To the editor: Thanks for the article regarding California Senate Bill 1387, which might formally acknowledge Jews as an ethnic group for individuals who decide to determine as such (“California wants to list Jewish as an ethnicity, sparking discussion over what it means to be a Jew,” Sept. 6).
The invoice arises from the complicated interplay of historical past, tradition, ancestry, traditions, humor, faith, ties to Israel, diaspora Jewry and the shared sense of peoplehood as an prolonged household (in Yiddish, “mishpocha”) that collectively type the tapestry of Jewish ethnic identification on the coronary heart of the proposal.
Notably, the creator of the invoice, Democratic state Sen. Henry Stern, is the son of actor Daniel Stern. The elder Stern narrated the tv sequence “The Marvel Years,” which featured one of many first depictions on broadcast tv of a bar mitzvah ceremony and reception. The episode was written by Henry Stern’s uncle, David M. Stern.
The varied features of Jewish identification have been encapsulated by a music I keep in mind from the Jewish summer time day camp I attended as a baby in northern Virginia. Songwriter Shirley Grossman’s “Jewish Is Extra Than a Bagel” humorously references delicacies (knishes, matzo balls), “finding out and studying” and “listening to your mom holler: ‘Go put in your coat!’” as examples of what it means to be Jewish. The music concludes: “Jewish is a individuals, a nation, a regulation and a land and a civilization — that beats a bagel each time.”
Stephen A. Silver, San Francisco
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To the editor: SB 1387, which might add a Jewish ethnicity field to state types, is misguided. California acknowledges practically 50 racial and ethnic classes for information assortment. Sorting individuals into ever extra distinct, separate teams is corrosive — it fuels polarization by encouraging people to see themselves first as members of a subgroup, not as Individuals.
The one actual makes use of for such classes are allocating or denying advantages by group, favoring some whereas others are deprived. That’s balkanization by design. Jews, specifically, know at nice price the place official registries of ethnic identification can lead.
Sen. Stern calls this empowerment. Respectfully, that rationale doesn’t go the red-face check. Jews have expressed their identification on their very own phrases for millennia and can proceed to take action.
California has actual issues that demand the Legislature’s consideration — homelessness, and a security web riddled with fraud and mismanagement. Lawmakers ought to cease losing time splitting us up into teams.
Michael H. Leb, Pasadena
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To the editor: Of all of the horrible concepts floated in our civic life because the flip of this century, California SB 1387 takes the cake. Apparently, the measure has broad help in our state Legislature.
I implore Gov. Gavin Newsom to save lots of (all of) us from ourselves by vetoing this sure-thing Pandora’s field.
In line with the story, it could make California first within the nation to “require state businesses to incorporate a field for Jewish ethnicity on all demographic information types, starting from public help packages to varsity purposes.”
Given current occasions and a protracted historical past, what might probably go flawed? No imagined “advantages” might ever outweigh lasting hurt.
Frances O’Neill Zimmerman, La Jolla
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To the editor: Simply while you thought that our state Legislature couldn’t probably get any extra incompetent with ridiculous laws, we get SB 1387. I’m certain that each Jewish resident of California can’t wait to have their non secular identification saved on a authorities database. Oy vey.
Gerald Kamin, Sherman Oaks
