Acknowledging our shared success story
Last week I had the opportunity to review the press release, “KU Hillel Success Story,” about Scott Bratt’s new position as the Denver/Boulder City manager for One Table.
At that time, I made the mistake of not adding the fact that Scott is also a K-12 graduate of the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy. Scott’s experiences at the HBHA were powerfully formative for him and played an important role in shaping who he was when I first begin to develop a relationship with him during his time at KU.
We are proud to celebrate Scott’s new position as a KU Hillel success story; it is a direct outgrowth of the work we do with students, particularly in our Shabbat Around KU program. We want to acknowledge that the important role that Scott is playing in the Jewish community is cause for celebration and pride for HBHA as well. Clearly students do not arrive at college with blank canvases, and we are grateful for the richness that HBHA graduates bring to our Jewish student community at KU, and to the broader Jewish community as well.
Neal Schuster
Rabbi and senior Jewish educator
KU Hillel
One wonders
Which part(s) of Hillary Clinton’s inspirational agenda/platform does Mr. Lee Levin opposes in his Aug. 4 letter to the Chronicle? (Democratic proposals meaningless)
Does he oppose equal pay for women? Or, does he oppose raising the minimum wage to a livable level?
Or, does he oppose making college affordable and college loans manageable?
Or, does he oppose a fair, and securely-vetted immigration reform policy?
Or, does he oppose supporting and strengthening social security benefits for millions of seniors as they struggle with the economic costs of retirement and aging?
As for his claimed “non-existent” Hillary accomplishments, it is possible that he simply overlooked the CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) engineered by Hillary, which provides health insurance coverage eligibility for 11 million children and pregnant women who could otherwise not afford insurance. Only 11 million children!
Mr. Levin continues to critique the Obama administration’s “failure to accomplish anything meaningful” during his first two years when there was a democratic majority in both houses:
Did he forget that the Obama administration brought us out of the worst Republican-generated recession since the Great Depression? Yes, we would like to grow faster. But we now have higher employment and lower unemployment than in decades.
He may also have forgotten that the first bill signed by President Obama was the “Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act,” an important step toward equal pay for equal work for women.
And the “Affordable Care Act” which has made health care insurance available to an additional 40 million Americans may have just slipped his mind. Perhaps he doesn’t consider it a noteworthy accomplishment to provide preventive and accessible health care to so many who need it.
Perfect? No. In the right direction? Yes. Hillary will continue to work on the many challenges before us to accomplish the best possible outcomes. She will often need attitudes of collegiality and compromise from both sides of the legislative aisle.
No doubt the next letter from Mr. Levin will extol the many virtues of Donald J. Trump. I, and my Jewish and Muslim and female and Latino and African American and retired friends just can’t wait!
Harold Sader
Prairie Village, Kansas