‘Religion in the Land of the Free’

Stuart Marques writes a warm story about the goodwill and genuine cheer of the holidays. Unfortunately, the moral of his story whitewashes the fundamental issues regarding religious displays on public property [“Religion in the Land of the Free,” Stuart Marques, New York, December 13, 2004].

The term public property means a property owned by a local, state, or federal government. This public property is financially supported by money that has been taken, from all of the law-abiding citizens, in the surrounding geographical territory.

Taxes force a citizen to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of the public property that a religious display is at. This is a violation of cognitive sovereignty for any individual who opposes the message of the display.

TIMOTHY M. DIVETO
Perrysburg, Ohio

Jews and Jerusalem

Steven Stalinsky’s article “Rights of Jews To Jerusalem Are Denied” does a good job of exposing the Arabs’ and particularly the Palestinians’ outrageous attempts to deny the primacy of the Jews to Jerusalem and particularly the Temple Mount [Foreign, December 8, 2004].

The article sheds light on the pseudo-scholarship of Arab so called universities, which are little more than hate mills. It also shows the Arab press’s adoption of the Nazis’ Big Lie tactic of repeating falsehoods over and over again until people begin to believe them.

It is clear that the Palestinian leadership’s desire for Jerusalem and their attempts to justify their claims are above all just another part of their game plan to destroy Israel and claim the land for themselves. When it comes to history, if we cannot trust them with the past, it is difficult to trust them with the future.

JEFFREY A. MEDETSKY
Brooklyn

‘Bollinger’s Blindness’

Lori Helen Rudolph of Albuquerque, N.M. – in her contribution to what appears to be an orchestrated letter-writing campaign to The New York Sun by Jewish women academic friends of Joseph Massad, assistant professor in Columbia’s department of Middle East and Asian languages and cultures [“Bollinger’s Blindness,” Letters, December 3, 2004] – misses the point.

Mr. Massad’s right to depart from what Ms. Rudolph calls “the mainstream discourse on Israel/Palestine” in espousing his pro-Palestinian views may be disliked, but this is not being challenged, although some might question what the “mainstream” espouses at Columbia.

What is at issue is the unwillingness of Massad and others in his department to entertain dissenting views either from professional colleagues (who are excluded from their ranks) or from students, who have reported suppression of discussion and threats of sanctions against those who question the mainstream thinking in the department.

Columbia has admitted – reluctantly and under pressure – to accepting funds for the department from foreign, nondemocratic, oil-rich Arab sources. President Bollinger initially rejected the existence of a pattern of coercion or suppression. Faced with contrary testimony and documentation, he authorized a narrowly focused investigation into whether legitimate means to protest faculty injustice and intolerance exists for students.

If, as Ms. Rudolph suggests in her letter from Albuquerque, there is a violation of academic freedom involved, it seems that the department and its faculty are the offenders and the students are the victims.

Those who care about Columbia owe a debt of gratitude to the courageous protesting students, the Hillel organization, and the Sun for persisting – even in the face of protests from Jewish female academic “readers” from Albuquerque – in exposing suppression of the spirit of free inquiry in Columbia classrooms and toleration of this state of affairs by a timid Columbia establishment.

ELSA A. SOLENDER
Manhattan

Orthodox Grassroots

“The fervently Orthodox and chasidic communities are often portrayed as insular. But they are realizing they’ve become a power to be reckoned with, and they are beginning [to] lay the groundwork to make sure their newly found status becomes permanent” [“Orthodox Grassroots Grow Strong,” Binyamin Jolkovsky, National, December 10, 2004].

Don’t you think this is a bit of overkill? A group of far less than 2 million is hardly a “power to be reckoned with.” And the Orthodox have voted almost in a bloc for decades.

If you’re looking to do a story on newer “powers,” take a look at the growing Republican Hispanic, or Arab communities.

DEBRA SILVER
Manhattan

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