Thank you JET Express

During these special days of remembrance and appreciation, my thoughts are focused on all the wonderful people in my life — my parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends, who are no longer living, and my wonderful children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and friends who surround me always with love and care.

This past year I have added another SPECIAL FRIEND — JET Express, sponsored by Jewish Family Services. This agency provides driving assistance to those of us no longer able to drive. By calling one week in advance to schedule appointments, they send a driver to your place of residence, who takes you to your appointment (medical, grocery store, beauty shop, etc.) and returns you to your home afterwards. There is a very small fee for the service (every time I started my own car in my driveway, it cost much more, I am sure) and in addition to not having to buy gas, maintenance expenses on the car — insurance, licenses, etc. — I have made wonderful new friends and renewed old ones!

These drivers volunteer their time and we, the recipients of their services and care, are most grateful. If you have a morning or afternoon when you could offer your services for this mitzvah, it would be deeply appreciated.

My thanks to the staff and volunteers of JET Express who have so greatly assisted me in my adjustment to life without driving!

Anita Loeb
Overland Park, KS

Voter suppression is personal

In 1964 we were living in Louisiana and because the elections were approaching we went to register. However, I failed the literacy exam. At that time I was a professor at Tulane School of Medicine. If they were correct I would have been the first illiterate professor at Tulane University and at their Medical School. However, one thing I was positive of, I was far more literate than the person who tested me.

Of course, poll taxes and literacy tests are the most undemocratic and the most un-American policy in a democracy. Not believing my ears I asked why I had failed. The man said that he could not tell me. Hmmm, why not? Later on we learned that there were many blacks and other northerners who just weren’t literate enough to vote in Louisiana.

We went to the League of Women Voters where we learned about the tricks that were used to suppress the “undesirable vote.” This is not North Korea, Burma or Russia. This is The United States; the land of the free — where each person is supposed to have the right to vote as they please.

Now in 2012 we have the same egregious behavior. Suddenly and just in time for the election, 11 Republican state legislatures have passed laws to prevent one type of “voter fraud” that is essentially nonexistent (except perhaps if these voter suppression laws in 11 states are carried out). It is not surprising that the type of voter suppression that Republican legislatures are targeting will disenfranchise blacks, Hispanics, the poor, the infirm, the young and the elderly.

The type of voter suppression they have ignored is the type that they themselves are accused of fostering. As you know from today’s news in Florida the Republican Party hired a firm to register voters, but they tore up the forms by those who identified themselves as Democrats and submitted all the forms submitted by Republicans. This is not only immoral but it is illegal.

This should make every American angry, regardless of party and indeed it has. Many Republicans are fighting against these immoral tactics and have even reported the cheaters to the authorities. This is an American problem.

Perhaps I am a shade more indignant than some because it happened to me. But I know that no Jewish Chronicle reader would want that to happen to them or to our fellow countrymen or women.

Jack Katz, Ph.D.
Prairie Village, Kan.