The Bond That Unites

Sir / The bond that unites Jews is not all that mystical and metaphysical [April 10]. It stems from two basic lessons learned over the past 2,000 years: 1) persecution of the Jews has been constant, and while it has been dormant at times, it breaks out in the most unlikely places and at the most unlikely times, and 2) the world has become inured to it and reacts at best with indifference and at worst with approval.

These lessons have resulted in a concern for other Jews, wherever they may be. It carries over into fields that are not uniquely Jewish, and you will find a disproportionate number of Jews involved in all causes that fight injustice.

I am a survivor of Dachau. I am a good American. I love this country. But I intend to speak out for my Jewish brothers throughout the world, because if I don't no one else will, and because I may need this kind of help myself one day.

SI FRUMKIN

Vice Chairman

Union of Councils for Soviet Jews

Los Angeles

Sir / Your article gave some very comforting statistics showing how Jews have made it financially in this country. How about some other statistics? Would you believe that Jews form the third largest poverty group in New York City, right after blacks and Puerto Ricans? Would you believe that there are some 300,000 Jews in New York City and approximately 900,000 nationwide who subsist at incomes below or near the federal poverty index? In fact I submit that the poor Jew's lot is worse than anyone else's, for "No one is poorer than the poor who is deemed to be rich."

S. ELLY ROSEN

Executive Director Association of Jewish Anti-Poverty Workers New York City

Sir / Jewish identity may be great sport for you to try to pin down, but for those of us who take it seriously, living it is the only way to define it--and that takes a lifetime.

MRS. HAROLD HERZ

Binghamton, N.Y.

Sir /1 can say what it means to be a Jew in fewer words. It means to be sometimes frightened, sometimes a victim of prejudice. But more, it means to be basically warm, loving, determined, tolerant, and involved. In other words, to be a mensh, a person.

ZEE CANNING

Tarzana, Calif.

Sir / Tell a Jew a joke and he says: "Let me tell it my way, it's better."

Your way of profiling the Jews was fine. Another way would have been to indicate what all sensitive Jews, regardless of their diversity, have in common: the belief that life should be more ethical and the imperative to release the moral teachings of their faith for the edification of society as a whole.

RABBI SAMUEL M. SILVER

Stamford, Conn.

Sir / Rabbi Alvin Reines' concept of "poly-doxy" sounds very modern--you might call it "doing your own thing." But he fails to look at what our greatest teacher, history, has shown us. For thousands of years, there have been many movements and forces which did not conform to Torah standards. Yet only one factor has united Jews through the dark centuries of the exile in every corner of the world--a belief in Torah. Anyone who left the Torah fold was inevitably swallowed up by a Jew's eternal enemy, assimilation. Rabbi Reines may want to do his own thing and still consider it Judaism, but will his grandchildren?

SHERWIN ISENBERG

Los Angeles

Beefing

Sir / Please! Tell the whole story about beef prices [April 10]. American-raised beef is one of the housewives' biggest bargains. If we turned all prices back 20 years, do you know what we ranchers would then receive for our beef on the hoof? Exactly what we do now. Do you really believe that we can pay our taxes, hire labor, buy machinery, fencing supplies, repairs or anything else for the same prices we paid 20 years ago? How do we stay in business? We borrow a little more, we have our eleven-year-old son work full time in the hayfield, we work from daylight till dark--and now, during calving, part of the night, too. Boycott meat or import it--either way, when American beef producers are bankrupt, the inferior imported beef will have the housewife crying louder than she is now.

(MRS.) FLORENCE GARNER

Brownlee, Neb.

Sir / Let's put the blame for high food prices where it rightfully belongs--on the modern American housewife.

She expects the best cuts of meat defatted, deboned, rolled and tied up. She buys her potatoes dried, flaked, precooked, double-baked in foil shells, French fried, hash browned or au gratin. Vegetables must be fresh, in or out of season, or frozen in boilable plastic pouches with butter, cream or hollandaise sauce. If the modern American housewife expects groceries to cost what her grandmother paid, she should be willing to shop, cook and eat like her grandmother.

ANDREW J. SCHUESSLER

Sheboygan Falls, Wis.

Sir / Esther Peterson "appeals" to the consumer to pass up high-priced meats in favor of fish, fowl and eggs. I have been boycotting high-priced items for months now, not by choice, but out of necessity--and to no avail. The choice of foods I can afford is becoming increasingly limited. Maybe by the time I start comparing dog-food labels for nutritional content, the Government will have started really doing something about this deplorable situation.

SUSAN MORITZ MACFADDEN

Boulder, Colo.

Sir / What do you mean "Let Them Eat Fish!" I wish I could afford fresh fish--at $1.79 a pound. I think cake would be cheaper.

ALICE CASARJIAN

Everett, Mass.

Donations

Sir / After reading your eye-opening purse-closing article about Boys Town [April 10], I felt a little cheated. I wondered how many people like myself on Social Security have given freely from the heart the $ 1 or $2 to help a less fortunate boy. And now to read about the total worth of Boys Town is like learning that there's no Santa Claus. Maybe those of us on pensions should send a letter to Boys Town asking them for a donation on our behalf.

(MRS.) RUTH E. WATSON

Coventry, R.I.

Sir / My father, all my uncles and two of my brothers have gone to Boys Town, and we consider Boys Town to be an uncommon experience for troubled boys. Boys Town is neither an "industrial corporation" nor a perpetual "endowment fund." The land is used to raise agricultural products to sustain the city of Boys Town and to provide a vacation area for hundreds of troubled youths. I'm certain the $17 million income will be spent altruistically as it has been for the past 55 years!

JOHN D. WATSON

Lieutenant, U.S.A.F. Anaheim, Calif.

Sir / After reading your story about Boys Town and its high finances, it became obvious that the photo had the wrong caption. Surely it should have been, "He ain't heavy, Father. He's my broker."

J.B. VIATOR

Conway, Mass.

Conglomerate of Troglodytes?

Sir / The picture of the Rev. Philip Berrigan in shackles [April 10] as if he were a seasoned, dangerous criminal is most shocking to the Roman Catholic world. Yours may be the richest and most advanced country in the world, but it seems you are also the crudest and most unethical to judge by these things. Looking at a picture like this, one can't help believing that we are still a conglomerate of troglodytes that have not yet emerged from the cave man's age.

VICENTE URIBE RESTREPO

Cali, Colombia

Heavenly State

Sir / My thanks for that fine article on my Montana [April 10]. Clergymen of all faiths in Montana tell me that they have long since ceased urging Montanans to work and pray their way toward heaven, as all Montanans have found heaven in Montana. Personally, I have yet to hear a single Montanan express any desire to leave Montana for heaven--or anyplace else for that matter. TIME'S Bible readers, of course, must know that of all the states only the name Montana appears in the Bible. That is, if one be reading the Old Latin Vulgate Bible--in Latin. But then, what TIME reader does not read Latin?

WILLARD E. FRASER

Mayor Billings, Mont.

Chaplin's Return

Sir / All else remaining unchanged, if Charlie Chaplin [April 10] had flirted with fascism over the years, not a single goddam American liberal would be singing his praises today as a great artist and genius.

Rocky River, Ohio

Sir / If God, whom I don't believe in, granted me one wish before I died, it would be that Chaplin be allowed to live forever. Jealousy has directed the sayings and deeds of all who were against him. The envy and greed that governed his defamers showed their imbecility and paranoia.

JACK VOTION

Woodland Hills, Calif.

A Little Farther

Sir / According to your story "The Brothers and Angela" [April 10], "[George] Jackson . . . spent ten years in prison for a $70 robbery." True enough, as far as it goes. But you failed to point out that Jackson was convicted of armed robbery (a serious offense regardless of the amount stolen), he was a three-time loser, he was not given a ten-year sentence but an indeterminate sentence that made him eligible for parole after a year, and he was denied parole because of his behavior while in prison.

ROBERT H. KANTOR

Palo Alto, Calif.

Cold Turkey

Sir / The information that "the problem [of television] is that of addiction" [April 10] is not new. I used to shoot up on horse opera and keep a stash of TV dinners, but since my connection began dealing bad reds and yellows, I have learned to prefer cold turkey to Swanson's frozen.

Legalize reading!

JOGN FORTIER

Northampton, Mass.

Sir / We are a family who has been without the "tube" for almost four years. Because we never measured our activities pre-TV (wife beating, orgasms, masturbating, etc.), we had no standards to measure our post-TV activities by. However, we do get to bed earlier. We have found that the assets of life without the tube have outweighed the liabilities. We all participate in life really rather than vicariously.

MRS. WILLIAM P. KOPISH

Marinette, Wis.

Fake Term Papers

Sir / Re term-paper mills [March 27]: we wonder who should cast the first stone. Trusting students often discover to their dismay that the laboriously researched results of their term papers, seminar reports and theses may later turn up in the publications of their teachers, without as much as a footnote mention of where the material was obtained. A graduate student often undertakes a portion of his profs research. This may be published by the faculty member with no recognition of grad-student contributions. Perhaps the ultimate irony is that occasional fake paper submitted to a free-enterprising faculty member who goes on to publish it as his own.

BILL TEMPLER

Athens, Ohio

Spring Cleaning

Sir / Could you not spare Jack Anderson [April 3] for a while and send him over to Switzerland? I am sure he would love it here! A little spring cleaning may do wonders.

IGNAZ STAUB

Zug, Switzerland

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