of Jew-hatred, including the unreported news that Hamas administered various Jew-hating indoctrination camps for kids in Gaza under the eyes of UNRWA and others.

All of us are in this together. As Albert Einstein said, “The world is a dangerous place to live not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.”

In spite of it all, Batsheva gave us a brilliant, stimulating, and Israeli evening. Bravo!

Arthur Fredman
Millburn

Never again means never again

When I was young, core liberal objectives such as equality, justice, tolerance, fairness, humanity , empathy, etc., were synonymous with Jewish objectives. And the concept of tikkun olam, making a better world, was central to Jewish education.

So I find it very distressing to hear Jews claiming that Trump and Republicans are perfectly fine and can do no wrong because they are good for Jews and Israel. In my heart and in my head, I know they are wrong.

Why do they think that being “good for the Jews and Israel” — assuming it were true, and it is not — is the only criterion that matters, and allows them to become blind to and complicit in the breathtaking dishonesty, blatant corruption, and daily erosion of civil rights and human rights that is going on under a wannabe dictator and an enthralled Republican Congress? How do the damage to the U.S. constructive leadership in the civilized world and destabilization of world democracies help serve some “Jewish interest”?

But even if nothing mattered other than Trump’s being “good for Jews and Israel,” is that even true? How can it be good for Jews in the U.S. to have a president and an administration who tolerate and indeed encourage extremists and neo-Nazi organizations at home and abroad? How can it be good to support racist views against all immigrants except white people? Jews were welcomed to this country as immigrants when escaping poverty and persecution and fought to extend that grace to others. Jews have flourished here because they could rely on democratic norms that protected everyone against discrimination, encouraged free speech, and supported all minorities.

How can it be good for Israel’s standing in the eyes of world to advance relentless destruction and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian land? How can Jews, who have suffered so much during the Holocaust, stay silent in front of the proposal of a “Riviera in the Middle East,” as visualized in the embarrassing video that Trump circulated on social media? We would never have gotten to this point if Israel had pursued a just peace with the Palestinians over the past decades instead of dividing them and allowing Hamas to flourish.

One of the lessons of the Holocaust is never again. But never again ought to mean never for anyone and should help us recover and build on a Jewish tradition that advances both justice and peace. The time is now, and not only for Jews.

Chiara Nappi
Princeton

‘Jewish Hellenists spouting nonsense’

When I first read the headline “Is Elon Musk the Haman of our days?” (Dr. Mark Gold and Hiam Simon) I thought it was a Purim joke. But when I saw that the opinion writers belonged to two fringe far-left groups, I realized that they were simply Jewish Hellenists spouting nonsense.

Meretz, which Dr. Gold is affiliated with, is so unpopular in Israel it has zero Knesset seats and was forced to merge with Labor. Meretz’s heyday was in the 1990s when it championed the Oslo Accords which resulted in Arab bombings and dead Israelis. Meretz and Ameinu, which Mr. Simon is affiliated with, believe that Israel is always one suicidal concession from peace.

Musk backed Democrats until he was “tricked into agreeing” to let his minor son undergo sex change surgery. Following this experience he said, “I vowed to destroy the woke mind virus after that.” Musk called on the Penn and MIT presidents to resign in the wake of anti-Jew college protests and visited Israel and the site of Hamas’s massacre. When leftists ginned up the salute controversy, Prime Minister Netanyahu commented that “Musk is being falsely smeared” and “Elon is a great friend of Israel.”

While AfD’s membership includes anti-Semites, it is not a monolithic party and in 2019 it called for a ban on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel while other German parties passed a resolution simply condemning BDS. By contrast, Meretz, when it existed, supported a boycott against Jews in Judea and Samaria.

In Gold/Simon’s fevered imagination the U.S. is headed for dictatorship. In the real world, Trump is cutting funding from colleges that won’t crack down on anti-Semitism and arresting and deporting foreign protest leaders. For more than a year Biden and Democrats let Jewish college students cower in fear leading more Jews to vote for Trump than any Republican since 1988. Gold/Simon are just another couple of extreme leftists who can’t distinguish friend from foe.

Michael Milchen
New Milford