Letters to the Editor

Code of personal conduct

The European Union commissioner for justice, freedom and security has proposed a code of conduct that would commit journalists to “prudence” when reporting on Islam and other religions (“EU leader pushes code of conduct for journalists,” World, Thursday).

However, the fact that a person — or millions — feel “humiliation” or any other emotion resulting from something seen or heard is the responsibility of that individual. The ideas held by that adult underlie the emotions and are chosen and/or retained by choice (albeit sometimes requiring effort to modify). No one else but the person is responsible for the feelings experienced by agreement or disagreement, spoken or printed, with his or her ideas.

This bears no resemblance to a government fining, imprisoning or killing practitioners of a religion. Journalists, editors, publishers and readers who consider publication of articles, essays, news stories and cartoons as harm to those who feel “humiliation” do not understand the nature of harm.

KITTY ANTONIK WAKFER

Casa Grande, Ariz.

Museum is faithful to the historical record

As project director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum overseeing its creation between 1988-1993, I accept complete and full responsibility for the absence of the grand mufti of Jerusalem in the museum (“Undeniable historical links,” Op-Ed, Thursday). He was — as any responsible student of the Third Reich knows — a bit player in the murder of the Jews. Raul Hilberg mentions him twice in the 1,388 pages of his magisterial work “The Destruction of the European Jews.” Leni Yahil mentioned him also twice in her 800 pages of “The Holocaust.” Lucy Dawidowicz does not mention him at all in “The War Against the Jews.” Louis Snyder has no entry on the mufti in his “Encyclopedia of the Third Reich.” His name appears once in the “Yale Encyclopedia of the Holocaust” edited by Walter Laqueur and there only in conjunction to funding that Mussolini provided for attacks against the British. I could go on and on but the reader should get the point: He was not very important.

I just reviewed my much-used copy of “The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust,” which I have read in its entirety tens of times when we edited for electronic publication. My copy has nine columns devoted to the mufti. There are scores of entries that are given more space. And if, as the authors contend, the encyclopedia considered him second to Hitler in the allocation of space, it would be a gross distortion of scholarship, unworthy of so distinguished a publication.

At best the mufti’s role deserved a caption of a photograph, which, according to my memory, is all he gets in Israel’s National Memorial to the Holocaust, Yad Vashem.

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