Inapt comparison
While I agree with Phil Horn’s desire for greater “tolerance” education for Israeli students (“Advocacy means promoting a better Israel,” April 4), his comparison of Israel to the Mississippi of the 1950s is both glib and wrong. Aside from Israel’s legal prohibitions against discrimination in place since its founding, Horn misses the context of the issue.
For decades, Israeli students have suffered the loss and injury of family members and friends through countless wars and acts of terror on buses and in public spaces. They have witnessed on their television screens the pride exhibited by Palestinian parents for their suicide bomber sons, the “rewards” paid to them by Arab regimes, and the anointment of terrorists as heroes even by the Palestinian Authority.
There is much work to be done in better educating Israel’s students on tolerance. But let’s properly understand the dynamics behind the issue and not resort to inappropriate comparisons.
Max L. Kleinman
Executive Vice President/CEO
Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ
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