Letters

LETTERS Much in a Name To the Editor: Kudos to a great magazine, moment—I couldn't live without it! In the September issue, however, there's a flaw in Rabbi Jack Riemer's article, "A Death in...

...Like the Vietnamese and Cambodian delegations, the Palestinian contingent was given free rein to disseminate propaganda materials to the student body...
...Long live the Palestinian Revolution...
...The government of Vietnam is one of the crudest, most despotic, vicious governments which has ever existed...
...Friedlander's Christian name as Paul-Henri Friedlander instead of Paul-Henri Ferland...
...That may occur, but only after Soviet imperialism is thwarted by the West, not while the USSR expands everywhere amid Western passivity...
...Why shouldn't they come to America...
...They have not violated human rights: they have eliminated them...
...If a Soviet emigre has no family in America, he will have the same chances as any other Israeli, minus the temptation of a more luxurious resettlement by American welfare agencies than the Jewish Agency can possibly afford...
...In fact, this attitude was characteristic of most Third World peoples with whom I talked...
...In speaking of Saul Fried-lander's book When Memory Comes, Riemer commits a grave error in stating Mr...
...You're a Jew...
...On an official level the Chinese were more than accommodating to the wishes of the Palestinian students...
...I found my hands more than full trying to explain Jewish-Israeli-Zionist history to people indoctrinated with an anti-Israeli political position...
...Our fathers and grandfathers, Mr...
...All affirmed Israel's right to exist, but all stressed that Israel must return the territories occupied since 1967 and that the national claim of the Palestinian people must be settled...
...Beyond this, the Chinese officials listened politely and even sympathetically to my presentations in support of Israel...
...Their aim is aliyah, not the quixotic task of democratizing the Soviet Union...
...With this constellation of forces, Mr...
...Our cousins, who remained in Russia and were v trapped there for two generations, also choose America over the danger of war, military service obligation, staggering inflation and the generally more difficult life of Israel, especially if ? IAS and American Jewish communities greet them as heroes and give them a fully furnished home, a refrigerator full of food and a color TV "so that they can learn English more quickly...
...On many occasions I met with groups of foreign students and Chinese Party cadres at our school to discuss the Mideast conflict...
...The Chinese Party cadres with whom I spoke had no hesitation in meeting with me as a Jew...
...Knowing the self-aggrandizing nature of all bureaucracies, I find it difficult to believe that HIAS representatives refrain from pointing out the obvious advantages of America to Jews who know very little about either America or Israel and whose Yiddishkeit is minimal...
...Schroeter tells us, chose the certainties of the slums and sweatshops (if not the flesh-pots) of America over the uncertainties of creating a Jewish homeland in the wastes and swamps of Eretz Yisrael...
...On one occasion, after I had been physically threatened by a Moscow-educated Yemenite student, I was told by one of the Institute's cadres that the Yemenite had been reprimanded for his action, and had been warned not to interfere in discussions aimed at "promoting understanding and friendship between people...
...In 1973-74, I was one of twenty students sent by the Canadian government to China on the first Canada-People's Republic of China student exchange program...
...Rabbi Anson Laytner Larchmont, New York Boat People To the Editor: It is remarkable that Father Robert Drinan (moment, October) could not Find it possible to criticize the government of Vietnam other than to make an offhand remark, "Hanoi certainly has been guilty of violations of human rights...
...definitely something of which to be proud in Communist China...
...What Christians would have used half-way measures in changing the name—whether to protect the young Jew or to protect their own interests in the "converted" young Jews who came under their roofs—particularly in a Jesuit school...
...From a classmate at Harvard (Class of ? 9), Professor Samuel Rezneck, I just learned that moment carried the article on the Jewish Daily Forward written by Miss Tracey Goldblum (July/August...
...One might also suspect that the USSR selectively permits emigration of the less committed Jews...
...Many of the songs sung were, of course, political, but none quite so virulent as that of the Palestinians...
...While at the Peking Language Institute I had the opportunity to work with fellow students from all over the world, but primarily from Africa and Asia...
...Marx was Jewish too...
...Dulzin's proposal is quite reasonable...
...over and over...
...Beatrice Goldman Brooklyn, New York The Russians Are Coming To the Editor: Behind all of Schroeter's rhetoric (moment, September, "Whither Soviet Jews") I heard the strains of Dulzin's plea that Israel "can't compete with America" for immigration of Soviet Jews...
...On the other hand, in my personal encounters with both Chinese officials and Third World students, I heard a much less doctrinaire message, what I would call a positive ambivalence, regarding Israel and the Mideast conflict...
...In the September issue, however, there's a flaw in Rabbi Jack Riemer's article, "A Death in the Family," which was otherwise very moving, and very much to be remembered, in words and deeds...
...There were one million refugees in 1958-59 from North to South Vietnam before the United States ever was involved there...
...To this day I remember the roaring reception given the Palestinians during which the whole hall chanted: "Ba-li-si-tan ge-ming wan-sui...
...Harold J. Wershow Birmingham, Alabama China and the Jews To the Editor: I'd like to contribute a footnote to William Korey's excellent survey of Chinese-Israeli diplomatic history (moment, July/August...
...The Palestinians were considered a national delegation and treated accordingly...
...However, it is my perception that Israel's relations with China and the Third World will not officially improve until Israel and Egypt proceed still continued on page 9 continued from page 4 further along the road to a full peace, and until" Israel is able to return in some measure to a policy of i-hizdahut, non-alignment, vis-avis the superpowers...
...As for the failings of Mr...
...And on another occasion, to celebrate "Palestine Day," the entire student body was bussed to the Palestinian Embassy and treated to bao-zi (steamed dumplings), beer, a propaganda speech, and a film purporting to show Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian people...
...With the signing of peace between Israel and Egypt, and Israel's manifest willingness to resolve both the territorial and the Palestinian national problems, Israel can look forward to an increase in good will, if only unofficial in nature...
...This combination of forces leads to the collapse of aliyah...
...An oft-repeated comment made to me after I had introduced myself was...
...All this was arranged in cooperation with the Chinese authorities—not at all surprising, since China and Third World opposition to Israel was most intense following the Yom Kippur War...
...Thank you, and my regards to Tracey...
...Even then he hastily qualified that mild complaint with "after all, it's we, in a large part, who brought this condition on their small country...
...R. Hugh Uhlmann Kansas City, Missouri From the Forverts To the Editor: One of the frustrations of my not-too-young life is that when a kind word is said in my behalf I do not get to hear of it...
...Levanon, of "the agency without a name," of course, the Zionist activists have attempted to disassociate their movement from "anti-Soviet activities...
...Jacob C. Rich Putnam Valley, New York...
...For the May Day evening celebrations, for example, each national group was invited to present a song at the Institute's assembly, the Palestinians among them...

Vol. 4 • November 1979 • No. 10


 
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