June 3, 2005/Iyar 25 5765, Volume 57, No. 40
Letters to the EditorJune 3, 2005
Resignation, memorial stories unrelatedEditor:As a board member of the Arizona Jewish Historical Society, I was sorry to see that you chose to run the letter from David Kader of the Phoenix Holocaust Survivors Association ("Memorial withdrawn from heritage center," Jewish News, May 27) and the article about the resignation of Risa Mallin ("AJHS director resigns," Jewish News, May 27) in such close proximity on your front page, when these two items are totally unrelated. Risa Mallin has brought the AJHS front and center in the Jewish community during her tenure as executive director. She has made the entire community aware of our mission and our efforts to preserve the wonderful history of the Jews in Arizona, and to restore the first synagogue in the Valley of the Sun. We are all sorry that she will be stepping down as executive director, but we know she will continue to be involved as a volunteer in this organization. We wish her well in her new endeavors and hope that coauthoring a book about Jewish history will be a fruitful and wonderful adventure for her. Concerning the letter from Kader, it was my understanding as an AJHS board member that the Holocaust survivors wanted to wait until Kader returned from China in July before moving forward with any plans for their memorial on our Culver Street property. At our last board meeting we decided to wait for their input after his return in July, so that both organizations could move forward together with this project. I know the Holocaust survivors are anxious to get their memorial project moving, and we, too, are anxious to begin our renovation project for the CutlerYPlotkin Heritage Center. It would have been a wonderful opportunity for our two groups to work together on a project that is near and dear to all our hearts. Louise Leverant Secretary, Arizona Jewish Historical Society Republican history lessonEditor:The letter to the editor, "Republicans the party of progress?" (Jewish News, May 27), claims that it is "nonsense that Republicans represent progress or freedom." That statement indicates a lack of basic knowledge of U.S. history. It was Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, ranked by historians consistently as the greatest U.S. president, who pushed emancipation for African-Americans, gaining the moral high ground in the Civil War, and paving the way for their freedom from slavery. It was Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, who pushed conservation, long before ecology became the watchword of the 1970s. It was Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, who urged the U.S. Supreme Court to take and rule on the segregation-breaking case of Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kan. It was Richard Nixon, a Republican, who ordered the massive U.S. military airlift of critical equipment and ammunition, to Israel in October 1973, in the latter's hours of peril in the opening salvos of the Yom Kippur War, enabling the Jewish State to recover from the initial attack and go on the counteroffensive. It was Ronald Reagan, a Republican, whose steadfast insistence on military preparedness caused the financial and political crisis that brought about the collapse of the Soviet Empire, which freed millions in Eastern Europe and the disintegrating Soviet Union. It was George H.W. Bush, a Republican, who gathered an international coalition to free Kuwait in 1991 from Iraqi subjugation. The above citations exemplify progress and freedom. Steve Carol Scottsdale Democrats ignore U.N. problemsEditor:As long as Democrat representatives ignore the serious problems at the United Nations as they pertain to Israel, as well as other scandals, Jewish voters will go elsewhere. I am sure most of us remember John Kerry calling on the United States to pass a global test. Do any of us trust Israel's existence to the United Nations in its current form? Lenny Kalmenson Scottsdale
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