Israeli Teens

* Re “It’s Appropriate to Respond Irrationally to the Irrational,” Commentary, Dec. 2: Instead of making absurd, offensive excuses for the behavior of a group of Israeli teens who spent the night in their hotel rooms watching Polish strippers after having visited Auschwitz, Thane Rosenbaum should have chosen to sum up this sordid episode by using words like “unfortunate” and “thoughtless.”

Instead, he chose to compare the stripping by Polish “entertainers” to the forced stripping of the prisoners in the camp prior to their death. This comparison boggles the imagination in its absurdity, and it is cruel. How is one to follow Rosenbaum’s line of reasoning when he states that “the memory of carnage now gives way to carnal desires”? Surely no thinking person, Jew or Gentile, could countenance such a suggestion.

His conclusion that “when in the presence of monstrous deeds, maybe it’s appropriate not to be on one’s best behavior” makes me wonder where his moral compass resides.

NORM KAUFMAN

Rancho Mirage