Planting The Seeds
Shoshy Ciment did a fantastic job with her Sept. 8 article on the kidney match I made. It was an honor to have the story told in The Jewish Press.
I’ve received great feedback from the article. You planted the seeds by covering the story; after reading it, more people may decide to donate a kidney to someone they know – or even to a stranger in need of one.
Chaya Lipschutz
Kidney donor,
Kidney and liver matchmaker
Don’t Compare Anyone To Nazis
Contrary to the picture you’ve been painting in your editorials concerning the violence in Charlottesville last month, there is a universe of difference between the armed Nazis, Klansmen, white supremacists, and other avowed anti-Semites who came to Charlottesville and those who, at great risk, tried to stop them.
If President Trump cannot unambiguously articulate the difference and show which side he is on, he is at best seriously lacking something in his personal make-up.
In 1991, when David Duke ran for governor of Louisiana as a Republican, then-Republican President George H. W. Bush unambiguously called Duke a “charlatan” unfit for office.
In the 1940s, former Republican President Herbert Hoover clearly saw the danger and evil of Nazism and supported the Bergson Group’s Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe.
In 1984, then-Republican President Ronald Reagan said of the Ku Klux Klan: “The politics of racial hatred and religious bigotry practiced by the Klan and others have no place in this country, and are destructive of the values for which America has always stood.”
Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, originally a country boy from rural Texas, unambiguously condemned white racists and proudly said his father fought against the Klan
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “All men are created equal” and have been given certain deeply rooted rights by their Creator.
Let us rebuild our nation on these principles.
Reuven Solomon
Forest Hills, NY
History Coming Alive
Every week, either in his regular Collecting Jewish History column or his occasional front-page essay, Saul Jay Singer educates and delights me with his erudite and eye-opening reflections on a wide range of subjects.
His topics have ranged from Albert Einstein to the Beatles, from Moses Mendelssohn to Frank Sinatra, from P.T. Barnum to Sandy Koufax, from Thomas Edison to Oskar Schindler. No historical personage or subject seems beyond him.
And because he writes from the perspective of a collector of rare documents and artifacts, and bases his anecdotes on items from his personal collection, his columns rise well above an arid recounting of facts and figures. It really is a case of history coming alive.
Thank you for making Mr. Singer a regular contributor to your fine publication.
Ralph Forcella
(Via E-Mail)
Contrasting Revolutions
With Rosh Hashanah coming, it is appropriate to recognize the beneficial effects religion has had in America.
England had a revolution in the 17th century and the United States had one in the 18th century. In both revolutions, religion had an important place. In England, the question was whether the king and the majority of the people would be Protestant or Catholic. In the American Revolution, it was believed man gets his rights from God. (For example, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”)
It is worth noting that during those revolutions and in their aftermaths there were no great massacres.
By contrast, France also had a revolution in the 18th century and Russia had one in the 20th century. In these two revolutions God had no place. All rights came from the state. In both cases the state was supreme. In those two there were great massacres. France had the Reign of Terror, and 10 million perished in the Russian Revolution.
It should also be noted that during the Communist Chinese Revolution perhaps 60 to 70 million perished.
Need I say more?
Arthur Horn
East Windsor, NJ