Letters to the editor

‘Stronger than hate’ falls short without a change in mindset
Thank you for your editorial “Seven years later, ‘stronger than hate’ must be more than words” (Oct. 24). It is right to question how limited the return has been from the multiple organizations formed and money spent.

There will not be meaningful progress until there is a change in mindset. The community leadership has largely never experienced antisemitism. Therefore, even after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, they managed to think of it as an aberration and have taken only minimal steps at self-preservation.

That is because American Jews are primarily “Hanukkah Jews.” They have faced assimilation as a threat. Faced with a taste of the Israeli experience as “Purim Jews,” where the threat is annihilation, the community is not equipped to react.

The “stronger than hate” campaign is an assimilation solution, i.e., we will join with the non-Jewish community and be saved. It isn’t working. Allies are not going to combat a determined minority that hate the existence of Jews. No amount of education, yard signs, or programming is going to result in change.

Once there is an understanding of the problem, then there is a chance for progress.

Lee Golden
Rehovot, Israel

Praise for community study
I loved the article “New study charts Pittsburgh Jewry’s strengths, struggles and shifts” (Nov. 7). I’m an AI consultant to nonprofits and a volunteer for my synagogue, Adat Shalom. We used AI and the map of Jews in Pittsburgh to estimate the percentage of them within 15 minutes’ drive of Adat Shalom’s building. I hope local Jewish organizations will become more data-driven with this study.

Adam Hertzman
O’Hara Township

Offended by use of ‘schizophrenia’
We were deeply offended and troubled to read the Chronicle’s Oct. 31 article “Duquesne law professor, Pitt scholar listed on ‘Reverse Canary Mission’ website,” in which the site is described as “schizophrenic.”

The definition of schizophrenic is a person with a serious mental health condition that affects how people think, feel and behave. A website is not a person. Real people experience this condition, and some suffer greatly from it. In using this term casually — and incorrectly — the Chronicle is further marginalizing people with mental illness and perpetuating the stigma associated with it. This does a disservice to the Jewish community and to individuals who struggle with mental illness.

Nancy E. Gale,
Executive director of The Branch
Pittsburgh