At the October 29, 2019 Highland Park Borough Council meeting where an anti-Semitism/anti-BDS proposal was voted down (“BDS/Anti-Semitism Wins in Highland Park,” October 31, 2019) a major sticking point was that there seemed to be an apparent split in the “Jewish community” regarding the resolution, and that presented a difficulty to the council members in deciding whether to adopt the resolution.

There is a fatal flaw in that argument. How many times in the entire history of human civilization have there ever been absolute unanimity on any issue? There is always a range of opinions. This is called a distribution or spectrum, where some are on one side, some on the other side and some in the middle. Depending on the issue, there may be more on one side or the other, but never complete unanimity. Never all black or all white, only shades of gray. On the local level, not all Highland Park residents require a library, or senior housing, or a teen center, or whatever, but when enough of them do, the council properly addresses their needs, as they should.

In the same vein, the fact that not all in the “Jewish community” were in favor of the resolution should not have been the issue. The issue should have been, if there were enough Jewish citizens in Highland Park who felt threatened by the alarming increase in anti-Semitism today and reached out to their governing body for support to warrant adopting the resolution. When the revised resolution comes up again for a vote, that should be the criterion for considering such a resolution, not complete unanimity.