Barry Morrison

A group of Jewish educators has written a letter to School Superintendent Constance E. Clayton, expressing concern that recent demotions, transfers and appointments of principals and other district administrators indicate a pattern of discrimination against Jewish employees. "It's clear a number of Jewish personnel feel they are at a disadvantage," said Barry Morrison, director of the B'nai B'rith Anti- Defamation League. In recent months, he said, a number of district employees had called his office to complain about the "perception" that Jewish principals cannot compete fairly for schools, particularly in black neighborhoods.

After a five-year decline, anti-Semitic vandalism in the United States rose substantially in 1987. Locally, however, incidents of vandalism declined slightly in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. There were 694 reports of vandalism and desecrations in 1987 nationwide, a 17 percent increase over the 594 incidents reported in 1986. Ten of the 694 incidents involved arson or bombings, according to an annual audit conducted by the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith.

Six generations of the family have lived on the land and have worked the land, but that hearty history does not deter the real estate agents and the developers. "I'd say if we had a full week in which nobody called or visited - asking about buying the land - that would be cause for a celebration," says the family patriarch, Carl Brosch, a trim man with a lively gait that belies his 79 years. The land is 55 undulating acres off a once-rural lane known as Shavertown Road in Boothwyn, in Delaware County near the Chester County border, in an area dominated chiefly by developments, nouveau estates and the occasional grand old house.

RE JILL PORTER'S July 25 column: Jill really searched high and low to find something that SHE doesn't like, and wants to impose on everyone else. You pick on Eileen Evans for being a faithful Christian and being proud of it. So proud and thankful that she's not ashamed to even put on her personal bio. Thank God we have people making decisions with a moral conscience - we should celebrate that, not punish it. I'm sure believing as she does makes her a better employee. I wonder if you'd protest in the same way if she said she was a committed Muslim or lesbian, and lets the Koran, or some gay publication help form her decisions?

The editor of the Temple University newspaper said yesterday the Temple News has revised its advertising policy in hopes of avoiding the publication of controversial ads like the one earlier this month that was criticized by the Anti-Defamation League. The ad, which ran in the weekly paper on Nov. 9, denied that the Holocaust ever took place, and promoted a Web site that questions the occurrence of the Holocaust. The organization that paid for the ad was the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust, and the ad has run in several college papers in recent years, according to Temple News editor Jill Waldbieser.

Barry Morrison, Eastern Pennsylvania/Delaware regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, will be the key speaker next Sunday at a workshop, "Words that Wound. " It is designed to explore the impact of public and private speech on individuals and communities. The three-hour workshop, which starts at 1:30 p.m. at the Chester County Government Services Center, 601 Westtown Rd., will also feature a panel discussion, covering personal experiences with hurtful words, as well as small-group discussions.

All phases of the media have been flooded with various contextualizations of the Million Man March from the perspective of white people. While most of these offerings appear to be the fruit of honest hearts and keen minds, they still underscore vestiges of our collective racist past. A good example can be made of Barry Morrison's Guest Opinion on Oct. 30. He begins with a tacit admission that he equated a mass meeting of black men with a recipe for violence when he says that his "apprehensions . . . were without basis" because "there was no violence.

The Democratic and Republican state chairmen formally agreed yesterday that their candidates would campaign cleanly, and then each immediately began attacking the record of the other's party. "This code is not saying that politics is softball," said Harris Wofford, the Democratic Party leader. "Hard and full debate" is allowed under the code, agreed Republican chairman Earl Baker. The code they accepted outlaws campaigning that appeals to prejudice against personal characteristics such as race, sex or sexual preference.

The number of anti-Semitic incidents in Pennsylvania rose 12 percent between 1997 and 1998, while the number of incidents nationally rose only 2 percent, a new report by the Anti-Defamation League said. But matching the national trend, Pennsylvania saw an increase in acts of vandalism (28 cases compared to 12 in '97) and a drop in harassment incidents, threats and assaults (42 cases compared to 50 in '97), said regional ADL director Barry Morrison. With 70 reported anti-Semitic cases, Pennsylvania ranked sixth among states, behind New York, New Jersey, California, Florida and Massachusetts, according to the ADL's 1998 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents.

I APPLAUD the editorial board for writing about much-needed reforms in Harrisburg on lobbyists. I agree that campaign contributions from lobbyists should be banned and that the threshold at which lobbyists must disclose that they've spent funds to influence a legislator should be lowered, too. But there was one glaring omission from the list of potential reforms, and this was particularly troublesome as House Democrats defeated it in early 2009....