Freedom of choice
Regarding “‘Pray for unity, religious freedom’ – Rabbi Dee planning Tel Aviv service” (October 2): Kudos to Rabbi Leo Dee who, in the midst of personal tragedy and civic unrest, is working to build an Israel which is the nation-state of all Jews, whether Orthodox or not.Israel is a democracy. Israelis have freedom of choice. When public places are being used for prayer services, the needs of all participants should be met, including having an area for those who believe the genders should be separated during prayer and an area for those who believe that mixed seating is appropriate during prayer. And, of course, each person should sit in the section of his or her choice, neither group making any attempt to disrupt the other.
TOBY F. BLOCKAtlanta
Evil pre-planned machinations
In “Ensuring hi-tech investment” (editorial, October 2), your editor is searching for the basic cause of the recent reduction of foreign investment into the hi-tech industry in Israel. He suggests negative “global trends” and then “political instability” are mooted, and he then blithely determines that the answer is somewhere “in the middle.”But of course he has not noticed, or perhaps has not wanted to notice, the elephant in the room. The real reason for the reduction of foreign interest in Israel is a direct result of the evil pre-planned machinations of people like former prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, and ex-Mossad chief Tamir Pardo.They have set themselves the goal of denigrating Israel in the eyes of the world with treacherous lies and accusations. They thereby bring down the esteem and appreciation formerly held by world opinion of the Israeli economic situation, so that they can then step in and say, “look what the government has done to the country; now we are here and have come to save you.”It is high time that some of our ex-personalities abandoned their post-Zionistic activities, put aside their bitterness at being ousted by the people, and add their (former) weight to help shoulder the external and internal economic burdens that our country faces.
LAURENCE BECKERJerusalem
Woke agenda
I could feel the pain, anguish, and disappointment in Amichai Cohen’s article, “When solidarity was lost – on the most important day of the Jewish year” (October 1), about the rude awakening he and his fellow travelers suffered on Yom Kippur in the “struggle” against the government’s judicial overhaul.This outcome was all too predictable, and had Amichai looked around him at the weekly protests he would have seen many groups with a far-Left, woke agenda from which he clearly distances himself.At the end of the day, as Amichai belatedly realizes, this struggle will sadly degenerate into a culture war and the religious Zionists will have to decide how important their religion is to them.The illiberal Left have seized upon the genuine concern of many across the religious spectrum to the judicial reforms and used it to stoke tension and discord in the hope that they can profit from it.Wasn’t that what ex-prime minister Ehud Barak had planned for years ago?
Be careful what you wish for.
DANIEL BAUMZichron Ya’acov
“When solidarity was lost” by Amichai Cohen was so well thought out and tried to present all angles of the struggle. His last paragraph said it the best for me: “This day, the most important in the Jewish calendar, which 50 years ago also became the most traumatic day in Israeli history, should be left as a small, protected reserve of civil solidarity, without either winners or losers.”Amen.
DEBRA FORMANModi’in
Acting on their delusion
Regarding “US expresses concern by Israel’s settlement activity” (September 29): The US has to pretend that the Palestinians have a legitimate claim to Judea and Samaria. If it offers the actual facts that Israel recaptured these areas from Jordan, not stole them from the Palestinians, oil states in which the US is heavily invested will penalize the US probably by raising the price of oil. So the sham must go on.All the participants understand this, and act in their own interests. The Palestinians are acting on their delusion that Israel is stolen land. The US regularly scolds Israel to put a smile on the faces of Arab dictators, even as Israel keeps on developing start-ups which fuel the world’s economy.
LARRY SHAPIROCalgary
Huge diplomatic blunders
Regarding “Pompeo: Two-state solution preventing Riyadh agreement” (September 28): Negotiations involving Israel and Islamic states are a welcome glimpse into a more peaceful and secure Middle East, where Iran will be restrained and Palestinian issues resolved.
The Americans will certainly pressure Israel to lower its guard and rely on international guarantees to protect it. Israel, however, has never expected others to shed blood on its behalf and won’t going forward either. It is the Saudi’s task to urge the Palestinian Authority to get on board.
Israel has made huge diplomatic blunders in the past. Why did Israel agree to the Oslo Accords in 1993? Why was Shimon Peres so anxious to have prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and the terrorist leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat, shake hands in front of Bill Clinton on the White House Lawn?
Was the world so cowed by the airplane hijackings, etc. which reverberated around the world and popularized the Palestinian cause? One might speculate that Arafat’s propaganda success was a precursor to 9/11.
Oslo brought the PLO, which had instigated civil wars in Jordan and Lebanon, into Israel, with their fighters and weapons. A neophyte diplomat could have foreseen that Jews and Arabs would die.
What drove prime minister Ariel Sharron to drag Jews from their homes and villages in Gaza in 2005? Did he really believe the PA would create a Singapore-on-the-Mediterranean, proving they were capable of forming the first-ever state of Palestine? Once again, Israel’s magnanimity was rewarded with terror and thousands of rockets.
Israel has much to offer developing nations. It is a world leader in agriculture, water treatment, hi-tech, education, and medicine. The PA has much to gain.
These are the basic parameters for creating a Palestinian state: An immediate return to the Oslo commitments, namely an end to terrorism and antisemitic propaganda in Palestinian mosques, schools, and media and in international fora; land settlement to be based on the 2020 American Peace to Prosperity plan; Palestinians drop all refugee claims; they acknowledge Israel as the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people; and an end-of-conflict statement.
LEN BENNETTOttawa
Unfettered control
Regarding “Could the Yom Kippur War happen today?” (September 22): I doubt if it could happen today, but certainly in the future. There are two streams which are leading to this in the future. In Israel, in about 100 years, the religious parties will control the Knesset.
As we can see from the control which these parties have in the Knesset today, they will have unfettered control of the treasury and they will plunder it. As a result, the rest of the population will suffer, the army will be ignored, and the non-religious will emigrate.
In the rest of the world, antisemitism is on the rise and in another century, the Holocaust will be almost forgotten.
Notwithstanding all the support we get from the US today, antisemitism will lead to the annulment of today’s understandings, and Israel will be left to defend itself, with the inevitable result.
ARYEH ZETLERYokne’am
Highest praises
Regarding “New non-invasive Israeli tech can discover your brain’s iron level” (September 19): Judy Siegel-Itzkovich needs continual and highest praises for her very many outstanding columns. Subjects that I would not even consider reading about catch my attention and hold my interest if they’re written by this absolutely amazing reporter.Her choice of words and understandable explanations of complicated matters are formidable. Other reporters occasionally cover some of the same subject matter, but their writing is dryer and lacks the flair of Judy’s.I can’t thank you enough for publishing her ingenious work and providing such pleasure to her readers.
RIVKA ZAHAVYJerusalem
‘What will the US say?’
“There should be no debate – Israel won the Yom Kippur War” by Mordechai Kedar (October 2) is an indictment on what came after. It is good to be reminded how close we once again came to destruction.
Taken by surprise? Not really. There were warnings; there were signs of the aggressive activity of the Egyptians, but like all of our prime ministers, Golda Meir’s first thought was “what will the Americans say to a preemptive strike by Israel?”
That hesitation brought us as near to the end of our state as we had ever been and, quoting Kedar’s numbers, caused the death of thousands of our soldiers, almost 10,000 wounded. Of course as we all know now, miraculously with God’s help, as He is never far away when we stand as a proud Jewish people, we turned that defeat into the most amazing victory; it was a victory that showed the world not to mess with Israel.
The air forces of both Egypt and Syria were wiped out. Imagine, this tiny country was up against powerful enemies and we won.
Kedar writes that “the victory in the Yom Kippur War was the main factor that pushed the president of Egypt, Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, to seek peace with Israel... Sadat understood that Israel was invincible and all Arab attempts to conquer and destroy it, past and future, were doomed to failure... This conclusion is still valid today and should be clearly understood. Only an Israeli victory can bring peace because in the Middle East, peace is only accepted by those who see their enemies as invincible.”
Kedar omits that although Israel won that war at enormous cost, Sadat was the winner in that it was he, the loser, who set the terms of surrender, and he who demanded and got from Menachem Begin the whole of Sinai including Yamit, from where he also demanded the forcible expulsion of Jews from their homes.
I would argue that today our Arab enemies view Israel as weak and willing to make concessions rather than have a confrontation, because we still ask: “What will the US say if we fight for what is ours?”
Our government allows terrorists like Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas the luxury of living in the Jewish land even as they kill our people and set fires to destroy everything we have built. Invincible? We absolutely could be, had we not chosen the path of weakness and surrender to the dictates of others.
We need to remember the glorious shout by Rabbi Shlomo Goren in 1967: “The Temple Mount is in our hands.” Five minutes later, defense minister Dayan gave it to our enemies under whose control it remains. No, we are not seen as invincible, but as the frightened grasshoppers we became.
EDITH OGNALLNetanya
Saving many lives
Kudos for “Think pink!” (editorial,October 3), which points out that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and stresses the importance of women getting mammograms so that there can be early detection, saving many lives.
However, as president emeritus of Jewish Veg and author of Vegan Revolution: Saving Our World, Revitalizing Judaism, I want to stress that risks for breast and other types of cancer can be significantly reduced by shifts to plant-based diets.
Many peer-reviewed studies in respected medical journals have shown a strong connection between the consumption of meat and other animal products and cancer and other life-threatening diseases. In his book Save Yourself from Breast Cancer, longtime breast cancer surgeon Robert M. Kradjian, M.D. analyzes many medical studies and concludes that “diet is the primary genesis of breast cancer.”
A major reason is that while humans are far closer to herbivorous animals than omnivorous or carnivorous ones, in terms of our teeth, hands, digestive system, stomach acids, and other aspects, most people have omnivorous diets, including much meat and other animal products.
Since the preservation of human life is such an important mitzvah, it is critical that the Israeli medical profession urge shifts to well-balanced plant-based diets. Such shifts would have the additional benefits of reducing climate change and other environmental threats, mistreatment of farmed animals, risks of future pandemics, hunger, and the wasteful use of land, energy, water, and other resources, all consistent with basic Jewish values.
RICHARD H. SCHWARTZShoresh