10 August 8 • 2019
jn

views

which are run pretty much the way 
they were under the previous admin-
istration — and Nazi concentration 
camps is, in a word, unhinged. I’
m 
not sure what purpose is being 
served by trivializing the Holocaust.

Beth Batya Snider: Whatever your 
politics, whatever your views on 
Holocaust comparisons, it is import-
ant to realize and object to humans 
being treated inhumanely by our 
government. People must not be 
locked up in conditions worse than 
dog pounds. Politicians must work 
together to alleviate this crisis.

Maureen Lyn Bernard: The pro-
testers are people who want to help 
people seeking asylum that are being 
held against their will in inhumane 
conditions.

Daniel Kerin: This first-generation 
Jewish American of Holocaust sur-
vivors — and legal immigrants — 
PROUDLY supports President Trump! 

Eric Weiss: These are not Jews — 
they are Leftists.

Al Wright: Here is the difference 
between a detention camp and any 
concentration camp: People are 
trying to get in America illegally and 
they claim political asylum when 
they get caught so they get put in a 
detention camp. They get free every-
thing: food, electricity, everything 
they need to live, or they could go 
back home but they choose to stay 
there because it’
s probably better 
than what they had at home. Now, in 
a concentration camp, people did not 
want to be there. They were rounded 
up; they were killed, gassed, exe-
cuted, baked in ovens! Do you guys 
realize the difference????

Nancy Besser: Frightening how 
anyone can call Obama’
s detention 
centers concentration camps. Any 
Jew that can even listen to this real-
ly needs to question their Judaism. 
They are detention centers because 
they are here illegally. Most of our 
parents or grandparents immigrated 
here, too, and went through legal 
channels and there were no issues. 
 I am a child of Holocaust survivor 

parents and to see this being com-
pared to concentration camps where 
they gassed my father’
s entire family 
and slaughtered them like animals is 
beyond sickening. 
 I was always Democratic but now 
with this party, the way they are and 
the rabid anti-Semitism … How dare 
you speak ill of Trump? He has done 
more for Israel then any president in 
U.S. history. All of your candidates 
will throw Israel under the bus, and 
they surely have a hatred for Jews. 
It was the Jews that helped vote in 
Obama and look what he did with 
Israel. The left does away with reli-
gion and JCCs and surely does not 
know what Judaism even teaches. 
This is frightening. If Jews do not 
stand proud to be Jewish and stand 
for Israel, they are no different than 
any Islamic terrorist. How can any 
Jew even consider voting Democrat 
now with the rabid anti-Semitism or 
does it not matter?

Readers also responded to the 
online story “House Overwhelmingly 
Condemns Israel Boycott Movement 
in Resolution Vote.”

Nancy Federman Kaplan: As the 
vote showed, there is near-una-
nimity in the House against the 
BDS movement. The only reason 
for suggesting that “bipartisanship 
(on the subject of Israel and BDS) 
is fleeting” is that McConnell then 
attacked House Democrats for not 
passing a much harsher resolu-
tion, which does not have nearly as 
much support in Congress (including 
among Republicans). A better head-
line would have been “GOP Seeks to 
Destroy Bipartisan Unity on Capitol 
Hill.”

Frances Swoish: Yet, “the squad” 
embraces BDS.

Al Wright: I’
m shocked, actually.

The JN welcomes comments online 
at thejewishnews.com or on its 
Facebook page. Letters can be sent 
to letters@renmedia.us.

continued from page 8
Not a Question of Open 
or Closed Borders
The problem with Jonathan Tobin’
s 
weighing of open borders against 
Jewish values (July 25, page 10) is 
that border security is not simply 
a question of open or closed. By 
arguing against open borders, he, by 
inference, is endorsing closed bor-
ders by failing to propose another 
solution. 
He did devote at least one sentence 
to compassionate treatment of immi-
grants being consistent with Jewish 
values, but that’
s the more important 
issue lost in the remaining page of 
prose. 
Between the blatant bigotry and 
cruelty of the Trump administration 
and the foolish response from the 
far left of open borders, open to who 
knows what, is a rational approach. 
Instead of remembering when we 
were strangers in a strange land, we 
are debating only two extreme choic-
es. The issues we should be debating 
are the standards by which immi-
grants are allowed in and are granted 
citizenship. Comparison of deporta-
tion rates for Obama and Trump are 
half-truths. The issue is the justice 
in the decision over who stays and 
how they are treated while we decide. 
Asylum is for those fleeing perse-
cution, not economic opportunists. 
“Who” matters more than “how 
many.” I consent neither to blind 
philanthropy with my money nor 
cruelty in my name. I choose none of 
the above.

Frankly, I didn’
t need convincing 
that open borders are foolish. Equal 
justice for the stranger means both 
rights and obligations, such as not 
pillaging the host. I also draw a line 
at abject cruelty, especially against 
children, as a political policy to dis-
courage opportunistic migrants. The 
end does not justify the means. On 
second thought, the comparisons 
to Obama are not all meaningless 
because his similarly high deporta-
tion rates prove the Trump tactics 
are unnecessary and, therefore, inex-
cusable. 
I now know what he’
s against, but 
what is Tobin for? The status quo? A 
wall? The words of Ben Ferencz, the 
last living Nuremburg prosecutor, 
still resonate with me when he said 
that he hanged people for the same 
thing.

— Dennis L. Green

Farmington Hills

Racist Remarks 
Shouldn’
t Be Tolerated
Jews should find it chilling as 
Trump and some unconscionable 
Republicans justify racist remarks 
targeting four congresswomen as 
support for Israel and deriding 
anti-Semitism. NO! 
 This is pure pandering to Jews 
and the message is wrong and 
immoral. Bigotry is NOT an either/
or proposition. We do not have to 
choose racism or anti-Semitism. We 
can and must choose that both are 

letters

Yiddish Limerick

s 
ng 
d-
to
 

e 

nt 

Tisha b’
Av
Dos is Tisha b’
Av, un tzum shul gayt a Yid 
On the floor mir vel zitzn, Lamentations we’
ll read.
We lost undzer Bais HaMikdash, on this very day 
Mir fastn, we mourn, we lost undzer tzvay.
It’
s a solemn reminder, fargess nit my kid.

Dos is - it is
Un tzum shul - And to synagogue
Gayt a Yid - a Jew goes
Mir vel zitzn - we will sit
Undzer Bais HaMikdash - our Temple
Mir fastn - we fast
Undzer tzvay - our two
Fargess nit - don’
t forget

By Rachel Kapen

continued on page 12

