‘J-Factor’ in the Election

According to a news story in The Times (Part I, Aug. 15) Republicans hoping to elect George Bush President are pitching hard for the Jewish vote with a “sleeper” plank in their convention platform, which opposes a Palestinian state and a U.N. resolution saying that Zionism is racism. The Mideast plank won immediate approval from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Tom Dine, its executive director, felt that this plank is the best ever on U.S.-Israel relations by either party. Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Los Angeles Simon Wiesenthal Center called the plank “terrific.”

Strangely enough, in the same issue is a column by Jack Beatty “Code Mottled With Bigotry Dredges Up the ‘J Word’ ” (Op-Ed Page). The “J word” for Jew is playing a backstage role in the presidential campaign. Beatty went on to report about a recent Wall Street Journal editorial listing two biographical facts about Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis. “He is proud of his Greek heritage, but is married to a Jewish wife raising his children in both ‘traditions.’ ”

Jack Beatty continues his column by informing readers that Lee Atwater, Vice President George Bush’s campaign manager ran a successful congressional campaign in South Carolina a few years ago against which the charges of anti-Semitism were leveled. Atwater’s candidate commissioned a poll, which, by means of one of the questions asked, got across to voters the message that one of his opponents was Jewish. Atwater denied having anything to do with the poll, but as Beatty noted, “it happened on his watch.”

White Christian anti-Semitism lives on, nearly a half century after the Holocaust.

I fear we’re getting mixed signals from the Republican camp.

S.M. ROSEN

Newbury Park