Review 22.4
22 March- 10 April, 1997

Letters

Babette Francis in her recent letter (Review, 15 - 28 February) postulates that Jewish women abort their babies more than women in other cultures. This, of course, is both outrageous garbage and unadulterated mischief.

In my rejoinder to her statement may I with the same presumptuousness ask Ms Francis a few questions?

Is her conclusion based on anecdotal backyard gossip? Where is the evidence (statistics please) to substantiate the dissemination of such malicious propaganda? >From what source does she draw her information? Is her escutcheon plate so free of imperfection/blemish that she can afford to single out and place a slur of this kind on Jewish women in particular?

Free speech is one thing; truth is another. Into which category does gross fabrication fall? We are all aware that life is precious. In the Jewish world it is DOUBLY precious.

Billie Shilkin
Melbourne, Vic

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It was with stunned surprise that I read Mrs Francis' letter (Review 15-28 February). During my lifetime, Jews have been accused of being involved in a wide range of nefarious activities. Try as I may, I have never been able to locate any evidence proving the accusations.

Mrs Francis' claim that Jews have killed more of their babies than murdered by the Germans and their collaborators during the Holocaust is the most horrifying "revelation" ever made against Jews.

Does Mrs Francis know that the Nazis killed one million children? They killed more young mothers, whether pregnant or not, than any other calamity that has befallen suffering humankind.

The impression her comments makes can be interpreted in several ways. One perhaps may assume she wishes to whitewash Nazi atrocities and giving Germans the ability to say that all we did "was to assist Jews in their murderous endeavours."

I am quite convinced that Mrs Francis had no such intention on her mind. However, as a driven person on a single issue she may, in the future, create more tragedy than the problem she is attempting to resolve.

More disturbing still is the claim that the pro-abortion movement is dominated by Jews. Claims of this nature were made in years gone by accusing Jews of controlling Bolshevism, Imperialism, Capitalism and any other ism one cared to be against. How Mrs Francis is able to establish who is Jewish and who is not also baffles me. As a youngster, shortly after the Second World War when the extent of the Holocaust became known, I often argued with my mother on how the Holocaust had been inevitable, and Jews having large families, particularly in Eastern Europe, provided the Germans with a ready made crop of child victims.

It would have been far better if there had been fewer people to murder. Naturally an argument of this nature tends to be irrational, as having children is part of our human condition, not an ethnic matter.

The Holocaust is often seen by outsiders as a means of collating statistics on numbers who died. The problems of survivors, whether as adults or children, has to my knowledge not been studied in depth until recently, and assistance to surviving victims has, if anything, been scarce.

How can Mrs Francis even begin to understand the suffering endured by survivors who often pass their traumas on to their children and thus spread the horror of it all to the wider Jewish community, not directly affected by the Holocaust.

Personally, I have always been strongly anti-abortion. Rather than raging against this ghastly problem, I have always believed in proper and comprehensive Sex Education at home and at school, starting from the age of nine years.

If Mrs Francis were to devote more time in promoting prevention and the many ways it can now be achieved, she would have far less reasons to rail against any particular groups.

Henri Korn
Elsternwick, Vic

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THIS WEEK, SHE LOVES US

We absolutely loved Michael Kapel's witty "Notebook" in your 1 March - 21 March 1997 issue, commenting on Senator Lyn Allison's criticisms of "fundamentalist and extreme schools."

Many of our members choose to send their children to non-Government schools, and we applaud the present Government for giving us that choice, whereas the previous Government either prevented or actively discouraged the establishment of such new schools.

It is great to have the Jewish community on our side. Senator Allison made a tactical error in including Jewish day schools in her diatribe and she and Senator Cheryl Kernot are now trying to wriggle out of it.

Babette Francis
National & Overseas Co-ordinator
Endeavour Forum
Toorak, Vic