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'Unrestrained whims'

In view of the sad facts most people have experienced during the Katrina disaster, I feel Jennifer Pollack and Andrew Friedberg's wedding dilemma (Sept. 9 j.) adds insult to injury to most of the people trying to survive.

Fellow citizens who had to leave their homes with only the clothes they wore, loaded down with little children with hardly any food or water, no sanitary facilities worrying where their families are. These are the people who had lost everything of whatever little they acquired in their lifetime. They do not lament over the loss of a tuxedo, wedding gown, wedding bands, ketubah and gifts, etc.

These are the same people who do not have the money or the transportation to drive down to Lowe's home improvement store. Nor did they have the privilege to escape to Houston nor any other city to live with their families. Not like Pollack and Friedberg, who, in spite of being surrounded by tragedies, continue to fulfill their unrestrained whims.

Bodo J. Zimmerman | San Francisco




Time to evacuate?

Israel is like New Orleans. It has built a wall to keep out Palestinian terrorists. However, that levee is not strong enough to hold back the hurricane of hate brewing in a sea of 1.3 billion Muslims. Now is the time to evacuate Israel.

Robert Urbanek | Vacaville




'Unimaginable'

I am proud of the tremendous response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster shown by the American Jewish community, including the efforts of Bay Area Jews and Jewish congregations.

I am proud, too, that Israel was quick to respond. According to Israeli Ambassador to the United States Danny Ayalon, "Israel was one of the first nations to offer relief aid, if not the first."

At the same time, it is beyond my comprehension how our own government's response to this disaster could have been so tragically inept. There were several days' warning of where Katrina was likely to make landfall, and scientists have warned for years about the very flooding scenario that came to pass. Yet officials neither anticipated this disaster nor responded to it during the ensuing week with even a minimal degree of competence.

In the days after the storm, children, the elderly and others who lacked the means or ability to flee New Orleans were simply herded into the Louisiana Superdome, the convention center and other makeshift shelters and then abandoned to fend for themselves, without food or water, amid mob violence. It is unimaginable that this could happen in America.

Stephen A. Silver | Walnut Creek




'A real tragedy'

How sad to see the images on TV of the havoc wrought by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced persons. People being forced to leave their homes, losing all their possessions. People having to relocate in distant cities. Communities broken up. Livelihoods gone. Synagogues and churches destroyed. Friends and relatives scattered — 9,000 of our fellow Jews amongst them. Homeless refugees all.

How our hearts go out to these poor souls.

Our Jewish federations immediately respond, calling emergency meetings to organize much needed relief programs for all the victims of the New Orleans disaster.

How good it is to see that the refugees of an American tragedy draw such an outpouring of concern and action from our Jewish "leadership," but how sad it is that another 9,000 refugees, our Jewish brothers and sisters from Gush Katif and the Northern Shomron, draw only a deafening silence — a real American Jewish tragedy.

Helene Wishnev | Pittsburgh, Pa.




Palestinian shame

I was upset and horrified when I saw on TV the burning of the synagogues in the evacuated Gaza settlements the minute the Israeli army left. Shame on the Palestinian Authority for not taking control and preventing this incident.

The whole world witnessed this act of barbarism.

Zipora David | Alameda




'Horrible years'

I was very pleased to attend a recent dinner at the Hebrew Academy, and pleased to be the guest of Rabbi Pinchas Lipner and Rabbi Shimon Margolin. The occasion was the historic visit to San Francisco of Yuli-Yoel Edelstein, deputy speaker of the Israeli Knesset.

Edelstein is perhaps best known from his role as a refusenik and for his long imprisonment by Soviet authorities. He spoke eloquently and passionately about the three long and horrible years he spent in a Soviet prison for his religious beliefs. Although the memories of the Iron Curtain may seem distant to some, Edelstein and his presence remind us of a horrible past we can never forget and for which we must be ever vigilant.

I was honored to be the only member of the city's official family to be present, and to welcome him and his wife on their first ever visit to San Francisco.

Gerardo Sandoval | San Francisco Board of Supervisors




'Overtones of idolatry'

I was appalled to read the Sept. 9 article "Next year in Black Rock City" about Burning Man, which centers around and culminates in the burning of a gigantic human effigy. The article represents the antithesis of Jewish values and is an account of bacchanalian revelry with overtones of idolatry.

Reporter Alexandra J. Wall says on her way to Shabbat services, where she was handed a siddur by a woman in a sheer negligee and participants sang "Lecha Dodi," she passed a couple "lying down and making out — and possibly more in the middle of the street."

Wall and the negligee lady took too literally the lyric in "Lecha Dodi" that says, "Be not ashamed."

Wall is not ashamed to report she "participated in the annual Critical Tits ride, in which several thousand women decorate their bare breasts and ride bikes topless en masse to a party."

Wall writes: "Fire dancers spin their magic to the beating of drums and the [effigy] man topples down in a cascade of fire and people linger and dance around it for hours."

The Israelites in Sinai also danced orgiastically, around the golden calf. That's why Moses shattered the tablets of the Ten Commandments.

Yisroel Pensack | San Francisco




Chelm and the helm

Ariel Sharon, who famously declared that "responsible statesmen do not give away pieces of their country to appease their adversaries and as negotiating chips," has now decided and successfully accomplished to make Gaza, part of the Jewish homeland, judenrein.

It is very sad, and Israel will have to reap the bitter harvest of this dreadful deed. It will be understood by Israel's enemies, and by the world at large, as a sign of weakness. In view of its implacable enemies, Israel cannot afford to show any weakness.

But what really boggles the mind is that Israel has invited the Egyptians to send a contingent of 750 soldiers to police the frontier of the Sinai with Gaza. Their mission is to prevent smuggling of arms into the Gaza Strip.

Is the Israeli government composed of the fools of Chelm or their descendants? If that is not inviting the fox to guard the chicken coop, what is?

Gerardo Joffe | San Francisco




'Partner in crime'

Contrary to a letter in a recent edition, there is ample evidence that Hiram "Harry" Bingham IV, the American vice consul in Marseilles, played a crucial role in the successful effort by U.S. journalist Varian Fry to rescue an estimated 2,000 refugee writers, musicians, and artists (including Marc Chagall) from Vichy France in 1940-1941.

There is, for example, the testimony of Fry himself. In the copy of his book "Surrender on Demand," which Fry presented to Bingham after the war, Fry included this handwritten inscription: "To Harry Bingham, my partner in the 'crime' of saving lives."

Dr. Rafael Medoff | Melrose Park, Pa.
director, David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies

Anti-gay 'balance'?

While the responses to the Aug. 19 letter attacking Ed Jones and Eddie Reynolds' wedding focused on its misguided writer, none mentioned the shame that j. should feel in running such an insulting, mean-spirited, derogatory and just plain badly written diatribe.

Whenever j. runs an article relating to gay and lesbian people, it feels the need to follow up with the printing of an anti-gay letter. Is this "balance?" Maybe you can balance articles written about the Holocaust with rebuttals by Holocaust-deniers. No, can't do that. That might actually offend someone.

Perhaps j. considers itself more "progressive" when running articles related to gays and lesbians yet adhering to the aforementioned "balance" by running negative responses to them. If this is the case, please just leave us alone and find some other way to make yourselves feel better.

Mike Bromberg | San Jose

EDITOR'S NOTE: As we would for any controversial issue, we felt an obligation to run a letter to the editor from a person who disagreed with our publishing a homosexual wedding announcement. As we all know, homosexual weddings are still illegal in the state of California. They are still banned by halachah (traditional Jewish law). Nevertheless, j.'s board of directors believes we should print such announcements. At the same time, someone who objects should not be denied space to state his/her feelings.




Letters policy

j. the Jewish news weekly welcomes letters to the editor, preferably typewritten. Letters must not exceed 200 words and must be dated and signed with current address and daytime telephone number. j. also reserves the right to edit letters. The deadline is noon Monday for any given week's publication. Letters should be sent by e-mail to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or by mail to j., 225 Bush St., Suite 1480, San Francisco, CA 94104.

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