Wrong to publish D.C. address For Trump-Kushner family
I really question the reason for the Washington Jewish Week printing the purported new District of Columbia home address of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump (“Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner moving into D.C. house,” Jan.5). What can the reasoning be?
Being the first to print a scoop? Intending to cause the couple strife and disruption, as we recently witnessed a jerk harassing Ivanka Trump on a commercial flight to Hawaii last month with her children by her side?
And the couple is moving two blocks from the Obama family. Why not print his million-dollar Kalorama address also?
My suggestion would have been to use restraint and protect the Kushners’ privacy by showing respect. Obviously, the decision to print is ugly, rude and intrusive.
SARA KLOMPUS
Lake Worth, Fla.
Hier should change his mind
One of the lessons of the Holocaust is that many Jews, including my mother’s nuclear family, did not see the writing on the wall early enough. Rabbi Marvin Hier and the WJW editorial board are willfully looking away from Trump’s autocratic tendencies and movements, and his obvious lack of a moral compass (“Hier will honor the presidency,” Editorial, Jan. 12).
I am astounded that any Jew in a leadership position, particularly a rabbi whose life is devoted to educating the world about the Holocaust, would be a part of this inauguration. The majority of the Jewish community, horrified by the specter of Trump’s demagoguery, will not view his actions the way he attempts to disarmingly frame them — as “the menschlichkeit thing to do.” He will be recorded by history as the rabbi who “gave his blessing” to a man who, without conscience, uses prejudice to gain power.
I cannot make sense of his decision. I pray that he will have a change of heart.
SARA GLASER
Oakland, Calif.
Hier shouldn’t take part in Trump inauguration
The facts about Donald Trump are plain, and whether or not American democratic institutions are vulnerable to collapse, they have already proven vulnerable to significant compromise (“Hier will honor the presidency,” Editorial, Jan. 12). Trump is following the playbook of tyranny almost hauntingly to the letter, and I wish that every Jew in the world would organize as part of the resistance. I don’t imagine that I can reach the Jews who support him. But for the Jews who don’t support him but nevertheless feel that he should be treated with the same deference as any other U.S. president, I stand in anxious and rueful wonder. Since when has blanket obeisance to power been a Jewish value? Or an American one?
MELISSA LEVINE
Oakland, Calif.
Not Jewish values
This is not an ordinary inauguration, and this is not an ordinary, peaceful transfer of power (“Hier will honor the presidency,” Editorial, Jan. 12). There is overwhelming evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin stole this election for Donald Trump in order to further Russian interests and strengthen his own autocratic rule. Even if this were not the case, Trump is a candidate who has committed hate speech and bragged about sexually assaulting women — all of which has been documented on videotape.
These are not Jewish values. My ancestors who fled oppression in Russia are rolling in their graves right now at the thought of a rabbi delivering a benediction for such a corrupt man.
ALISON LUTERMAN
Oakland, Calif.
