By LETTERS TO THE EDITORUpdated: OCTOBER 9, 2017 02:30Letters(photo credit: REUTERS)Moron-gate With regard to “Moron-gate: Tillerson on the brink” (October 6), truth be told, US President Donald Trump is a moron, and an idiot, inevitably confirming the questionable naivety of the American electorate and exposing leadership that is grossly ignorant, unresponsive, uninformed and linked with the president’s glaringly obvious insincerity and lack of diplomacy every time he opens his mouth.Hopefully, Israeli national security interests have not been compromised, as epitomized in the expose concerning Russian links with the Trump administration.GISH TRUMAN ROBBINS PardesiyaJewish DNAYour October 6 editorial “Jewish DNA” seeks to use scientific information to reach unwarranted, false conclusions.DNA does not make someone Jewish! Unfortunately, many persons born Jewish can no longer be considered Jews. (Also, in comments to an article on Ashkenazi DNA and hereditary illnesses, I found many responses of this nature: “On the sixth and ninth chromosomes I have markers for Ashkenazi. All of my ancestors are from Ireland. Both Protestant and Catholic, both northern and Republic of Ireland.”Yes, Jews moved around the world, engaged in sexual relations casual or long-term with their neighbors, and left their genetic input worldwide. Our neighbors made similar contributions to the Jewish gene pool. Neither the descendants nor we would necessarily consider such persons Jewish, which requires one to be affiliated with a faith community, even by way of deviating from it. Further, that at some point in antiquity Hebrews may have been patriarchal is irrelevant to modern Jewish identity through the mother.Perhaps the Chief Rabbinate should be encouraged to be more receptive to those who truly wish to affiliate in their way to Judaism, especially in Israel, but that goal is not served by leaping to the abandon of all criteria.
Social psychologist Kurt Levin pointed out decades ago that the way to strengthen bonds in minorities is through greater exclusiveness, not by watering down demands. Perhaps this explains the strength of Orthodoxy and the inability of Conservative and Reform Judaism to retain their next generations.HAYIM GRANOT Petah TikvaShe’s not goingReading Yael Rockman’s “Don’t disintegrate women” (Observations, October 6) reminded me that I owe The Jerusalem Post an apology.I wish to apologize for the fact that the advertising revenue you received for printing the frontpage advertisement in that issue for the Avraham Fried concert was wasted on me. As Rockman pointed out, we have in recent years been witness to the frightening phenomenon of women being excluded from public spaces, from advertising hoardings, from Ikea catalogues, from army bases, from the teaching staff of colleges, etc., etc.In the spirit of “Be the change you wish to see,” it is imperative that we act to protest these dangerous phenomena. But what to do? So I decided that a symbolic gesture would be to choose not to attend any event in which I would be entertained by men who would not be prepared to attend an event where women sing. So I am sorry, Jerusalem Post, but I will not be attending the October 9 concert so prominently advertised on your front page.ELLIE MORRIS AseretBeginning and end Michael Freund does great work and produces fine columns – almost always. “Israel’s Sandy Koufax” (Fundamentally Freund, October 6) has one paragraph that harms his message significantly, because it is totally unnecessary to point out tennis player Dudi Sela’s level of religious observance.We all cry when a Jew dies, and cheer when he is honored.And so it should be for Sela, who has done something great as a Jew. That is the beginning and the end of it!STEPHEN JEROME KOHN Ra’ananaThe main question This time, Caroline B. Glick is wrong (“Trump and Obama’s third term,” Column One, October 6).The main question to ask is whether what US President Donald Trump is doing regarding the decertification of the Iran deal will help in preventing Tehran from getting nuclear weapons. I believe it will because Congress will become involved and the whole of former president Barack Obama’s failed policy will be discussed in the open.While the doctrine of “mutually assured destruction” applies to North Korea, this is not the case with Iran. According to Middle East historian Bernard Lewis: “For people with this mindset, MAD is not a constraint; it is an inducement....”This will without doubt be the most important step of the Trump presidency so far. If it goes through, he will have set the course to correct the disastrous Iran deal and significantly reduce the probability of Iran initiating a nuclear war.MLADEN ANDRIJASEVIC BeershebaCaroline B. Glick yet again devastates us with her comprehension and comprehensive drawing of the picture where “Obama theory” is now continued by President Donald Trump’s pragmatism.In the 1940s and ’50s, the BBC had many wonderful sports commentators, especially in boxing. There was the North American Stewart Macpherson, ably assisted by the public-school vowels of W. Barrington Dalby, who intoned that a “good big un would always beat a good little un.”Using that model, I most respectfully suggest that Ms. Glick conclude that the State Department is not daft. It knows perfectly well that if it leans too much in Israel’s favor, the Arabs will give it trouble, and that if it dares favor the Arabs over Israel, again more complaints. But here the Trumpeters will tell us: “We can cope with a few million Jews being upset, but do we really want to activate 1.5 billion potential jihadists?”As we say in Scotland, the answer is a no-brainer. Israel must accept that the Arab world has won the battle for the minds of the free world. And stop telling the world about the great things coming out of Israel and how many Nobel Prizes are won by Jews; instead, flood the world with the details of the abject rottenness and corruption that exist in the world today, and the money that pours into the coffers of western universities to blame every Arab weakness on yet another Jewish conspiracy.The Moseleyites in the 1930s East End of London were not defeated until Jewish youths engaged them physically. May I add that the first real step in this battle has occurred – oil money reduces in value with every internal combustion engine that is converted to electricity, pure or hybrid.KALMAN BOOKMAN JerusalemOne hand clapping Unlike our minister of culture, I was curious to see the excitement caused by the film Foxtrot (“‘Foxtrot’ should dance its way to an Ophir win,” Arts & Entertainment, September 19).I cannot understand how a film producer can bend over backwards to produce an extremely boring film about the country in which he lives, and how reporters can say that the film purposely moves away from human feelings for an esoteric purpose. The film was long and drawn out, without any redeeming points.Especially disgusting was trying to show soldiers doing something completely illegal (and certainly never having happened in Israel as a normal act performed by Israeli young men).If our taxes support self-hating filmmakers, I certainly agree with Culture Minister Miri Regev that our money should not be wasted on self-hating “artists” who produce anti-Israel films so that judges who love to see Israel as the enemy can applaud.BARBARA SHAMIR Jerusalem
