San Francisco WeeklyLetters to the EditorAugust 1, 2007 Holy War in Aisle 9 Tempest in an herbal-tea pot: As workers and customers at Rainbow Grocery, we find the flippant attack on Rainbow, our health-food store, unacceptable ["No Peace Prize for You," Sucka Free City, July 19]. Your paper takes seriously the word of someone known by us to be a troublemaker with a trumped-up complaint. On that basis you diss the store as "hippy-dippy." Is that because it is a worker-owned coop and takes political stands? We also object to the way this article makes light of such a life-and-death issue as the Palestine/Israel conflict. How dare your reporter write about this in such a dismissive way? It is appalling to us that when people are dying in such numbers, your paper would devote an entire article to such a divisive non-story. Contrary to what Lauren Smiley states, many of us are Jewish shoppers. We shop at Rainbow Grocery because it is more than just another supermarket. Some of us are Jewish workers at Rainbow and, to set the record straight, we wouldn't tolerate any hint of anti-Semitism at Rainbow. Peter Altman's quote is particularly ill-informed and destructive. He is equating defense of Palestinian human rights with "tearing Israel to shreds." Also, workers at Rainbow are free to have opinions and this cashier's wearing such a message does not demonstrate that she or Rainbow is advocating the destruction of Israel. Debate and discussion are central to Jewish thought, but Altman's attitude does not permit this. To allow such an uninformed and shallow piece of journalism on such a crucial world issue is irresponsible or worse.
Rachel West,
Jean Pauline, Tom Brown, Mara Rivera, David DeNeef, Lori Nairne,
Sonia Siegal, Nell Myhand, Janice Rothstein, Xian, Daniel
Chimowitz http://www.sfweekly.com/2007-08-01/news/letters-to-the-editor/
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