Nothing green about ‘Green Book’
The article criticizing “Green Book” is disingenuous (“By comparing it to Anne Frank, this man nails the problem with Oscar winner ‘Green Book,’” March 7). According to “History vs. Hollywood,” the movie is substantially accurate, except that Dr. Shirley and Tony the Lip actually traveled together for almost two years, not two months.
Although the Shirley family claimed the pair were never friends, audio tapes by Shirley disprove that. They were very good friends, and Shirley was close to Tony’s family, often exchanging gifts. The movie events were created in part from the letters Tony wrote to his wife with Shirley’s help.
Tony’s son, Nick, a producer of the movie, claimed that his father’s early racism was reversed because of the experiences the men shared together, even changing the way his father raised the family. Unlike the articles statements recognizing issues of alienation that African-Americans face every day, in this case the truth and reality changed both men and made them better people.
The movie basically got it right.
JOHN GLASER
Alexandria, Va.
American Jews should leave Israeli politics to Israelis
Once again, tiresome kibitzing from (mostly) left-of-center Diaspora Jews who feel the need to weigh in on Israeli issues (“Locals react to Otzma Yehudit,” March 7). This time it is the upcoming elections and the “shonda” of Otzma Yehudit.
Never mind the fact that Israel’s Central Elections Committee has not seen fit to ban this party. Our stateside “experts” in Israeli politics apparently know better.
I respectfully suggest that we sit this one out. Israelis are sophisticated voters whose very lives are on the line with the results of this election, as indeed they are every day. They have a choice. On the one hand, there’s a man who is accused of specific white collar crimes but whose 13-year premiership has seen spectacular advances in technology, economics, military prowess, advancement in international relationships and, generally speaking, an elevation in the standard of living as well as quality of life for the
citizenry. On the other hand, there are candidates who promise quite a bit but who remain untested in the diplomatic back and forth of rough and tumble Middle Eastern politics, especially at this critical time when the luxury of a long learning curve is out of the question.
Israeli voters know what is at stake here and can be trusted to decide for themselves just what is best for
their nation.
MARTIN L. LIPSON
Potomac
Oppose hatred from all corners
The WJW has published articles documenting articulated hatred against Jews, both from a member of Congress and by a president who labeled chanting supremacists who had marched outside a Jewish house of worship in Charlottesville as containing good people. Hatred also is being fomented in a number of countries in Europe, with some countries’ leaders being culpable in articulating anti-Jewish hatred or condoning it.
Professor Deborah Lipstadt notes that with anti-Semitism, “Jews are not an enemy but the ultimate enemy,” and that we should “call out both friends and foes” and “must insist that anti-Semitism be treated with the same seriousness as racism, sexism, homophobia and Islamophobia.”
But how to react to the Israeli prime minister stoking hatred and fear with his words and political actions? I doubt previous leaders of Likud, while they were prime minister, ever articulated the prime minister’s recent words regarding Arab citizens or engaged in similar moves with an outcast political party.
MARK CZARNOLEWSKI
Silver Spring
