Two Jews on Helen Thomas - But in the NYTimes

Helen Thomas on Israel

Re “Reporter Retires After Words About Israel” (news article, June 8):

My mother, growing up in Poland in the 1930s, heard demonstrators shouting “Jews, go to Palestine!” Now Helen Thomas tells me that Jews should not be in “Palestine.” They should go back to Germany and Poland.

So, in other words, 65 years after my mother was liberated from a concentration camp in Germany, Jews are still being told that they don’t belong.

No, Ms. Thomas, I think that my 85-year-old mother will stay right where she is, in Netanya, Israel, with her great-grandchildren, who were born in the Jewish state.

Sheba Mittelman
West Orange, N.J.

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To the Editor:

I fully and strenuously disagree with the comments made by Helen Thomas. But that said, why isn’t she entitled to her opinion? And why is she precluded from stating her opinion without risking the loss of position and livelihood?

We like to think that we are a free and open society, but sometimes we seem more conventional and restrictive than free. When did we Americans become so afraid of ideas outside the norm, or that are different or even wrong?

John Fishman
Ghent, N.Y.