March 12, 1999/24 Adar 5759, Vol. 51, No. 24
Letters to the Editor3/12/1999
Get real - all Jews not professionals
Editor:I just read the letter in your mailbag column about your 1999 Community Directory (Jewish News, March 5). I agree 100 percent with the writer. You misrepresent the majority of hard-working Jews who work at "regular" jobs. I recently moved here from New York and was aghast when I saw your directory implying that Jews are nothing more than lawyers, doctors, yuppies, etc. Shame . . . Rachel Leibowitz (Via the Internet) Lawyers are good people, too
Editor:Hopefully it was a slow "in-the-mail" week that led you to publish the letter writer, who, with a group of others, in a Jewish chat room, criticized the cover of the community directory which showed, among others, a lawyer, alleging this to be a stereotype. This critic then goes on to slander the entire legal profession. As a practicing lawyer for almost 35 years, I am well aware of the few lawyers who act in a non-professional manner. However, as a lawyer who has spent thousands of hours doing volunteer work in both the Jewish and non-Jewish communities along with thousands of other lawyers, I resent the uninformed criticism. I am proud of the enormous contributions made by lawyers to the growth and development of our nation and this state. Irwin Harris Phoenix Writer sees sad irony in German complaints
Editor:Recent editorials in four German newspapers castigated Arizona Gov. Jane Hull and other state authorities for the execution of a convicted murderer who happened to be German. They said that the projected use of the gas chamber for this execution was "cruel and inhuman punishment." I wonder if they have the chutzpah to reprint some of their editorials from the late 1930s and early 1940s so that we can learn how they referred to using gas chambers on people who were never convicted of any crime. It would be most interesting. Hy Rosenfeld Phoenix |
