Letters
Rabbi Boteach’s wrong about evangelical Zionists
I have a few evangelical Christian friends. (I know that it is by no means a statistically legitimate sample). We respect each other. They have told me frankly that the true motive underlying the “special” love that evangelicals hold for Jews and Israel is their need for the second coming of the messiah, Jesus.
According to them, what is required to achieve this is the fulfillment of Christian Zionism — which means that all Jews must convert to the Christian “truth” and be ingathered to their fulfillment and to that of the land of Israel.
I certainly do not claim expertise in fundamentalist (evangelical) theology. However, I am uncomfortable with Rabbi Boteach’s conclusion that “this is a largely outdated ideology” (“How Christians became Israel’s best friends,” March 1.)
I cannot get my mind around the idea that while basic Christianity preaches equal and universal love for all, they have a special love for Jews and Israel.
This is reminiscent of what George Orwell wrote in “Animal Farm”: “All animals are created equal— but some animals are MORE equal than others.”
Jerrold Terdiman MD
Woodcliff Lake
Women’s History Month
March is Women’s History Month. I gave a lot of thought about the woman I would choose to celebrate. Her name is Ada Yonath. She is the first Israeli woman to win the Nobel Prize for chemistry. She is now 80 years old and a strong advocate of encouraging more women to get involved in science.
Given her background, she surely is an inspiration to all young girls. Ada Yonath was born in Jerusalem to a poor family. Her parents emigrated from Poland. Although her father was a rabbi and came from a rabbinical family, her family tried to make a living by running a grocery store. Her father died when Ada was 11 years old. Books always kept Ada occupied. She was inspired to study science after reading about another Nobel Prize winner, this one in chemistry — Marie Curie.
Ada Yonath completed her undergraduate and masters of science studies in chemistry, biochemistry, and biophysics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After post-doctoral studies at MIT and Carnegie Mellon, she returned to Israel’s Weizmann Institute in 1970, where she initiated and established the first biological crystallography laboratory in Israel. Ada studied the structure and function of the ribosome otherwise known as the “protein builders” of a cell. Her work has been vital to identifying how bacteria becomes resistant to antibiotics.
Ada Yonath truly is a lady to celebrate.
Grace Jacobs
Cliffside Park
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