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