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Walking the interfaith talk

I would like to respond to the letter Mark Goldberg wrote about my mother's (Michele Alperin) article about the Mercer County interfaith walk ("Interfaith lack of understanding," July 3).

First, Mr. Goldberg states that my mother's article "pretend[ed] that [Judaism, Christianity, and Islam] are 'Abrahamic' and thus easily seen as the 'same.'" All three religions claim to worship the God of Abraham and so, by definition, are Abrahamic. Also, acknowledging that all three religions nominally worship the same God does not automatically imply that they are the same, only that they contain similarities.

More importantly, the interfaith walk was not supposed to be an all-encompassing symposium. It was supposed to be a first step toward interfaith understanding, and the clergy members of all three faiths were instructed to talk about peace within their religions.

So perhaps Imam Ali had the most difficult task from the outset -- he had to explain the peace inherent in a religion that many in America, just like Mr. Goldberg, see as a breeding ground for hatred and evil. Neither Imam Ali, my mother, nor I, would deny that Islam's history has at times been vicious and destructive, but that was not the purpose of the talk.

Taking the view that Islam has been nothing but evil is just as historically problematic as taking the view that Muslims have done no wrong.

As a child, I believed that the American South was a bad place. The southerners had kept people as slaves. The righteous and gallant president from the North, Abraham Lincoln, had freed those slaves. After slavery, the southerners continued to treat black people as sub-human through segregation and intimidation. It was difficult for me to grow up and realize that my mother and grandmother, who were not bad people, had grown up in the segregated South and that segregation and racism had been just as prevalent in the North. Worse, Abraham Lincoln had been a racist and had not been concerned with freeing the slaves until it proved to be a useful military strategy. It was uncomfortable for me to learn the truth -- that the North wasn't so good and the South wasn't so bad.

Similarly, Mr. Goldberg will need to learn to face what, for him, are uncomfortable truths regarding the history of Islam. All religions have similarly prickly pasts they would rather forget. Would Mr. Goldberg damn Christianity, as he does Islam, because of the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition? Even stereotypically peaceful Buddhism has its extremists.

Furthermore, I object to Mr. Goldberg's idea that people look upon Islam negatively not because of "… some rarity, some 'extremists' who have corrupted Islam," but rather, as he continues, "This is Islam. This was Islam, and this will be Islam." My experiences with Muslims have been pleasant, and I have never met a Muslim who advocated for violence. On the contrary, I have a shirt from the Muslim organization at my high school with an image formed of the words "peace" in English and "salaam" in Arabic. Are these people, who have never treated me with anything but respect, all gross exceptions to their evil, unsalvageable religion?

The most offensive claim that Mr. Goldberg makes is that he is "sure" that Imam Ali in Trenton would consider Hamas to be "oppressed freedom fighters in need of understanding and 'freedom.'" This certainty only ends up reflecting Mr. Goldberg's own hateful prejudice. According to Imam Ali, there are two stipulations for martyrdom in Islam that suicide bombers violate. The first is that warriors must not attack innocent people, only other soldiers. The second is that warriors must face their opponents head-on -- being able to look into their eyes. The imam explained that he did not believe men who engage in such tactics are martyrs, and since Hamas engages in such tactics, I'm sure he would not argue the merits of Hamas.

Additionally, we cannot blame anybody for acts the acts of another. I don't want to be held responsible for the actions of Bernie Madoff, though I am sure if somebody who took as biased a view toward Judaism as Mr. Goldberg did to Islam, they could write a piece about how Judaism is a religion whose adherents are greedy and stingy with their money. This view of Jews is already too common.

If I want people to understand and believe that Madoff is not a representative of the Jewish people, then I must do my best not to take other groups at face value and to focus on our similarities in order work out our differences.

Aliza Alperin-Sheriff
Princeton

Importance of Nixon administration for Israel

As I read your article "Unlikely ghost of White Houses past" in the July 3 issue of The Jewish State, I was pleased to see that the present administration's relatively poor attitude toward the state of Israel is being openly discussed by the media.

It is not difficult to evaluate the many positive and negative policies of past administrations, and the American history of support (or lack thereof) for the state of Israel. On the positive side is the Truman administration supporting (actually instigating) the creation of the state of Israel, and of equal importance is the Nixon administration's military support of Israel during those early crucial days of the Yom Kippur War. It was President Nixon who personally overruled the State Department and Department of Defense and directed the immediate transportation of maximum military equipment and supplies to support Israel during those early, trying days of the war.

We certainly can find much to fault about the Nixon administration, but his policies toward Israel were indeed a lifesaver. The basis of your article may be technically accurate, but certainly inappropriate to degrade Israel's most important and greatest ally during the Yom Kippur War crisis.

Marvin Kullback
Manchester