Letters Up Front Edition

• Published in: The Jerusalem post
• Main Author: Allyn Rothman, Ron Wegsman, Judy McCluggage, Sara Lee Woolf, Jacob Chinitz, Ida Selavan Schwarcz, Shalom Bronstein, Chani Hadad
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Jerusalem The Jerusalem Post Ltd 03.09.2004
• Subjects: Bush, George (President); Chomsky, William; Kerry, John F; Shamir, Moshe

In 1972 I was in Jerusalem on sabbatical. Between college semesters the Greater Israel movement sponsored a seminar for students. I got special permission to attend. Among the speakers were Eliezer Livneh, Chayim Yachil, and [Moshe Shamir]. Forty of us, crowded into a cold room in Ulpan Etzion in Baka, listened to the giants explaining the aspirations for an Israel stretching from the sea to the Jordan river. One professor gave different versions of the borders of Eretz Yisrael in the Bible. Sir, - In his review of The Anti-Chomsky Reader ("The nutty professor?" Upfront, August 27) Elliot Jager writes that Chomsky is the son of a Hebrew teacher. Professor William Chomsky was a scholar who taught at Dropsie College; his wife Elsie was a supervisor of Hebrew teachers for the Philadelphia Bureau of Jewish Education (she was my supervisor and every time she visited my class I was stressed out). Sir, - While technically true, Dr. William Chomsky, [Noam]'s father, was more than a "Hebrew teacher." For many years he was a professor at Dropsie College in Philadelphia and dean of the Faculty of Gratz College. He was the teacher and mentor of many of us who now make our homes in Israel. He authored both scholarly and popular works on the Hebrew language and held an eminent position in the world of Jewish scholarship. His wife, Elsie Chomsky, a distinguished educator in her own right, taught generations of young Philadelphians how to be more effective teachers in the Hebrew School classroom.