Sarsour notes

Regarding “Women’s March head says current organizers ‘allowing antisemitism’” (November 21), some progressive Jews point to Linda Sarsour’s fundraising for funerals of victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and on behalf of a vandalized Jewish cemetery as evidence that, in her words, “... we see you, we love you, and we are fighting with you.”

Ah, those lovable, silent Jewish dead. Sarsour has no shame about using our Jewish dead for political, virtue-signaling optics. But Zionism, national independence for living Jews and for a living Jewish future, is “creepy,” according to Sarsour.

She said, “We should have been faster and clearer in helping people understand our values and our commitment to fighting antisemitism,” but she has been very clear about her contempt for Zionism, our right to be a free people in our own (tiny) land, while Palestinian national aspirations have never been disparaged as “creepy” by Sarsour.

“When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking antisemitism” – attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr. JULIA LUTCH Davis, California

There is something tragically inauthentic permeating Linda Sarsour’s insubstantial, hollow apology for her antisemitic rhetoric. It begins with her use of “we” in her apology, as though she cannot bear to take personal responsibility for her hate-filled statements.

It continues with the apology’s focus on the Jewish and LGBTQ members of The Women’s March, as though she really doesn’t care about the harm caused by her antisemitism to anyone with a different ideology.

And it culminates with what she omitted – for example any statements indicating that she understands the hateful nature of the classic antisemitic smears she voiced; about supposed dual loyalties or conspiratorial control.

Her obviously grudging, pseudo-apologetic utterance left me cold. So does her continuing status as a leader of The Women’s March.

DANIEL H. TRIGOBOFF, PH.D.

Williamsville, New York