The Issue: Whether Cory Booker’s familiarity with Jewish culture will help him gain Jewish votes.
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Bashing Jews for being Orthodox or Hasidic, as if they’re not mainstream regarding their political and religious views, is despicable (“Is Cory Too Jewish?” Jeffrey Goldberg, PostOpinion, June 29).
The implication of the author is that Orthodox Jewish opinions and politics are unacceptable. That is discrimination. If you would substitute the word black for Hasidic or Orthodox, imagine how it would sound.
Jews who live in the diaspora have no claim on making definitive pronouncements about what is the “politically correct” or “mainstream” politics of Israel, given that it’s too easy to declare the road to peace when you are safe in America.
Booker, an observant Protestant, is a student of the Hebrew Bible. Interestingly, that was once considered part of a liberal and elite education in this country.
So Cory finds an intellectual and spiritual kinsman in the typically observant Jew that he does not in the typically non-observant Jew.
“Mainstream” is not synonymous with “liberal.” It means a legitimate point of view or opinion that is in the mix of polite and rational discourse.
Alan Hoffman
East Windsor, NJ
How interesting to find much of one of the opinion pages on June 29 dedicated to whether Booker is “too Jewish.”
Ironically, an editorial on the previous page raises yet more questions about the ethics of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Jew with a penchant for behavior at odds with that of the teachings of the Torah.
While I am hardly religious, I would be proud to call Booker a fellow landsman. Silver is strictly a shanda.
Michael Kahn
Burke, Va.
I know very little about the Torah, but Jeffrey Goldberg wrote a remarkably evenhanded article about Booker.
It was refreshing to read a political article that didn’t drip financially induced bias.
Congratulations, Jeffrey. My esteem for you has significantly risen.
August James
Fair Lawn, NJ