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Traif and treats

I'm always happy when my Danville children send me an issue of your publication — and it so happened when I received the Aug. 19 issue and read the article "Hold the pork."

Allow me to make a remark, though. Near the end of this article, where it reads "the rice and collard greens aren't kosher," please note that it is not that the rice and the greens aren't kosher — these items are traif because they haven't been cooked in kosher pots.

Your article is absolutely correct, and Rabbi Yossi Schilkraut and Sergio Eduardo Geigner (as his mashgiach) do an excellent job of keeping Jewish Brazilian appetites fully satisfied.

I only wish more people in the restaurant business would be like Paulo Affonso Paulillo and put such delicacies like "feijoada" at our disposal.

Arnold Diesendruck | Sao Paulo, Brazil




What's in a stat?

Richard Israel's Sept. 2 letter, which is a veiled attempt to invalidate nontraditional parent families, begins with a quibble as to how many children are raised in such families. Whether the correct number is 75 percent or 44 percent, the number of children is substantial, certainly enough for statistically valid research to have taken place.

His claim that "highly regarded research" contradicting psychologist Peggy Drexler's research is meaningless without a complete review of the literature. This he did not attempt. Thus there may be as many studies supporting Drexler's figure as USA Today reporter Haya Nasser's. Any of them may or may not have been well-designed.

Also meaningless is his quoting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report that finds a correlation between fatherlessness and various tragedies.

Fatherlessness cannot be established as a cause unless all other factors are corrected for, such as income level, education level, family history of drug and alcohol abuse, and many more.

Israel assumes that the factor he chooses is causal, when in fact separating and assessing the results of a single factor in human affairs is a serious scientific challenge.

Nina Wouk | Menlo Park




'Life-changing experience'

This summer I lived in Kiryat Malachi as a Partnership 2000 volunteer participating in the People to People program. I lived as an Israeli, working in a welfare center teaching English to disadvantaged children. The children were 10 to 12 years old. They were beautiful children with amazing spirits. Other volunteers tutored, worked with seniors and helped set up libraries.

P2P is a wonderful program that pairs 28 regions in Israel with more than 100 diaspora communities through out the world. The Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay is part of the Western Consortium, along with Phoenix, Seattle and other cities. We serve the development town of Kiryat Malachi and the agrarian community of Hof Ashkelon. This area encompasses Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, which supplies the honey for the Honey for Holiday campaign.

Since 2003, our federation has supplied an apartment in Kiryat Malachi. This apartment has given many people the opportunity to volunteer. I enjoyed meeting and living with other dedicated people.

I was truly blessed to be able to give time to this beautiful community. The whole trip was an amazing life changing experience. I recommend it to anyone.

Elyse Maltz | Pleasanton




More Jewish studies

It was exciting to see an adult program, the Melton School, featured in your Aug. 12 back-to-school issue ("Palo Alto adult mini-school to quench thirst for education"). The opening of the program in Palo Alto is a welcome sign of the growing desire for in-depth Jewish education for adults.

I'd like to make your readers aware of another new program that will offer an intensive two-year course of Jewish learning for adults. This fall, the Tauber Jewish studies program will open at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco. Its core curriculum, called Yesod (source, foundation), consists of two years of in-depth study of Jewish texts, with rabbis and master teachers. The program also includes briefer courses on Jewish texts and their connections to our lives today.

The Tauber program is open to all. Classes begin in October, and we welcome your inquiries.

Rabbi Bridget Wynne | San Francisco
Congregation Emanu-El

'Dignity for all'

As regional director of the New Israel Fund, I thank you for the powerful Aug. 26 opinion piece "Israel needs to ramp up wheelchair access" by Rabbi Steven Chester, about the lack of accessibility in Israel for the disabled.

Readers would be heartened to know that there is a very significant organization promoting the civil rights of people with disabilities in Israel, founded in 1992 with the help of the New Israel Fund. Bizchut is an inspiring example of Israel's growing movement of citizen activism, with the aim of extending the rights and benefits of being Israeli even to the most downtrodden and disempowered.

The Equal Rights for People with Disabilities Law, which passed in Israel thanks to Bizchut, is one important victory, but as Chester points out, there is still a long way to go. With organizations like that, we are witnessing the gradual fulfillment of the dream of Israel's founders of a society marked by dignity and equality for all.

Steven Rothman | San Francisco




Changing lives

Kudos to Ronnie Cohen and Alix Wall for their superb Aug. 26 j. article "Ethiopians at Tawonga find colorblindness, kinship." They captured the essence of this unique bridge-building, multicultural experience. The total acceptance into a welcoming Jewish community described by Kobi Ambeu and Avi Fareda is central to Camp Tawonga's mission, and reflects well on our Bay Area Jewish community.

This ground-breaking work is made possible by the support of forward-thinking and generous local foundations. Your article identified the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, and we hasten to add the Bernard Osher Jewish Philanthropies Foundation (a supporting foundation of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund) and the Barbara and Ron Kaufman Philanthropic Fund (a donor-advised fund of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund).

Significant financial and professional help was also provided by the Living Bridges Project of the Jewish Community Federation's Israel Center.

Kobi told Cohen, "I think Tawonga can change lives," and we at Tawonga say that together with our steadfast and generous supporters, "We will!"

Ann Gonski | San Francisco
director, Camp Tawonga

ISM info

In a recent letter, Jim Harris claimed the International Solidarity Movement does not support terrorists. Yet the evidence against this statement is overwhelming.

ISM founders Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf wrote in a 2002 article that they "accept that the Palestinians have a right to resist with arms." Not once has the ISM condemned the murder of Israeli civilians.

Asif Muhammad Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif murdered three and wounded 50 in a 2003 suicide bombing in Tel Aviv five days after they visited the ISM in a Gaza apartment.

ISM activist Susan Barclay has stated that she knowingly works with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Activist Brian Avery has admitted that the group acts as human shields to protect homes "of individuals who chose suicide bombing as their method of resisting the occupation."

While ISM activists have consistently interfered with Israeli counter-terror operations, there is no evidence that the group has ever attempted any action to save innocent Israelis. Harris and others who claim to support human rights must explain why the ISM has never provided human shields to protect Israeli civilians in buses, restaurants, shopping centers and nightclubs.

Andrew Gross | Union City




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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