Almost weekly I receive a request from Honest Reporting Canada or the Media Action Group to write a letter to the CBC or the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star or other Canadian media outlets to protest their anti-Israel bias, often reflected by their use of “sanitized” language when describing terrorist attacks and how they bend over backward to avoid using the word “terrorist,” and instead call Hamas, or Islamic Jihad, “militants” or “insurgents,” etc.

So I was very disturbed to read in The CJN’s Dec. 20 front-page story, “Sderot endures Qassam rocket strikes,” a horrific description of the impact of the bombardment of Sderot, “by an almost daily barrage of Qassam rockets fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza.” Later in the same piece, we read that since the start of the second intifadah, these “gunmen” have fired nearly 6,000 Qassams and mortars at Sderot.

If our own Jewish media and journalists are guilty of using such euphemisms for the word “terrorist” in their writing, how can we expect anything more from the CBC or other Canadian newspapers?

Marilyn Kraft
Toronto

Norman Ravvin’s review of Ruth Wisse’s book Jews and Power is disappointing (“Wisse book investigates Jews and Power,” CJN, Dec. 20). Ravvin writes that the influence of revisionist Zionist leader Zeev Jabotinsky and former Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz on Wisse’s book is “disheartening stuff.”

Jews and Power is a gem, and I would especially encourage young students to read it. The book is guaranteed to enrich every Jewish home.

Baruch Cohen
Montreal

This is in response to the letter from Sam Merenbloom of Bloomington, Ind., who was asking whether Canadians like their latkes with mayonnaise (“Latkes with mayo?” CJN letters, Dec. 13).

I am Sephardi from the Middle East and my wife is Ashkenazi from Canada. We have combined the best of both worlds in our culinary tastes. Latkes are not a Middle Eastern thing, and I regard them as a Jewish variation of the McDonald’s hash browns. To our knowledge, sour cream is the most popular way in Montreal, however, I personally find sour cream too bland. I like my food to have some “kick” to it.

I therefore enjoy latkes, by the ton, in our combined Sephardi-Ashkenazi way: we serve them with Greek tzatziki, with hummus, with tabbouleh, with sour kraut or even with a chef salad. Other times, latkes are served with stir-fried strips of chicken breasts. As you can see, Montreal is not called a culinary capital for nothing.

Robert Khalifa
Montreal

In reply to Sam Merenbloom in Bloomington, Ind., (“Latkes with mayo?” CJN letters, Dec. 13) yes, we in Canada like mayo in salads, salmon, tuna or egg filling, but on latkes?  This is like adding ketchup to corn flakes. Heaven forbid.
Merv Gollom
Toronto