Opinion: Jews care less about social justice? Tell that to your local <i>tikkun olam</i> volunteers.

To the editor: Using absurd data (“voices [that] pop up on Facebook and in private emails”), Mark Oppenheimer answered his loaded question affirmatively. (“Have Jews abandoned their commitment to social justice?” Aug. 19)

Really? My synagogue’s Tikkun Olam (“heal the world”) Committee is committed to social justice projects including helping homeless men, women and veterans, transitioning victims of domestic violence to safe, permanent housing, and coordinating programs to provide safety for the downtown residents of skid row. Every synagogue I’m aware of has similar programs.

In fact, Los Angeles’ own Big Sunday, the largest citywide community service event in the United States, began as an outgrowth of a local temple’s tikkun olam committee.

Proclaiming “there is very little moral ambition ... among American Jews today,” Oppenheimer wrongly and irresponsibly indicts millions of people. It was for writers like Oppenheimer that the expression “oy vey” was invented.

Bennett Tramer, Santa Monica

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To the editor: It came as no surprise to me that a Jewish columnist, after making essentially passing and disapproving reference to a Black Lives Matter claim that Israel is complicit in genocide against the Palestinian people, would then castigate and focus on Jews alone as having “become increasingly detached from the needs of oppressed people of all races.”

This in the face of increasing anti-Semitism reported on University of California campuses. Jews, after all, despite a history of real genocide, frequently have been held, particularly by other Jews, to a moral standard not demanded of other groups.

There is ample justification for African American anger and frustration. I suspect, however, that I will wait in vain for a column from a progressive source, with whose other views I am generally in accord, defending Israel’s right to defend itself, even given the Jew-hating Hamas charter and the anti-Israel enmity of the other nations that surround that Jewish state.

Michael Weinberg, Pasadena

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To the editor: Oppenheimer writes that Jews are proud of the legacy of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and others who have come before us. We are. But it is not enough to lean on nostalgia.

In fact, the day the op-ed was published, leaders of the Reform Jewish movement — the largest Jewish denomination in the U.S. — and rabbis and activists from across the country were in North Carolina, joining with our partners from the NAACP, PICO National Network and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law to launch our national voting rights campaign. In California, we are focused on criminal justice reform.

We are firmly committed to dismantling racism and creating a more free and just society. Our faith does not allow us to tolerate injustice.

Rabbi Joel Simonds, Los Angeles

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