Letters

Wagging tongues

Regarding your Jan. 27 story, and the one on page 11 in this issue, bloggers' and neo-Nazis' tongues were gleefully wagging in cyberspace about the accusation that a Jewish judge "discriminated" against his own because, a former prosecutor falsely clamed that Judge Stanley Golde advised him to reject Jewish jurors in a 1987 capital murder trial.

Those who professes Golde was guilty of discriminating against anyone was either uninformed or mischievous.

I knew Stan Golde since our undergraduate days at U.C. Berkeley. After receiving his law degree from Boalt Hall, Stan built a successful practice as a criminal defense attorney. His clients were from all walks of life and strata of society.

Stan believed everyone accused of a crime is entitled to a strong and skilled defense, and that our legal system depends on defendants having access to skilled and committed advocates if justice is to be served.

After being appointed to the Alameda Superior Court bench in 1973, he was recognized for his commitment to fairness and justice by both prosecutors and defense attorneys.

As someone who's been active in the Jewish community, I experienced his deep commitment to the well-being of Jews locally and the world over. His memory deserves to remain a blessing to our community.

Jackie Berman | Palo Alto




Relevant joke?

Regarding the March 11 letter from Janice Gelb about "showing off" at b'nai mitzvah events reminded me of a joke my now retired rabbi used to tell:

Once there was a rat infestation in the basement of the synagogue. The facilities person used rat poison from the hardware store, and, when that did not work, hired an exterminator. Still, the rats persisted.

The issue was brought up in the board of trustees meeting and the rabbi volunteered to solve the problem. He went down to the basement and within a day or two the rats were gone.

Everybody wanted to know how he did it. It was simple, he said, I just bar mitzvahed them all.

Raanan Doron | San Ramon




Tip of iceberg

Tom Tugend's March 25 article about U.C. Irvine is the tip of the iceberg on the many facets of anti-Semitic incidents and the school administration's lack of acknowledgement to facilitate a safe and peaceful campus.

I've witnessed and documented many of the things that occurred on campus, including a racist, hate-filled speech in January by Malik Ali, who under the guise of free speech, spills out lies, venom and threats to Jewish students that if targeted for other minority groups would never be allowed — at least, without administration furor.

The administration never revealed why they protect the members of the Muslim Student Association in bringing in speakers like Malik Ali and given them free reign to hang out in the lobby of the associate dean's office.

Also, when I e-mailed Associate Dean Manuel Gomez last year about my concerns, he sent back, in error, an e-mail to Sally Peterson, dean of students, calling our requests for a meeting "hysterical."

When I alerted him to his error, he did apologize; however, he failed to demonstrate the seriousness of the issue on this campus, and the damage to the U.C. Irvine reputation.

U.C. Irvine is our version of Columbia University.

Allyson Rowen Taylor | Valley Glen




Holiday convergence

Viewed from the perspective of this former Catholic who realized his lifelong goal of becoming a Jew only in recent years, Rabbi Joshua Hammerman's March 18 opinion on the Purim and Good Friday convergence this year hits home.

"It's part of the natural order for American Jews and Christians that Holy Week and Passover coincide," he writes. The usual yearly "teaching moments" so fruitfully explored in post-Vatican II interfaith dialogue are replaced by jarring contrasts since Purim differs so greatly from Passover.

My Catholic education taught me the intriguing reason for the normal Easter/Passover timing: the moon. The Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar. Easter's timing is also lunar. The middle of a Jewish month is the full moon. On Nisan 14, the night of our slinking out of Egypt, we needed the moon's light to traverse the sea and desert.

Since Easter falls on the Sunday after spring's first full moon, that usually aligns Holy Week neatly with Pesach.

Even more so is true for the Easter Triduum: the three-day observance from Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday.

The "Paschal mystery" Catholics consider the center of their faith demonstrates by its very name to come directly from the Hebrew Pesach.

Dennis R. Ybarra | San Francisco




A pale shadow?

In his March 11 opinion piece, Elliot Jager of the Jerusalem Post laments the decrease in hard copy newspaper readership. Among the reasons Jager cites is that many papers are available online at no cost.

He also mentions the aversion some people have to reading views and news that disturb them or that is not as current as that on the electronic media.

However, there is another phenomenon, in America, that is missing in his equation. That element is the loss of commitment, credibility and courage to the journalistic profession that exists in the power centers of newspapers.

Investigative reporting of important issues has essentially disappeared from their pages. Fear of offending corporate advertisers, whose concerns are maximizing profits rather than civic responsibility or an informed citizenry, has caused publishers and editors to shrink from their duty.

In the '70s, the New York Times published the Pentagon papers. Via contrasting example, last October its editor killed a carefully researched report about how George W. Bush was wired for prompting during the presidential debates. This is a sad but telling commentary on how our most prestigious paper is but a pale shadow of what it once was.

Tom Herz | San Francisco




Wrong label?

J., like many publications, has come to define the phrase "peace activist" to mean someone who demands concessions by Israel and demands nothing from the Palestinians. Even members of the International Solidarity Movement, which condones Palestinian violence, often get that label attached to their work.

Your April 1 issue gives the tag to Teddy Katz, member of Gush Shalom, which blames Israel for every problem in the region.

The fact is, every prime minister of Israel, from David Ben-Gurion through Ariel Sharon, has worked for peace with Israel's neighbors. Every major political party in Israel, from the early Mapai to the modern Likud, has sought peace.

In contrast, the Arab world has repeatedly made war on Israel. The PLO was founded in 1964, before any "occupation," with the goal of destroying Israel. After the 1967 war, Israel offered to return all the territory acquired in that conflict in return for peace. The Arab world replied with a unanimous "no," and swore to continue its war-making until Israel was wiped off the earth.

Peace is not made by giving in to terror but by uprooting the forces that urge terror. I urge j. to be cautious in its labels.

Dan Fendel | Piedmont




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