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June 18, 2004/Sivan 29 5764, Vol. 56, No.39
Letters to the EditorJune 18, 2004
Encourage young leadersEditor:Michelle Hicks was right on target in her commentary ("If not now, when?", Jewish News, May 28), except for being discouraged at the lack of young professionals at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference in Washington, D.C. She did mention that there were approximately 850 college students there from around the country, including 22 students from Arizona universities. These are our future leaders. The age group that she worries about, young adults 25-45, are moving forward in their careers and raising families. Their obligations to their children and/or the cost for the trip to Washington may put an undue hardship on them. I encourage Ms. Hicks to keep up her pro-Israel activism, to tell her friends about the wonderful experience at the policy conference, and to take a great number of them along with her next year. Irving Shuman Phoenix Thanks, Dad, for our freedomEditor:Two weeks ago, as the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion was celebrated, I was moved to pull out my father's U.S. Army discharge papers. There, among other information, was a list of the battles in which he was involved. The names read like a chronology of the Allied campaign in Europe: Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Central Europe. This self-effacing man, who as a teen escaped alone from Nazi Germany, had returned less than 10 years later to help free Europe from fascism. Sadly, my father died many years ago. Rarely did he speak of his World War II experience. Never did he suggest that what he did was either courageous or noble. Like so many of his generation, he saw his service as simple duty. Like so many of those who left Europe as fascism spread, he returned years later to defeat the Nazis in the name of his adopted homeland. Today, 60 years and two weeks after the invasion of Normandy, let us remember my father and the thousands like him: Happy Father's Day. Gerald Mayer Phoenix Reagan leaves mixed legacyEditor:After reading the editorials, tributes and comments about Ronald Reagan's relationship with Jews and Israel and listening to associates tout both President Bush and Sen. Kerry as friends of Israel, I racked my brain to think of a president who was not a friend of Israel while in office. I ruled out FDR because there was no Israel in his day (although his actions vis-…-vis Jews during World War II would have made him suspect in a relationship with a new state of Israel). The little nips at Sharon's internal politics and treatment of non-Israelis notwithstanding, when one considers such important tasks and events such as intelligence gathering, external affairs and destroying potentially world-changing technology, it would not be politically correct to outwardly treat the only democracy, the only true friend and the only entity capable of doing the bidding for us in the Middle East, with anything but the utmost of respect and gratitude. Larry Jassen Seattle Editor: He knew how to read a speech, to turn a phrase, to love his Nancy. But I remember the 1980s. And Ronald Reagan was no lover of the poor, the sick, the common man. Yes, he did help Israel in some ways. But so does President Bush. That doesn't make either of them a great president. Faye Frankel Phoenix
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