[an error occurred while processing this directive]		Last Updated December 10, 1999 If you would like to send a letter, click on the Letters to Editor Form. A hasty deal? The Paris paper Liberation has reported that the son-in-law of Hafez Assad, one Asaf Al-Shawkat, a general in the Syrian Wehrmacht, was hospitalized in a Paris military hospital recently with a gunshot wound to the belly. He was shot by Maher al-Assad, the younger son of Hafez. Apparently he survived. The big problem with this is that these are the very people with whom the Israel of Ehud Barak is trying to strike a hasty deal involving turning over the Golan. These are the people with whom Barak thinks a stable viable long-standing accord is possible. These are the folks whose soldiers will be skinny-dipping in the Sea of Galilee if the Israeli Labor Party has its way. STEVEN PLAUT Berkeley A fifth column? A fence separating Israel from a Palestinian entity ["West Bank barrier has opponents on both sides of fence," Nov. 12 Bulletin] will be as beneficial as a perforated umbrella against rain. Terrorists out to kill Israelis will hardly use checkpoints to cross into Israel to execute their deeds. There is enough open and wild landscape to faciliate their crossing, and no fence of any shape, form or makeup will prevent them from carrying out their murderous tasks if they so desire. But there is something much more worrisome in this scenario. Quite recently it was not terrorists from behind the Green Line that tried to kill Jewish citizen but Israeli Arabs. Influenced by Hamas and groups with similar intent toward the Jewish state, what kind of fence will shield the Jewish people against this kind of fifth column? GERSHON EVAN San Francisco 'Beyond belief' Pardon my puzzlement but it's been widely reported that the new United Jewish Communities, umbrella organization for America's Jewish federations and the United Jewish Appeal, has hired private detectives to determine who leaked that they were about to bestow their Isaiah Peace Award on Yasser Arafat. After the original story was printed, the UJC began issuing a series of conflicting stories, denying and then confirming the event, before canceling it. I find beyond belief that these mavens of Jewish charity weren't embarrassed about giving the award to Arafat; they were embarrassed, rather, that they'd been found out prematurely. I agree with hiring a detective agency, or an entire brigade of detectives, educators, psychiatrists and psychologists. Their task would be to determine how the cream of American Jewish society came to consider Arafat, proud killer of thousands of Jews and the declared proponent of a Judenrein Palestinian state from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, a worthy recipient of their award. The next task would be to determine how to get these mavens to learn what's really happening in Israel, and realize how the Arab vision of peace truly differs from that of many, if not most, of them. JEROME S. KAUFMAN Bloomfield Hills, Mich. Deserving of honor Your Nov. 26 editorial on the celebration of the Bay Area Council on Jewish Rescue and Renewal at the Russian Consulate refers to the ceremony "honoring two of the early presidents -- Greg Smith and Sheldon Wolfe." As the only living and still active co-founder of the Bay Area Council on Soviet Jewry, let me point out that Smith, a hard-working and very valuable activist, was not an early president. And Wolfe, a conscientious and effective president, was a relatively late president. There were others deserving of honor who were important and truly early confronters of the USSR at the local consulate. I'm thinking especially of Rose Tamler (now an honorary vice president for life of the BACJRR) who organized and oversaw the daily vigil at the consulate six days a week (never on Shabbat) for seven years. EDWARD TAMLER San Francisco Local Bradley support I thought your Nov. 26 Jewish Telegraphic Agency article regarding Bill Bradley's strong support of Jewish causes, as well as social and domestic issues dear to the heart of our Jewish community, was excellent. I would just like to add that in addition to the prominent Jews throughout the country mentioned in your article that have already thrown their support behind Bradley, a great many prominent Bay Area Jews are also supporting his candidacy, including Richard Goldman, Annette Dobbs, Mickey and Peggy Drexler, Warren and Chris Hellman, Rabbi Brian Lurie, Stuart and Phyllis Moldaw, and Claude and Louise Rosenberg. As a member of Congregation Emanu-El growing up in San Francisco, and now a member of Peninsula Temple Beth El, I also am proud of Bradley's accomplishments and support of the issues I care about. JOHN ROOS California chairman Bill Bradley for President San Mateo Which manual? I commend the Conservative movement's University of Judaism for its honesty in publicizing the planned Bay Area appearance of Rabbi Bradley Artson, dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles. The following statement appears below Artson's photograph in a Nov. 19 Bulletin ad: "Each of us is born into life without having done anything to earn it, and life comes to us without an owner's manual." According to traditional Judaism as handed down to us through Moses and the prophets and sages, the Torah (including the Mishnah, Talmud and Code of Jewish Law) is our owner's manual, intended to answer the questions posed by the university's ad: "What is our purpose? How are we to behave? What constitutes a life well-lived? How do we repay God and each other for the wonderful opportunity simply to be?" Denial of the validity and authority of the Torah as an "owner's manual" for life is the main premise of all non-Orthodox brands of Judaism. At least the University of Judaism is straightforward on this point. YISROEL PENSACK San Francisco Racist ads? I am appalled by the incendiary, anti-Arab language of FLAME advertisements, and question the Bulletin's ethics in running racist ads. Would you run a similarly anti-black or anti-Jewish ad from the Ku Klux Klan? FLAME (Facts and Logic About the Middle East) identifies itself as a nonprofit educational organization whose purpose is the research and publication of facts regarding the Middle East, with an emphasis on exposing propaganda. Instead it presents an anti-Arab ideology supported by lies and distortions. The myth of the 1948 war as "a biblical miracle [where] the invading hordes were defeated by a ragtag Israeli army" has been refuted by Israeli generals who stated that the Arabs were poorly trained and fighting with malfunctioning munitions. More disturbingly, FLAME purports that Arabs have propagated the myth of a "Palestinian nation." Palestinians lived for generations on land which is now Israel. That they were the native majority until the 1940s is a fact many Zionists choose to ignore. But the most outrageous falsehood rests with the claim the "Arab countries are frantically arming themselves with the most dreadful weapons of mass destruction...for one purpose only...the destruction of Israel." LAURIE POLSTER Berkeley No re-definition I agree with Rabbi Ari Cartun that we should "appeal to Jews with honey" (Dec. 3 Bulletin). But the key word is Jews, so we are back to square one: Who is a Jew? Throughout history Jews never have been monolithic on religious issues -- from Saducees and Pharisees to Chassidim and Mitnagdim So it is perfectly OK to have a pluralistic answer to the question, "What is Judaism?" That's why all branches of Judaism -- Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist -- are authentic forms of Judaism. A peoplehood question is another matter. We cannot have pluralism on the question "Who is a Jew?" We are one people and should stay one, here and in Israel. Any unilateral re-definition of "Who is a Jew?" from any branch of Judaism is unacceptable. We don't need "Jews for one branch only." RUDY J. BUDESKY El Cerrito

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