Doing the Math

I wouldn’t want the accused Unabomber to be the only mathematician who has enough time on his hands to accept Howard Rosenberg’s challenge (‘ “Shtetl’ Examines Echoes of Holocaust,” April 17). So here’s how to show Palestinians why the word “holocaust” “does not apply to the 48 Muslims gunned down in a West Bank mosque by an Israeli settler in 1994.” Hitler’s official holocaust had 6 million Jewish victims. That’s 5.1 orders of magnitude larger than the 48 Muslims killed by a lone serial killer.

Evidently, this is beyond the ken of a TV critic. But let’s not assume Palestinians are equally innumerate. Mathematics was invented in Arabia.

ALLEN D. ALLEN

Los Angeles