Letters
Let’s love each other more
This Shabbat, I read Rosanne Skopp’s opinion entitled “You May Not Like This.” Before beginning, Kol Ha Kavod and Todah Rabah to your grandchildren serving in the IDF. I share your frustration that a large portion of the Israeli population is exempt from service, forcing many others to shoulder an unfair burden to protect Israel. I’m hopeful that a solution can be found.
I disagree with your refusal to switch seats with a 19-year-old child on the belief that you will show him that his prayers might not help “win wars or release hostages.” Jews already have to deal with horrible treatment from others who attack us simply for who we are. We should not be doing the same to ourselves. We have just exited the 9 Days, when we learned that our hate for one another caused some of our people’s greatest destruction. Let’s seek to love each other more.
Barry Klein
Springfield
Not a good moral stand
I’m from London and happened to pick up your paper in a supermarket while visiting America. I read Ms. Skopp’s column and was genuinely disgusted by what she seemed so comfortable putting into print.
I’m a traditional Jew, not Orthodox, and I strongly oppose the ultra Orthodox exemption from military service. But that has absolutely nothing to do with how one should treat a stranger on an aeroplane.
This young man politely asked you for a small favour that would have cost you virtually nothing and clearly mattered to him. Calling your refusal a personal “policy” does not make it principled. It is your own rule, which you are entirely free to ignore. You simply did not want to move.
More absurdly, you and your husband had deliberately booked two aisle seats opposite each other. Which of you sat on which side was merely a choice between yourselves. The suggestion that, once seated, the two of you could under no circumstances swap places is frankly ridiculous.
But the most disturbing part was making this young man answer for your grievances with an entire community. You knew nothing about him. For all you knew, he was British or American and had no legal obligation whatsoever to serve in Israel. Yet his clothing alone was apparently enough for you to decide he deserved your contempt. That is prejudice, however righteous you consider the cause behind it.
Would you refuse an Arab mother asking to sit beside her child because people dressed like her committed the atrocities of October 7th? I suspect you would be appalled by such reasoning. You should be equally ashamed of applying it to a Charedi stranger.
There is nothing courageous about acting like an ass to a stranger. Doing so and then publicising it as a moral stand is considerably worse.
You should be embarrassed by your behaviour, not proud enough of it to put it in the paper.
Martin Jacobs
London
Netanyahu and Smotrich are right
In an August 7 article, Rabbi Shammai Engelmayer declares the world is seeking to isolate Israel as a pariah nation and that three particular individuals are most responsible for the situation. More specifically, Rabbi Engelmayer blames Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for Israel’s alleged bad behavior and condemnation by the rest of the world. He also contends that Israel is likely to suffer a Tishah B’Av scale disaster if it continues to follow these leaders.
Actually, Israel has been under near constant attack since the day it was founded as an independent state in May 1948 to the present. These attacks include military campaigns seeking to obliterate the Jewish state; boycotts and trade barriers seeking to strangle Israel economically; and a combination of Arab/Muslim nations with Russia, China and other communist nations plus the African/Asian block of non-aligned nations which has turned the United Nations and its various agencies into a kangaroo court to defame and delegitimize Israel with nonsense false accusations such as the infamous “Zionism is Racism” charge in 1975 and its associated apartheid lies
The miracle of Israel is that it has overcome the best efforts of its various enemies and actually grown stronger and more successful from year to year. This includes periods when Israel’s leaders were tried and convicted for serious offenses so that even when some leaders fail in public responsibility the country is resilient and can learn from these mistakes. As American Jews, we should be proud of Israel’s accomplishments in many sectors such as improved farming and food safety; water conservation and desalinization; medical research; computer security, anti-missile defense and other vital technology. The long-term U.S.-Israel bipartisan alliance makes Israel, America’s best and most reliable ally in the Middle East, and a leader in defending western civilization from the threat of Islamic fanaticism.
As regards the three people criticized by Rabbi Engelmayer, I agree Minister Ben-Gvir is a real liability for Israel due to his dumb remarks about seeking vengeance for Hamas and other terrorist attacks. His comments are a gift to the antisemites who want to accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza. They now have inflammatory statements from Ben-Gvir plus the backing of corrupt media which use pictures of dead or injured women and children and inflated numbers of dead civilians to mislead Americans and to divert attention from the real genocidal crimes committed by Hamas.
As regards Netanyahu and Smotrich, I think the main complaint against both is that they are intent on preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and are seeking to annex this area which is part of the historic Jewish homeland known as Judea and Samaria.
Israel gained control of this territory in the June 1967 Six-Day War after Jordan began shelling the Jewish area of Jerusalem triggering an IDF counterattack which ended Jordanian control of the entire West Bank. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis now live in this area. Most are looking for affordable housing. But others are motivated by nationalist or religious reasons to expand Israel’s defense perimeter and to stop relentless Arab actions to destroy sacred Jewish religious sites and archeological evidence showing centuries of Israeli/Jewish presence in the disputed area claimed by Jews as their ancient homeland.
I know many rabbis believe Tishah B’Av serves as a reminder that Jews must fully observe Torah commandments or suffer punishment. This is a controversial idea since all of these terrible events imposed horrible suffering on innocent people including those devoted to Torah, chesed, and a better life for all. In any event, I do not believe that the actions of current Israeli leaders are in way comparable to Sodom as charged by Rabbi Engelmayer especially since Israel is now surrounded and at war with Iran and its proxies.
The Jews who were massacred on October 7th who lived on the border of Gaza were devoted to the idea of friendship with the people of Gaza including job opportunities and medical care in Israel. The response of Israel to October 7th is a true battle of good against evil.
The mantra at the U.N. and various anti-Israel politicians such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Chris Van Hollen advocating a two-state solution without major changes in Palestinian attitudes and actions is a total non-starter for Israel and advocates for its security. Under these circumstances I trust rabbis and other friends of Israel will stop hammering Israel on internal issues like judicial reform or army service for haredim. If we truly believe in democracy, these issues are for Israelis to decide. Instead, we need to focus our energy on the battle against antisemitism and its various components. This includes biased and corrupt media such as NPR, the BBC and PBS, and hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign sources seeking to indoctrinate K-12 students across America with anti-Jewish and anti-Israel attitudes which ultimately will also destabilize and weaken America.
Larry Dvores
Livingston