The wrong elected was targeted

To the editor:

(re: “Dinowitz should exit council,” July 21)

I have never understood why anyone would want to be elected to public office. Why would anyone want to endure horrifying personal attacks, endless complaints, and the other obvious downsides when running a campaign?

And if you should win, having to please numerous constituents.

That being said, I have found it a pleasure to deal with Eric Dinowitz’s office. All the local issues I called the office about have been addressed promptly, and remedied. The various local issues that Alan Stoler mentions to castigate Eric Dinowitz may be insolvable due to endless red-tape and regulations that our city is wrapped up in. Yes, they are serious issues, but I doubt we know the whole story.

When we know more, I might feel less optimistic. But we need more information.

Eric Dinowitz’s foray into dealing with New York City antisemitism is another matter entirely. In that case, politics is definitely no longer local.

To take another example to highlight the problem, let us examine the situation in regards to gun control. People living in New York, and a plurality of Americans, generally support strong gun control. Yet, federal elections have yielded 50 faraway Republican senators that flout the wishes of that collective, since we are not their constituents. Nonetheless, their actions affect our lives and our security.

So too, with antisemitism. Anyone who does not recognize its enormous public acquiescence has not been on many of our liberal campuses. For two generations, young people on campuses have been indoctrinated with “Israel is a colonialist state” and its corollary, “Israel has no right to exist.”

For those of our intelligentsia who want you to believe that they are speaking only about Israel and not Jews, how do you explain that hate attacks on American Jews in this country far exceeds attacks on any other ethnic group?

Shockingly, our own congressman, Jamaal Bowman, publicly came out against Israel immediately upon taking office. However, when Congressman Ted Lieu sent a letter to the civil rights office asking for effective action protecting Jewish students on campus, Jamaal Bowman refused to sign on.

So, antisemitism occurring in Riverdale would be a legitimate target, according to Stoler. But looking outside his district is irrelevant and unacceptable.

I would like to point out that most of us live our educational and professional lives outside Riverdale.

The monster that American antisemitism has become must be confronted, otherwise it will affect every Jew — including Mr. Stoler — no matter where he or she resides.

Thank you, Eric Dinowitz, for courageously standing up to antisemitism, no matter where it raises its ugly head.

Sura Jeselsohn