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Readers write: Anti-Semitism, and community relations

Letters to the editor for the Feb. 3, 2020 weekly magazine. Readers discuss the Monitor’s coverage of anti-Semitism, as well as community service.

  • By Monitor readers

Anti-Semitism

I’m pleased to see an increasing number of articles in the Monitor that address anti-Semitism. [Editor’s note: See “Anti-Semitism surges – right and left – across political spectrum” in the Jan. 20 Monitor Weekly and “Anti-Semitism in the schoolyard: A new front in Germany’s struggle” in the Jan. 27 Monitor Weekly.]

However, the disappointing aspect of these articles is that most of the reporting focuses on anti-Semitic events with very superficial coverage of where anti-Semitism is coming from. I’d like to see some in-depth reporting on that topic.

Rudy Ramp
Arcata, California

Community relations

I loved the Home Forum essay “Keeping the peace in my neighborhood” by Robert Klose in the Dec. 30, 2019 & Jan. 6, 2020 Monitor Weekly. I can relate to both men in the story. Sometimes we feel slighted and act out, and sometimes we have patience with ourselves and others. It makes me want to do more and volunteer more. Thanks for the article.

Patrick Harber
Boston

Essays by Robert Klose

I think I’ve read every essay by Mr. Klose that you’ve printed – and loved every single one. But the latest one titled “Keeping the peace in my neighborhood” produced a lump in my throat. I feel as if I know him at this point and now I like him even more. Thanks to him for his heartfelt writing.

Joan Mikkelsen
Berkeley, California

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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