Israelis

Re "We need judges, not partisan fights," Opinion, March 8 Castigating politicians for fighting for judicial nominees of their political persuasion is as quixotic as reprimanding squabbling siblings or Israelis and Palestinians. The problem is systemic. Because we have given politicians power over virtually every aspect of our lives, almost all disagreements become legal battles to be settled by judges. If we limited the scope of legislation to the protection of human rights, politicians would have little power, judges' caseloads would be small and a nominee's politics would be mostly irrelevant.

Re "Holocaust, Gaza images stir furor" April 30 Because I am a Jew and the granddaughter of a survivor of Bergen-Belsen, I too sent out graphic images of Jews in the Holocaust and pictures of Palestinians caught up in Israel's recent Gaza offensive to friends, family and colleagues. I sent them because I was so disturbed by and ashamed of the Israeli assault on Gaza in the name of the Jewish people. I learned about the plight of the displaced Palestinian people from my survivor grandfather, Henri van Leeuwen, a deeply religious Orthodox Jew who was firmly committed in words and deeds to maintaining a distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

Re "What is anti-Semitism?" Opinion, May 12 Nicholas Goldberg offers this definition of anti-Semitism from the Anti-Defamation League: "The moment you compare the Jews to those who consciously and systematically determined to wipe them off the face of the Earth -- that's anti-Semitism." That inane statement is not only false on its face, it attempts to erase the most important lesson of the Holocaust -- that the capacity to commit such atrocities is within us all. We must be ever vigilant against allowing one another to act it out. That means Israelis too. Having been the receivers of horror doesn't immunize a group from being criticized for similar behavior.

A New York City judge spared a former U.S. Army engineer any prison time but fined him $50,000 for passing classified documents to the Israelis in the 1970s and '80s. Federal Judge William Pauley told Ben-ami Kadish, 85, he had committed a grave offense but noted the government had dramatically reduced the charge against him. In December, the Monroe Township, N.J., man admitted passing the documents to the Israelis from 1979 to 1985. He pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy.

This sprawling, well-manicured Israeli settlement -- with its rows of red-tile roofs, palm trees and air-conditioned shopping mall -- could almost pass for Orange County. Except the guards in this gated community sometimes pack automatic weapons. Settlements such as the city-sized Maale Adumim, about four miles east of Jerusalem in the West Bank, are viewed by much of the world as illegal because they are built on land seized by Israel during the 1967 Middle East War. Many Israelis see Maale Adumim as part of their country.

Ehud Olmert became the first current or past Israeli prime minister to go on trial, insisting in a Jerusalem courtroom that he is innocent of corruption allegations that drove him from office. The allegations that haunted Olmert's term, which ended this year, gravely damaged Israelis' faith in their leaders and hurt Olmert's chances of reaching a peace deal with the Palestinians. Entering the court, Olmert told reporters that he had been subjected to an "ordeal of slanders and investigations."

Reeling from the one-two punch of successive bus bombings, Jerusalemites lined up by the thousands to donate their blood for survivors of Sunday morning's explosion--or, as they said bitterly, of next week's blast. Waiting to offer their arms, the usually tough residents of this contested capital looked confused and helpless, as if searching for ways to direct their anger and to stop the mayhem wrought by the extremists from the militant Islamic group Hamas.

In the most direct fashion he could, Palestinian Raid abu Hummos, 17, showed a gathering of Angelenos why Sunday's bombing of a Jerusalem bus did not shake his desire for peace with Israel. As he tearfully condemned the bombing, the 11th-grader from Ramallah, in the West Bank, climbed onto a chair in a Brentwood living room and dropped his trousers, revealing the scars of multiple wounds from Israeli soldiers' plastic bullets.

William Lambert was watching television in 1992 when the idea came into focus that brought foreign visitors to North Hollywood High this week. Lambert had already been thinking about race relations when images of rioting between blacks and Jews in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, N.Y., flashed on the screen. He realized then how few Americans realize that some people are both.

An hour's drive north of Jerusalem, in the West Bank territory where Yitzhak Rabin enraged thousands of Jewish settlers by seeking peace with the PLO--perhaps to bargain away their neighborhoods--mourning is a subtle exercise. Speaking of the prime minister who was slain Saturday by a Jewish law student, men use the words \o7 brother \f7 and \o7 betrayer \f7 in close proximity, and eighth-graders can't agree on whether they should feel entirely sad.