Irrelevant references to Jews offensive

The Feb. 14 issue of the Daily Herald carried a story, dateline Port-au-Prince, Haiti, reporting on an adviser to the recently arrested and released U.S. missionaries. In describing the relationship of the legal adviser to relatives of the missionaries the article said, "They thought Puello, a Jew from the Dominican Republic, was a Good Samaritan."

Of course, there is no point in referring to either the religion or ethnicity of Mr. Puello. Whichever you meant, they are different, Such gratuitous and irrelevant allusions are deeply, deeply offensive.

Some might say that my commenting on this offhand detail was a result of hypersensitivity. But when an article discusses potentially villainous behavior and then casually refers to an individual's ethnic or religious group, the article's writer flagrantly puts a taint on the entire group. My wife, brown eyes, also was offended.

There are times when ethnicity and/or religion are part of the story as when The New York Times said in a recent headline: "Female Ex-Minister to Join Académie Française." The fact that Ms. Weil was only the sixth woman to be elected to the Academie was, in itself, newsworthy - Mr. Puello's ethnic or religious affiliation is not.

It's not just slanderous innuendos that are offensive - they all are. I was recently working on a project when one of the team suggested that it would be a good idea to work with Jewish people. "They're smart," he said. Once you start categorizing, good or bad, you open the door for stereotyping.

Sanford Morganstein

West Dundee