Letter to the editor February 18
A shock … and desecration
With regard to The Chronicle’s “Coming together: Jewish, Chinese communities set to celebrate Lunar New Year” (Feb. 4), why was a large segment of the Jewish community excluded from this event? My daughter and I were looking forward in joining others, yet when we arrived at the JCC, we were told it had been held on Saturday (Shabbos). This was a tremendous shock in more ways than could have been imagined.
Since when has the Jewish Community Center held community events on Shabbos? This is a desecration for anyone who is Orthodox. Would it have been so difficult to come together for all members of our community?
Rosie Wayne
Pittsburgh
Careful what you wish for
The Chronicle’s Feb. 11 editorial “Bernie Sanders and the Jewish Question” is unfortunately likely very correct. His campaign will generate a new burst of questions and comments that will be — or border on — the anti-Semitic with a broader negative impact on the American Jewish community.
But there are other very significant concerns about Sanders’ views. To select two, free higher education and free universal medical care are wonderful ideals but virtually impossible to achieve anywhere in the foreseeable future. First, the taxes he proposes to support these would, it has been estimated, increase federal spending from 36 percent to 47 percent of GDP and add $18 trillion to the federal budget in the next 10 years.
If we send more money to Washington, then Washington will do more. There certainly are things that Washington should do but is not — think infrastructure and cyber security along with strengthening Social Security and Medicare, for example. Do we want total federal control of higher education and medical care? Certainly those who can benefit from higher education or need medical care should have it, but is this the solution we want? I do not have a better solution, but should the government decide who or what can be taught or who and how to provide care to patients? Would the government actually issue regulations to exert such control? Those with power like to use it, and the Golden Rule says yes, he who has the gold makes the rules.
Be careful of what you wish for, you might just get it.
Arthur L. Goldberg
Pittsburgh
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