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In regard to the recent guest column “NIMBY obstruction threatens public good,” [Sept. 6], it is astonishing how supporters of the Jones expansion project react with petulance and name-calling to legitimate arguments against overspending for a space...

By D. DINA FRIEDMAN

 Like many members of the Jewish Community, I felt grief and sadness on hearing last week that six additional hostages taken in the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7 had been found murdered. And yet, I felt uncomfortable with how much attention people paid to...

By ROSALIE P. PORTER

 The recent guest column “MCAS test requirement just bad policy and practice” [Aug. 27] presents forceful arguments for voting to abolish the statewide test of basic skills for all 10th grade students as a requirement for high school graduation. The...

By JON MCCABE

 Journalist Ezra Klein interviewed Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii recently about the negative impact of Not-in-My-Back-Yardism regarding support for local public goods/services such as housing, schools, and yes, libraries. Schatz focused on how NIMBYism...

By SARA WEINBERGER and JEFF GOLD

We were initially swept up in the wave of enthusiasm that took hold when Vice President Kamala Harris became presidential candidate Kamala Harris. She was a breath of fresh air, who rekindled hope that she and Tim Walz could reignite the Democratic...

By LYNNE M. LATHAM

 Trustees of the Hadley Public Library met with the Select Board last week to share the findings of a report prepared by Gale Associates about the library’s roof. The report is based on a visual inspection of the roof, and it identifies several...

“Into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred.” So wrote Alfred Lord Tennyson in commemorating the heroic yet suicidal mission undertaken by the British Light Brigade in the 1854 Battle of Balaclava. Fast forward to the Pioneer Valley’s contemporary...

I write as a member of the Western Mass. chapter of the American Friends of the Palestinian House of Friendship, a U.S.- based project that supports the Palestinian House of Friendship, a community organization in Nablus, West Bank, Palestine. The...

On behalf of the Amherst Affordable Housing Trust, I write to express our heartfelt gratitude to the Interfaith Housing Association of Amherst for their generous decision to donate the association’s remaining funds to the Trust Fund as they prepare to...

I am writing to express my admiration of the sheer bravery on display by the people protesting at River Valley Co-op to demand that they remove a handful of Israeli products from the shelves [“Pushing for an ‘apartheid-free’ store,” Aug. 27].These...

I love the local news but was a bit astonished by the Gazette’s decision to publish the story [“Pushing for an ‘apartheid-free’ store,” Aug. 27] on the top half of the front page. This is news? No, this is more redefining of what “apartheid” and what...

The Amherst Community Band honored conductor Timothy Todd Anderson for his 10 years of dedication. Under his leadership, which is a volunteer position, the band has tripled in size. Community musicians of all ages, from all over the Pioneer Valley,...

By GARY MICHAEL TARTAKOV

On July 24, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood in the Capitol, thanking the U.S. Congress for itscooperation in Israel’s war on Gaza, I was standing on Pennsylvania Avenue, with thousands of Jews, Palestinians and others, facing the...

The Jones Library building is cramped, cluttered, and claustrophobic. It is wholly inadequate to accommodate the numerous public services and educational programs that the Jones welcomes. The opponents of the renovation project do not understand or...

By PHILIP KORMAN

 As I am poised to leave my job after 16 years as executive director of CISA (Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture), naturally, I’ve started to reflect. My takeaways so far are: Local farms are still challenged to keep farming, maybe even more...

By LAURA ROJO MACLEOD

 After a pitiful performance by our elected representatives, this legislative session was a missed opportunity to make the commonwealth a climate leader. Our lawmakers had a chance to make significant progress slowing the expansion of our dirty and...

In a well-intentioned but misguided guest column, “Mandating teaching about antisemitism” [Gazette, Aug. 6], Chris Mohn inadvertently promulgates the very scourge she professes to deplore.“The Zionist state does not reflect the values of the Jewish...

It’s surprising that Amherst CPA Committee Chair Sam Macleod believes that by contributing 80% of the cost for the new Amherst Regional High School track and field facility, Amherst is paying “more than its fair share” (“Town may add $800K more for...

By MARIETTA PRITCHARD

Getting older means finding it difficult to open things. Things like jars of jam, things like bottles of juice. This has a lot to do with the waning power of hands and wrists. But I would also argue that it has to do with some devilish inventions for...

By DR. KATHERINE J. ATKINSON

 When I read that the state was mandating insurance companies to cover urgent care centers in Massachusetts, my blood started boiling. The Massachusetts Legislature can force insurance companies to pay for “doc-in-the-boxes” but not for primary care?...