Rabbi’s Support for Buchanan

Re “Tale of a Rabbi Who Champions Buchanan,” March 12:

I was amazed that Rabbi Yahuda Levin supports Pat Buchanan in spite of Buchanan’s clearly anti-Semitic language. I was even more amazed that Levin would use Buchanan’s anti-gay position as a reason to support him. Doesn’t Rabbi Levin understand that once Buchanan is finished “putting gays in their place,” he’ll start on Jews next and then blacks and so on and so on. Anyone who isn’t “us” is “them” and the “thems” of the world must not be allowed to dominate the “us.”

This seems to be something that a lot of minorities miss when supporting the GOP. As long as it’s not my group they’re beating up, I’m all for them. But the power-hungry always need an enemy. Right now it’s gays. But who’s next if the gays lose? Unless a coalition of freedom-loving citizens who believe in individual liberty ban together to stop the hate, this country is in for a future similar to what happened in Germany.

Could it happen here? Just remember, Hitler won his election using the same “Christian” family values we hear currently from Buchanan and his right-wing supporters.

RITCH BARRON

Garden Grove

* This article disturbed me more than almost anything else has done for a long time, and is an indication of the depths to which Buchanan will go in order to deceive voters. Rabbi Levin does not in any way represent most American Jews, at least the ones that I know and with whom I associate. He is a radical ultraconservative individual who happens to be Jewish, but is basically no different from members of the Christian Coalition in his nonreligious beliefs.

As one who has lived the life of an American Jew for more than 71 years, as a member of a temple with a congregation and a rabbi dedicated to the well-being of our community and our country as well as our Judaism, I strongly resent the implication that Levin speaks for me or my fellow Jews.

Buchanan has made a very big mistake in selecting Levin as a co-chairman of his campaign. This will in fact have the opposite effect that Buchanan hoped for.

JAY B. BELSKY

San Pedro