Anti-Birthright ‘protester’ more a user than anything else
Bethany Zaiman is identified as a “protester” against Birthright’s policy of not incorporating Israeli-Palestinian issues into their trips (“D.C. Birthright protester is resolute about why she abandoned trip,” July 26). That she knew about this policy beforehand yet intentionally violated the terms of her trip makes her more appropriately a Birthright user, if not publicity hound.
With respect to the latter, WJW certainly accommodated her with its full page coverage. Zaiman has every right to meet with Palestinians in Israel to discuss their situation, but she should do it on her own dime.
ALLAN SUCHINSKY
Kensington
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
Arthur Sapper’s piece about the dangers from the political left to American Jews is another example of how many of us still turn two blind eyes to the bigger threat of anti-Semitism not only coming from the political right, but also coming from within our own country (“We need to acknowledge who our friends really are,” July 26).
For example, neither Iranian soldiers nor the Hezbollah militia had marched in the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally last year, chanting “blood and soil, Jews will not replace us.” Instead, it was all-American, white Christian supremacists. Sapper keeps referring to President Donald Trump and the Republican Party being the real friends of American Jews. What kind of friend reveals highly classified Israeli intelligence information about Islamic State activities to a Russian ambassador, as Trump did? What kind of friend issues a Holocaust remembrance proclamation that omits the mentioning of Jews as victims? What kind of friend refers to a loyal Jewish political adviser with an anti-Semitic remark, as Trump did when he called economic adviser Gary Cohn a “globalist?”
With a friend that is a political party fielding a handful of neo-Nazi candidates as general election nominees, who needs enemies?
BARRY DWORK
Alexandria, Va.
Legal does not equal moral
Regarding a recent letter to the editor, I agree that the United States has the legal right to determine who it lets in at the border (“Supreme Court decision was correct,” July 12). But as a Jew in a world where so many lives are at risk, I believe that the larger question here is a moral one. Just because it is legal does not make it moral.
Not so long ago, the United States “legally” turned away the St. Louis with hundreds of Jewish refugees on board, many of whom eventually perished in the Shoah. There are 65 million refugees and displaced persons in the world today. Last year the United States shamefully allowed only about 29,000 refugees in.
I am saddened that our “shining city on the hill” has lost its luster.
TED BENJAMIN
Oakton, Va.
