Discussing Denver
I was particularly pleased to see your reference to the Jewish Consumptives’ Relief Society (JCRS) in “The Jewish Traveler: Denver” in the December issue. My husband and I are the founders of the JCRS Isaac Solomon Historic Synagogue Foundation (www.jcrs-synagogue. org). We are working to restore the small synagogue on the campus of what was JCRS (now the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design).

Susan (Shuman)
Zinn Goldman
Denver, CO

In your article on Denver, I was surprised not to see a reference to Pioneers, Peddlers, and Tsadikim: The Story of the Jews in Colorado (University of Colorado Press) by my mother, Ida Libert Uchill.

Deborah Uchill Miller
New York, NY

One small thing [about Denver]: There are no “Black Mountains” in Colorado, only the Black Forest, which separates Denver from the Colorado Springs area.

Miriam Paisner
Boulder, CO

A Critical Review
Have you no shame? In your book review section (December issue), Charles Jacobs does not find it sufficient to just refer to my brother, Norman Finkelstein, as an odious character and a closet Nazi sympathizer, now he is being labeled as a consorter of Hezbollah. What rubbish.

My brother doesn’t frame his criticism of the State of Israel within the bounds that you have set, so you must resort to blatant character assassination of the lowest form, in such an off-handed manner that the assumption is that this is fact and not what it really is: a personal, biased opinion. My brother welcomes criticism and so do I, but this is not criticism.

Henry Finkelstein
Brooklyn, NY

Charles Jacobs responds: Perhaps if Henry Finkelstein knew what his brother, Norman, promotes, he would not fire off letters defending him. Norman routinely compares Israelis with Nazis and he told The Jerusalem Report (August 28, 2000) that he “can’t imagine why Israel’s apologists would be offended by the comparison.”

And while Norman expresses nothing but contempt for Israel, he lavishes praise on the terrorist group Hezbollah. On his Web site: “I did make a point of publicly honoring the heroic resistance of Hezbollah to foreign occupation…. Their historic contributions are… undeniable.”

Why two brothers, sons of Holocaust survivors, act like this is a subject beyond the scope of normal political discourse.

On President Bush
I cannot agree less with the interview of Daniel Ayalon (December issue). The initial campaign against Saddam Hussein was not “brilliant” but a total disgrace. Nor do I agree with his analysis about President Bush. It has been quite proven that Bush has made many, many serious errors in going to war with the wrong country at the wrong time. I also feel that [Bush] and his cabinet are putting Israel in a serious situation. Encouraging more land to be given away means it will be easier to destroy Israel more quickly.

Doris Weintraub
Maspeth, NY