Letters to the Editor | Dec. 21, 2023

Pennsylvanians deserve better from our elected officials, but the problems began long before the leaky Capitol roof mentioned in Matthew J. Brouillette’s recent op-ed. For years, Republicans held the majority in the state House and Senate. Still, each chamber never voted on over half of the bills passed unanimously by the other chamber. Is this acceptable? Even without a leaky roof or a partisan divide, our legislature almost never completed its budget on time. The problem is not partisan politics. It’s legislative rules that silence our moderate legislators and prevent cross-aisle collaboration. Bipartisan bills deserve a vote, and legislators who do not complete the budget on time deserve coal in their stockings. See FixHarrisburg.com.

Rachel Sorokin Goff, Elkins Park

There’s only one correct answer to the question, “Will you be a dictator?” It is not, “For one day,” as stated by Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner and inmate No. PO1135809. The answer, if we wish to maintain the democracy that hundreds of thousands have fought and died to preserve, is an emphatic, “No.”

Vin Morabito, Scranton

Though we have constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech, there have always been some third rails Americans avoided. I have always believed that we were “different” from other countries in fundamental ways. I am less sure of our uniqueness after hearing the crowd assembled outside Goldie this month. That crowd, shouting, “Goldie, Goldie, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” crossed a new threshold, one never experienced by a generation of Jews who believed deeply that we are and have been a “different” place.

Only and most fully in America do we have the constitutional right to peacefully assemble. To use our voices to point out injustice, decry despots, and express ourselves — no matter how odious our positions. We have had that right, but our fidelity to one another and civil society always checked us. For many Jews who learned of Kristallnacht, a night of terror when Nazis broke windows of Jewish-owned businesses, homes, and synagogues, the Goldie protest night felt ominously like the demonization and recrimination of Jews in Germany 85 years ago.

Not only did the crowd’s words echo off Center City buildings, but they also echoed in the minds and hearts of Jews who still have fresh wounds from pogroms in Europe. I hope a larger crowd of people of conscience from all walks, all faiths, will shout back even louder — “Never again” — and echo the higher angels of our nation.

Bart Blatstein, Philadelphia

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