We wish the K.C. Jewish Community a L’Shanah Tovah V’Metukah — a sweet near year filled with Hebrew learning! From across the Jewish community, we are promoting the importance of learning Hebrew.
Our goal is simply “Something for everyone” — whether you know an alef from a bet or speak fluently.
(Editor’s note: This letter to the editor, originally published in the Aug. 28 issue, is reprinted in its entirety with corrections.)
The latest issue of The Chronicle features a picture of an Arab child before a bombed building in Gaza. Everybody, except for Hamas, has sympathy for the people of Gaza who are suffering from the destruction arising from the so-called war.
But, we wonder, what were the editors of The Chronicle thinking about when they printed this picture? Where is the picture of a bomb hole in Israel, caused by a Hamas rocket? Where is a picture of Israeli children huddled in a bomb shelter when Hamas rockets are raining down upon their communities?
Hamas fires rockets into Israel with the intention of killing Jews.
Israel fires rockets into Gaza with the intent of stopping Hamas rockets. There is a distinction! There is a difference!
Innocent people are killed and wounded on both sides. You are not helping by featuring only the evidence of the suffering of one side.
Joel Pelofsky
Kansas City, Mo.
I had a shock.
On the news I saw that three people were murdered in South Kansas City. I knew exactly the spot as Susan and Charles lived there.
Then I found out that she was one of the people murdered. I am in shock.
We met about five years ago. She became active in National Council of Jewish Women, Greater Kansas City Section. We began working together on committees. She was very interested in two issues important to me, interfaith relations and the issue of agunot, Jewish women who could not get a religious divorce.
When we met we realized that our lives had touched once before we met. I had replaced her as a speaker at an interfaith event when she was ill. She was supposed to speak about Judaism. Since I was at the event with my daughter, I was asked to fill in. Later, when we met, it was this incident that gave us something in common.
This past March, I drove her to the national NCJW Convention in St. Louis. We had spent five hours together each way.
In the car we talked about our families. Susan was very proud of her nephews. And spoke about them as I spoke about my children. We talked about interfaith, as our section of NCJW would soon be having our interfaith event. We had combined learning about different religions and the issue of divorce in these religions: Judaism, Catholicism and Islam. It turned out to be a wonderful panel discussion. Susan was one of the panelists.
A few days after our return, Susan and Charles brought us Hamantashen that Charles had made for Purim. And they wanted me to have some as a thank you and as, “shaloch manot,” for Purim.
I saw her the week before she died. We met by chance in a women’s clothing store. She was out shopping for the first time since her mother had passed. I had been out of town when her Mom died, so had not been at the funeral or paid a shiva call.
We talked about NCJW and when she would get back to volunteering. I told her everyone understood. It is difficult to lose your mother. When she was ready it was time enough.
Now I feel sad and am shocked, as she will not volunteer again.
Baruch Dayan haEmet, May her Name be for a blessing.
Ellen Portnoy
Overland Park, Kan.
It is with great shock and sorrow that the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council received word of the tragic death of its Jewish director, Susan Choucroun, Sept. 2 in the Kansas City Woodbridge neighborhood.
Susan was a valued member of the interfaith community and had a passion for community activism and interfaith understanding and cooperation. She was a caring person. She wanted others to know about her Jewish faith, and she wanted to know theirs.
This unconscionable act is, unfortunately, yet another indication that our society is in great need of compassion and healing that not only Divine love can give, but family, friends and the whole community can give to each other as well. The Council extends its condolences to Susan’s husband, relatives and to members of her congregational families at Ohev Sholom and Kehilath Israel Synagogue, as well as to the Jewish and Kansas City communities.
The Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council calls on everyone to react with a determination to replace violence with peace as a way to honor Susan’s memory as well as the memory of the other victims.
Sheila Sonnenschein, convener
Mary McCoy, co-conveneer
Greater Kansas City
Interfaith Council
Around third grade is when teachers start asking you what you want to be when you grow up. Typical third-graders would say that want to be an astronaut or an actor, something along those lines. Third-graders have
As president of the Missouri Kansas chapter of Grandmothers Against Gun Violence, I am disappointed that Grandmothers Against Gun Violence was not mentioned in the article published in the Aug. 29 issue of The Chronicle about the new Kansas chapter of the Brady Campaign. Susan Blaney is not only co-founder of the Brady Campaign Kansas chapter, she is also co-founder with me, as well as vice president, of our local Grandmothers Against Gun Violence chapter.
Susan has been in constant contact with the Brady Campaign staff for a long time, and was instrumental in getting the chapter set up in Kansas. In fact, Blayney is the one who recruited Harold Koch, Paul Temme and Loren Stanton to join her as charter members — and without her efforts, the chapter would not be here. These three men are also members of Grandmothers Against Gun Violence, and the statistics cited in the article all came from the our chapter’s March 2014 meeting.
Judy Sherry
President
Missouri Kansas Chapter,
Grandmothers Against Gun Violence
Many of us think of Israel as the melting pot of the Jewish people, as the one place where Jews of every color, nationality
Over the years on more than one occasion my family and I had the great privilege of visiting the Beit Halochem Center in
On Saturday, Aug. 23, the New York Times published an ad signed by about 300 Holocaust survivors, their direct
In response to the letter written by Sheila Sonnenschein and Rev. Mary McCoy of the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council (Aug. 14), I wonder if it has also come to their attention that pogroms against Jews are
For decades, structures have existed that created and sustained Ferguson, Missouri’s, damaged relationship with its police. They have quietly worked their magic, and brought about the shooting of Michael Brown.
I can’t help but find a correlation between Muslim migration into Europe and other non-Muslim countries and the rising clamor of anti-Semitism in those countries. Hamas instigated violence in Gaza, knowingly using civilians as shields for their missiles, and there has been an outcry from around the world condemning Israel for protecting itself. It seems to me to be a well-orchestrated sequence of events where Hamas’ action and Israel’s reaction has resulted in certain sections of the world immediately pouncing on Israel rather than on the perpetrators. As Muslims get stronger in traditionally non-Muslim countries, I am very afraid that things will get worse, not just for Israel, but for Jews everywhere. Israel and Jewish communities around the world need to go on a massive public relations offensive to remind the world that Israel is the victim and not the world’s greatest enemy.
Shel Roufa
Leawood, Kan.
It has come to the attention of the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council that an official of the Kansas Republican 3rd Congressional District Committee recently issued a highly-prejudicial and inflammatory anti-Muslim statement on Twitter. As shocking as the tweet itself, the Kansas Republican Party has disavowed any responsibility for “public statements of private citizens” and has refused to issue an apology for the since-deleted tweet or to remove the official from his post, although the official himself has since resigned.
In these days of shootings and tension, both locally and internationally, there is no excuse for such irresponsible language and incitement, in particular from officials of civic and political organizations. Interfaith dialogue is important for the purpose of learning and healing. No “conversation” or communication against any religion is acceptable, as its only purpose is to spread hatred and misunderstanding.
The Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council deplores bigotry in all forms and calls on all citizens to always keep in mind how thoughtless language can lead to reckless behavior and to act with compassion in all communications and endeavors.
Sheila Sonnenschein, convener
Rev. Mary McCoy, co-convener
Greater Kansas City
Interfaith Council
