8 January 31 • 2019
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relation to the picture of the waterfall. 
He outlined a course of action for me 
to follow, and the upshot was that the 
book was pulled from every bookstore 
owned by the state of Michigan until 
such time that the editors removed 
the offensive quote. It took a couple of 
years; but eventually, a new edition was 
released with the same photographs 
but with a different caption taken from 
Longfellow’
s epic poem.
I am a strong believer in the First 
Amendment to the Constitution. I also 
believe words can and do hurt. Like 
many of you, I have been called a kike, 
a dirty Jew and other names that don’
t 
belong in a family paper. It is my duty 
as a Jew and American to fight hate-
ful words whether they are spoken or 
printed, and I plan to do this as long as 
I have the strength to do it.

— Joel Hearshen (former Detroiter)

Tampa, Fla.

Anti-Semitism Comes 
From Left & Right
I am truly bemused by the Jewish 
bipartisan finger pointing over the 
issue of anti-Semitism. Apparently, 
Republicans believe “liber 
al” 
Democrats pose a risk to the state 
of Israel, and Democrats assert that 
the ultra-right-wing fringe of the 
Republican party is growing and is 
virulently anti-Semitic.
Both sides are correct. Both right 
and left wingers have ample numbers 
of those who would rally against Jews 
and rally against Israel. The end result 
will be the same, a threat to the Jewish 
people. Whether it’
s the anti-Israel 
sentiment of Black Lives Matter or the 
vicious anti-Semites who marched at 
Charlottesville, we Jews have no dearth 
of enemies. What is a Jew to do? How 
is a Jew to vote?
In the interest of full disclosure, 
this Orthodox Jew (and attorney) is a 
liberal and left-leaning Democrat as 
to domestic politics and social issues, 
and a not-so-moderate right-leaning 
Republican when it comes to foreign 
policy. 
One thing is certain. We, as Jews, 
have always been surrounded by ample 
sources and numbers of anti-Semites. 
Voting one party or the other will 
never change this sad but persistent 
reality. For myself, therefore, I do not 
vote a ticket simply because I believe 

one party or the other will support 
Israel or Jews because, in the end, the 
only lasting support for Israel and Jews 
is Torah and HaShem. Rather, I vote 
for the candidates, regardless of which 
side of the aisle, who will support the 
causes I champion. And, I pray for 
peace every day. 
However, there can be no peace as 
long as Jews demonize each other and 
turn the fight inwards. Then, the fringe 
wins on both sides.

— Laurel Stuart-Fink

West Bloomfield

Why Should We Give 
These People a Pass?
“The right may have a handful of 
neo-Nazis and the isolated insane …” 
said one of your letter writers in the 
Jan. 17 issue. A handful? It’
s mind-
boggling that anyone would float such 
a notion. Try Congressman King, 
Stephen Miller, the Charlottesville 
Nazis, the white supremacist who mas-
sacred churchgoers and the tiki-torch 
boys for starters — all of those “very 
fine people.” 
The letter writer cited a survey 
done in the EU where people identify 
harassers as “left-wing.” How did they 
know, and how does the writer know 
the difference between what’
s consid-
ered “left-wing” in Europe versus the 
U.S.? 
As Aaron Sorkin wrote after the 
2016 election: “[The country elected] a 
thoroughly incompetent pig with dan-
gerous ideas, a serious psychiatric dis-
order, no knowledge of the world and 
no curiosity to learn … And it wasn’
t 
just Donald Trump who won last night 
— it was his supporters, too. The Klan 
won last night. White nationalists. 
Sexists, racists and buffoons. Angry 
young white men who think rap music 
and Cinco de Mayo are a threat to 
their way of life (or are the reason for 
their way of life) have been given cause 
to celebrate.” 
When did the Jewish community 
give a pass to these people?

— Cynthia Brody

Beverly Hills 

Answer to Water Insecurity 
Must Come from Lansing
Access to water may be a human right, 
(“Water Is a Human Right,” Jan. 17, 
page 6) but if the water is elsewhere 

and not potable, that’
s a political and 
legal problem. It costs money to treat 
water to make it safe. It costs money to 
move it to people because it does not 
flow uphill by itself. It costs money to 
build the infrastructure to process and 
convey water to people. Who pays and 
how much? Voluntary or forced?
Prior calls for action on water have 
fallen on deaf ears, and this new one 
from religious leaders will be no dif-
ferent. 
During my tenure with the Detroit 
Water and Sewerage Department 
(DWSD), we had numerous discus-
sions in senior staff meetings regarding 
those who can’
t afford our service, but 
we never found a workable solution 
within the bounds of Michigan law. 
By Michigan law, water must be sold 
at the cost of the service. Until that law 
is modified, the utility’
s hands are tied. 
(The law was created to keep Detroit 
from exploiting its ownership of the 
regional system, and this is a conse-
quence, intended or not.) 
Michigan politics are dominated by 
radical libertarians and legislators for 
sale, who believe failure is earned or 
who are on the payroll of corporations 
that exist without conscience to make 
profits for stockholders. 
Michigan Republicans are in control 
of the legislature, and they get their 
marching orders from the Chamber of 
Commerce, which opposes any and all 
new taxes (even if proposed by fellow 
Republicans and the will of the people, 
as when they blocked a bill needed to 
bring equity to the Farmington Hills 
Road millage). Any rate increase to 
subsidize the poor would be seen as a 
new tax. 
Overcoming the legal blockade is 
just the first obstacle. The logistics of 
determining need and policing use 
limits can be overwhelming. How do 
you prevent waste if the waster has no 
money to pay a fine or maintain their 
plumbing? How do you distinguish 
accidental or unknown waste from 
negligence and abuse? How do you 
incentivize conservation when penal-
ties and fines are unenforceable except 
for the most extreme measure of a 
cutoff? Answering these questions is 
pointless until you solve the problem 
in Lansing.

— Dennis L. Green

DWSD Head Water Systems Engineer 

(Retired)

If Not Now 
Doesn’
t Understand
The letter “Tlaib stands for justice” in 
the Jan. 17 issue, page 8, is written by 
young, politically left Jews from the “If 
Not Now” movement. This movement 
is from the millennial generation of 
Jews who see the Holocaust as just 
“history.” They are too young to have 
seen what it was like to live at a time 
when desperately persecuted Jews had 
nowhere to escape to. No Jewish home-
land/Israel.
They do not understand that Israel 
must do whatever is necessary to sur-
vive, surrounded by neighbors who 
deny their right to exist/want to push 
Israelis into the sea.
If Not Now supports the view that 
Arabs are occupied and persecuted 
by Israel; they do not understand 
that Israel is willing to sit at a table to 
negotiate a two-state solution, but the 
Arabs refuse. 
If Not Now does not recognize that 
if Arabs put down their arms and sat 
at the table, there would be peace. If 
the Israelis put down their arms, there 
would be no Israel.
By failing to recognize the impor-
tance of a Jewish state, If Not Now is 
refusing to consider the well-being or 
even the living reality of Israel’
s 6.5 
million Jews. It is refusing to acknowl-
edge the importance of national sover-
eignty to an embattled Jewish people, 
which, after 2,000 years, is finally able 
to control its own destiny. 
They are right to be unhappy about 
the occupation. But what is to replace 
the occupation?
And that means not one people rul-
ing another, but two states: a sovereign, 
independent State of Israel that will 
rally the Jewish people to its side and 
strengthen Jews everywhere, and a sov-
ereign, independent State of Palestine 
that will live in peace alongside Israel, 
providing justice and security to a 
Palestinian people long relegated to 
victimhood by their own leaders and 
neighboring Arab states.

— Lawrence Freedman 

Bingham Farms

letters
continued from page 5

