Letters to the Editor July 28, 2021: Jordanian obfuscation

So once again tell me why from 1948 to 1967, when the land was occupied by the Jordanians, such a state was not established.

The answer is that there were no aspirations for a state. The refugees were kept in abysmal conditions with the hope of the destruction of the State of Israel and to return for the spoils.

Unfortunately for them this did not happen and the land was liberated after Jordan attacked Israel in 1967.

So, King Abdullah, you don’t want instability in your kingdom but you have no qualms about ensuring instability in ours.

FREYA BINENFELD

Petah Tikva

Not only is King Abdullah doing his best to hide the truth that Jordan is the Palestinian homeland, he is also harboring a mass murderer involved in the 2001 massacre of Americans and Israelis at the Sbarro restaurant.

As long as it continues to shelter Ahlam Tamimi from facing justice in the US for her crimes, Jordan exposes itself to the justified outrage of all who hold countries to reasonable standards of truth, fairness and justice.

IRA GEFFNER

Tiberius

Whither the weather?

Your article “Summer of disaster: Extreme weather wreaks havoc worldwide as climate change bears down,” (July 25) should convince everyone that the world is already suffering greatly from climate change. 

It seems like there are almost daily reports of severe heat waves, droughts, wildfires, storms, floods and other effects of climate change. Within about a week, there were reports of deadly floods in Western Europe, China, and India. There are many wildfires now even in Siberia and smoke from the severe wildfires in California and other western US states is reaching the US east coast.

Unfortunately, climate experts are predicting that climate conditions are likely to get far worse, unless major positive changes soon occur. Averting a climate catastrophe must become a central focus for civilization today.

RICHARD H. SCHWARTZ, PH.D.

Professor Emeritus, College of Staten Island

It was interesting to read “A Bigger Step Needed” and to see how The Jerusalem Post has fallen into the politically correct trap of equating air pollution and climate change.

Yes, we human beings need to do everything necessary to clean up our act and our atmosphere as much as possible and as soon as possible. However we need to stop fooling ourselves with regard to how this will affect “climate change.”

I would remind all of us that in the past there have been at least five major ice ages. How did we get into these ice ages? Climate change, a cooling down of the atmosphere. How did we get out of these ice ages? Climate change, a warming up of the atmosphere.

Clean up our act? Yes, but let us stop fooling ourselves regarding climate change, a natural phenomenon, over which we have no control, whether we like it or not.

JOEL BLOCK

Haifa

Nixing mixing in marriage

I am the product of an intermarriage (my mother is Jewish and my father is Catholic) and I was raised to be a proud and engaged member of the Jewish community. As an adult I have traveled to Israel on multiple occasions and continue to be actively involved in my local Jewish community. My Jewish background is an important part of my identity. 

This is despite the fact that my family has not always been welcome in the community because my mother married a “goy.” My parents struggled to find a rabbi to officiate their marriage in the 1970s, and in the early 80s the rabbi at my naming ceremony would not let my father participate and would not say my English name in the shul because it isn’t “Jewish.” My family switched shuls when I was nine because the rabbi’s sermon during High Holidays condemned intermarriage. I have always felt that I need to prove my “Jewishness” in Jewish spaces. This sentiment is shared by my friends who are practicing Jews who were also raised Jewish with non-Jewish fathers. 

The Jewish community needs to welcome children of mixed marriage and make them feel like they belong. Blaming them for declining support of Israel is not productive. Additionally, the author failed to provide any proof that mixed marriage has caused the decline. The author’s argument hinges on a Pew survey that did not indicate how many children of intermarriage actually responded to the questionnaire. 

If the author wants Jews to be more connected to Judaism and to Israel, the Jewish community needs to do a better job of welcoming and supporting all Jews. Outcasting Jews who marry outside the faith is only going to cause Jews to leave the Jewish community. 

ERIN O’CONNOR

Boston, MA

There is no excuse for publishing eugenics in any shape or form under the guise of a concern about preserving our Jewish heritage. The op-ed that insinuates that intermarriages are diluting the Jewish people is, without any exaggeration, no different than how the Nazis viewed and treated our ancestors. 

You might wish to respond that as an editorial page you will put opinions that people do not like, to which I would respond that some opinions simply induce harm and divide our community and our people with no real advantage gained by hearing it. 

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that justifies this racist and horrendous view. To say that intermarriage is a “second Holocaust” spits in the eye of every single Jew that was slaughtered in the Shoah and every survivor. A shanda if there ever was one.

IAN WENDROW

Michigan

If you want skewed polls that under-represent Orthodox Jews, the best way is to have one of your telephone calling days be on Shabbat, which is what the Pew Research people did. It resulted in a report that “20% of the Jews under the age of 40 declare that Israel does not have the right to exist.”

Regarding the increasing disappearance of non-Orthodox American Jews: When the leadership of the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, (the oldest Jewish house of worship in North America that is still standing) wanted to celebrate its longevity a few years ago, they searched for Jewish descendants of their original membership:  there were none.

MARSHA DALIN

Modi’in

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky makes a very weak case for comparing intermarriage to “a second Holocaust” and “a plague.” These are hateful terms commonly used by ultra-Orthodox extremists to attack non-Orthodox Jews and Pruzansky should have been honest enough to declare that this was his main intention. He would do well to remember that modern Zionism was founded, and Israel primarily built, by non-Orthodox Jews. 

Clearly intermarriage is a result of many complex changes in society and is a corollary of these changes but it is not the cause of dropping Jewish and Israel identification among American Jews. I can testify from personal experience that, unlike some extreme Orthodox circles, many American Reform communities have excellent school systems dedicated to Israel and Zionist consciousness. Some of the most successful Israel programs, like Taglit and Reform summer youth camps, are not Orthodox programs. 

Much more Zionist education for the young is clearly key. Many intermarriage couples can become more Israel-conscious and bring new individuals to Judaism, rather than conventional “pure” marriages between halachically Jewish but ignorant and apathetic individuals. 

No, it is not intermarriage that is the problem. It is bigoted attitudes such as those of Pruzansky, who uses neo-Nazi like language likening those who behave differently to himself as a “plague” that are the real problem.

ANTHONY LUDER

Rosh Pina

Rajoub rejects fair play

No one can accuse Palestinian Olympic Committee chairman Jibril Rajoub of lacking an impeccable, although ghoulish, sense of timing. Just two days ago, our 11 Israeli athletes murdered by Palestinians at the 1972 Olympics in Munich were finally accorded a tribute in the opening ceremony of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo after years of official refusals to commemorate the massacre on grounds of keeping “politics” out of the Games. The theme of the games in Tokyo emphasized tolerance and inclusion.

As a result of the Algerian’s refusal to fight Butbul, he and his coach were suspended, and then lost their Algerian Olympic Committee accreditation. The Sudanese judoka also withdrew from his match on Monday against Butbul, claiming an injury.

It is inconceivable that the International Olympic Committee can give Rajoub a free pass on these public statements. Rajoub’s incitement against Israel, in his role as chairman of the Palestinian Committee, is far worse than the individual acts of these two judokas. The whole team should lose its accreditation and be suspended from future Olympics until they no longer incite to boycott and violence.

We are watching.

DR. JAN SOKOLOVSKY

Jerusalem

I recollect clearly the day of the massacre when I witnessed first-hand the authorities racing toward the Olympic Village. I was leaving the area at the time to drive to the airport for my return to London and as flights were heavily delayed, I watched in horror on the TV screens as the events unfolded.

It amazed me, perhaps naively, that there was no thought to abandon the games after such a heinous murderous act, only a short delay with a message that the Olympian ideals must carry on.

Since then and until now there has been scant Olympic recognition of that very dark day.

I’m sorry to say the world has very a short memory and until this long-overdue acknowledgment in Japan, we had little hope that the Olympics would ever honor the murdered innocent athletes, as we witness today that the media outside our own environment rarely comments on the ongoing terrorist acts we unfortunately continue to experience. 

STEPHEN VISHNICK

Tel Aviv

B&J and BDS

Sadly, if Israel were to withdraw from every inch of Judea and Samaria today, BDS and its young activists would not cease their activities. This is because BDS activism is not about disputed territory. It is about the elimination of Israel entirely. In the US, chants of “54 years of occupation” (since 1967), have been replaced with “73 years of occupation” (since 1948). 

This “woke” era focuses on intersectionality. Jews are (falsely) labeled “rich white Europeans” and then linked with white supremacists. The term “Jewish Supremacy” is now becoming a catch phrase on college campuses among students and faculty and among the ever-increasing progressive population. Since Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people, the country is tagged as a “Jewish supremacist” state that must be eliminated. 

The root cause of so many young Jewish and non-Jewish activists taking up the BDS cause is not the “occupation,” but rather a lack of Jewish education or education on the history of the modern State of Israel. Without these fundamentals, it is a given that one would have no appreciation or interest in the incredible chronicle of the revival of our people in our indigenous homeland. Having no knowledge of our rich history, and mostly assimilated, these young adults are ripe for being influenced by social justice warriors and BDS leaders. 

Developing a major Jewish education campaign starting from grade school, rather than harping on the “occupation,” would go a long way in preventing the grooming of future Jewish BDS activists. However, at this point, even such a massive effort may be too little, too late.

DAVID JACOBS

Efrat

Michael Cohen connects the recent decision by Ben and Jerry’s to boycott Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria with the explosion of social justice activism in the USA. Attitudes toward Israel are influenced by the “Black Lives Matter” and “Me-Too” movements. 

Such a linkage is unwarranted and unfair. More than 22,600 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the line of duty for the independence, preservation and protection of the nation. There have been nearly 4,000 civilian terror victims and 75,000 Israelis wounded; nearly 100,000 Israelis are considered disabled army veterans. 

Israel should not be lumped together with the social injustice and inequality debates in the USA. Israel is in a life-and-death struggle for its existence against powerful and determined hate-saturated enemies. All that ignorant people need to do to gain a little understanding of the conflict is to know how to type “google,” but for the simple-minded, the Israel-Arab conflict is apparently just too complicated. 

YIGAL HOROWITZ, PHD

Beersheba

Do Hans Pfitzner, Li Stadelman, Karl Schwedler and Lutz Templin ring a bell? Not really. Not a surprise. That is the same forgettable fate that awaits Roger Waters, Lorde, Lana Del Rey, Elvis Costello and all the other “artists” who have embraced antisemitism to pursue their “art.”

RICHARD SHERMAN

Margate, Florida

A tug of the plug?

This UK hospital is acting against all ethical, moral and religious beliefs, defying the parents who insist on keeping their baby alive, and several hospitals worldwide expressed their willingness to treat this baby in their facilities without any costs to the UK hospital where the baby is currently in danger. There is a universal outcry against this heinous act and against this hospital.

The UK is currently undergoing a severe pandemic crisis. I can only recommend that any patient in critical corona condition avoid this specific hospital, which might refuse to give life support to any critical patient if the medical staff deems fit, according to their “ethical” understanding, to terminate life.

SHLOMO FELDMANN

Givatayim