Jealous conclusions are wrong
Your front-page article purportedly about Ben Jealous’ success in the Democratic primary exposes your Republican bias (“Jealous will need middle class support,” July 5). The messages it conveys are: 1) Jealous’ win shows that Democrats are moving to the left, 2) he won because he had more money, and 3) he will lose to Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. All three are wrong.
Jealous headed the NAACP — a very middle-of-the-road organization, not exactly a bomb-thrower. He supports “criminal justice reform, education funding, healthcare and immigration,” not far-out lefty positions.
He may have had more money than other candidates, but in today’s politics, where that is often a negative, it seems very unlikely that money was the deciding factor. As for who will win in November, we’ll see.
When I was growing up, the very idea of a “Republican Jew” was an oxymoron. Republicans were — and continue to be — the people who fight against the progressive values that Judaism stands for.
DON CHAULS
Sandy Spring
Democrat says some moving too far from Israel
As someone who hopes for a Democratic victory in the midterm congressional election, I must nevertheless disagree with your editorial’s too rosy assessment of candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (“The lesson of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory,” July 5).
The current ferment in the Democratic Party has unfortunately produced a few congressional candidates who have demonstrated their hostility to Israel. If Jewish Democrats do not make clear that we will not support such candidates, it will only greenlight the spread of such views within the party. I would hate to see the party that champions social justice become a party opposed to Jewish self-determination and survival.
STUART ENDICK
Burke, Va.
Ocasio-Cortez critics are on the mark
I appreciate your editorial’s taking the pains to tell us why “many first responders in the Jewish press and Jewish community” have concluded that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “is anti-Israel and a harbinger of the Democratic Party’s continuing descent into anti-Israel purgatory” (“The lesson of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory,” July 5). However, the evidence that you cite persuades me that the “many first responders” are on the mark, and you are wrong. You are much too benign to a person who has given such strong indicia of hostility toward Israel.
I see no justification for you to lean over backward as an apologist for Ocasio-Cortez. It reminds me of the many Jewish Democrats who chose to ignore all of the facts that showed the hostility of President Obama toward Israel, and, as a reward for their self-delusion, found that he had thrown traditional American policy overboard and abstained from — instead of vetoing — a one-sided U.N. Security Council resolution heavily stacked against Israel.
NATHAN DODELL
Rockville
Supreme Court decision was correct
Many Jewish groups were quick to condemn the Supreme Court’s travel ban ruling (“A narrow, important ruling,” July 5. They are either misinformed or misguided.
Six of the seven countries included in the travel ban (Venezuela being an exception, but then it is not exactly a tourist attraction at the moment), in addition to numerous other Arab and Muslim countries (e.g. Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Malaysia) have consistently denied entry to their countries to those carrying Israeli passports. We may not like it, but a sovereign country has the right to determine who enters its territory, and this right should not be denied to the United States.
Foreign nationals’ ability to enter another country, whether as tourists or immigrants, is a privilege, not a constitutional right.
Consider what happened after Germany opened its doors to a massive flow of mainly Syrian refugees. Violence and anti-Semitism spread so quickly that Jewish leaders in major German cities have warned Jews to avoid wearing yarmulkes in public.
NIMROD RAPHAELI
Washington, D.C.
