Whose party needs cleaning?
Barry Dwork’s letter “Republican Deflections” (May 30) overlooks a few key points.
The two synagogue shooters, Robert Bowers and John Earnest, were not Republican elected officials and in fact resented President Trump’s strong support for Israel and close relationship with Jews.
Second, Trump condemned the shooters. In contrast, the Democratic Party and its leadership has rallied around the anti-Semitic Democratic congresswomen (Ilhan Omar [Minn.] and Rashida Tlaib [Mich.]) and have in fact sought to justify their comments. The Democratic Party has also failed to attack the rise of leftist anti-Semitism on college campuses.
I would suggest that Mr. Dwork work to clean up his own party before attacking a president who has been our best friend.
JONATHAN GRANT
Silver Spring
Wouk in the U.S.A.
I found Gerard Leval’s May 22 reminiscence, “When Herman Wouk was a Kesher Israel congregant” (Voices), to be charming but lacking.
What exactly was Wouk’s relationship to the State of Israel? He set two novels there, but among his many residences, as detailed in Rachel Gordan’s Arts and Culture analysis (“Herman Wouk’s works,” same issue), none was in the Jewish State. And as “an observant and proud (Orthodox) Jew,” why did he not, especially in his later years, make aliyah?
STEPHEN ARKAN
Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Some welcome!
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s (Md.) effort to defend Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D-Mich.) comments on the Holocaust (“Hoyer defends Tlaib on Holocaust comments,” May 16) fails because neither Hoyer nor we have any idea what she intended to say. All who were alive in 1947-49 remember that the Palestinians and their allies in the surrounding Arab states tried for two years to massacre the Jews of the Yishuv, including the Holocaust escapees in their midst. Some welcome! When Tlaib refers to the past she ought to think first and then speak accurately and clearly, mindful that Jews and Muslims who love peace must stand together now lest the haters triumph again.
RABBI GEORGE B. DRIESEN
The writer is founding president of The
Institute for Science and Judaism.
