The editors of JTNews recently published a letter (“Taking Sides,” Letters, April 29) attacking my mother, Rochelle Kochin, for her defense of the State of Israel’s right to defend herself from the evil actions of an enemy who specifically targets and murders Jewish civilians (“A moral compass,” April 15). The author writes that my mother’s views imply that “she must have no moral compass” if she cannot see the mitigating historical factors that motivate these terrorists.
In these times of economic stress, the role of a Jewish community’s paper should not be to devote its limited resources to apologists for those who murder Jewish infants sleeping in their cribs. Those wishing to attack the State of Israel suffer from no shortage of financial support and forums to publish their deranged views.
Rochelle Kochin has provided many years of selfless service and contribution to the needs of the Seattle’s Jewish community. An attack on the moral integrity of my mother has no more place in JTNews than deranged arguments of those who would deny the Holocaust. On this Mother’s Day, I call upon the editors of JTNews to reflect on their decisions. JTNews should use its limited resources to celebrate people like my mother.