Lego Project Builds Understanding of Shoah As the daughter of Holocaust survivors, I was appalled by the headline to a November 17 article on the Warsaw Ghetto program using Lego building blocks (“Lego My Ghetto: Sparks Fly Again as Kids Craft Shoah Model”). Web log editor Dan Sieradski, who apparently lacks any direct knowledge of…
Levi’s World Was Complex An October 27 Shmooze item refers to Primo Levi’s “death by suicide” (“Primo Voted Number One”). The cause of Levi’s death was a fall into a deep stairwell. Whether that fall was intentional or, as is more likely, accidental, has never (and cannot) be determined. Levi’s work explores the dreadful humanness…
Borat Is No Mensch, Glod Deserves Better We in the Jewish community shouldn’t be too quick to laud Sacha Baron Cohen, aka, Borat (“Forward 50,” November 10). My husband and I saw the film “Borat,” and while one can’t deny Baron Cohen’s skills as a comic, his talent was overshadowed by the unethical business practices…
Study Exposes the Real Denominational Divide The study conducted by Steven M. Cohen described in your October 27 article “Orthodox See ‘Youth Advantage’” sharply defines the differences among the three major Jewish “denominations.” Its findings demonstrate that American Judaism does not consist of distinct religious streams among the laity as is true of Christianity and…
Student Mag Doesn’t Shy From Tough Issues I am writing to express my disappointment at the Solelim Fund’s decision to reduce funding to New Voices magazine (“Student Magazine’s Funding Cut,” October 20). As an observant and engaged Jew, I care deeply about Israeli society and politics. Unfortunately, there are few publications that provide coverage of…
War Without End Means Endless War Powers I applaud your October 20 editorial, “Human Rights in Wartime.” You correctly emphasized the greatest concern about the Military Commissions Act of 2006 — its permanence. This war can only end when a future president declares victory and says it’s over, since there can never be a surrender…
In the Beginning… BOOM! Howard Smith’s interesting article “In the Beginning, 13.73 Billion Years Ago” (Forward, October 13) argues that science and religion should be partners rather than adversaries. Some decades ago, I heard of a group of professionals who put this into ritual practice. At the Simchat Torah readings of the Creation, after the…
Scholar No Amateur In a September 22 arts article, Gal Beckerman pays lip service to my book, “Roosevelt and the Holocaust: A Rooseveltian Examines the Policies and Remembers the Times,” casually mentioning it in a few sentences and essentially quoting an article from Publishers Weekly (“Reassessing FDR’s Legacy”). At least the reviewer at Publishers Weekly…
What Does Allen Teach Us? The Forward editorializes, “We’ve seen a steady stream of public figures — Madeleine Albright, John Kerry, Tom Stoppard — confronted as adults with the hidden truth of their origins, and forced to absorb it in the glare of public attention. Most respond with thoughtfulness and grace. [George] Allen responded with…
Eitam Was Wrong, But So Were Gaza Expulsions A September 15 editorial terms Knesset member Effie Eitam’s call for the expulsion en masse of Palestinians from the West Bank as “lamentable” and a “mischievous assault on decency” (“Effie’s Choice”). I agree. Even Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the iconic nationalist Zionist, rejected the idea. In the now-famous 1923…
Jewish Life Booming In ‘Exurb’ of Irvine An August 25 article on Jewish life in suburban satellites of cities is quite deficient in regard to Irvine, Calif. (“‘Boom Burbs’ Filling Up on People, But Jewish Life Is Slow To Follow”). We’re proud to be one of the 10 fastest growing American cities, but we’re no…
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