Rabbi Levi Duchman tells us how he fell in love with the United Arab Emirates in 2014 (“UAE’s first rabbi: Jewish life is flourishing here,” September 18). “This is where my community is and this is where I will stay for the rest of my life,” he says.
I’d be interested to know whether he ends the Passover service with “Next year in the UAE.” It certainly cannot be “Next year in Jerusalem,” the capital of the Land of Israel which God promised to our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their progeny in perpetuity. That, Rabbi Levi, means you!
He is hoping that within ten years, there will be a Jewish community that had 20,000-30,000 people. Shame on you and all the Jewish people like you who have forsaken God’s words that we are a people meant to dwell alone, which is why he returned us to our historic land as promised. Forgotten are the tragic events prior to and during WWII where our people also had a ‘wonderful’ life in Germany.
EDITH OGNALL
Netanya
I found it somewhat jarring to read under the headline “Jewish life is flourishing here,” a description of Jews coming to live in Dubai. Whereas I applaud the newly open relations between Israel and the UAE as a result of the Abraham Accords, I hardly see Dubai as a new destination for Jewish aliyah.
Even as a place for students to spend their Passover vacations, it cannot compare in Jewish meaning to Israel. I think that “falling in love” as quoted regarding the UAE, is a term more expected regarding the Land of Israel, where Jewish life is truly flourishing.
MARION REISS
Beit Shemesh
Have grown to be leaders
I was delighted to read your article “German chancellor, Claims Conference announce $1.2 billion for Holocaust survivors” (September 16).
Let the world, and Germany in particular, see that despite the absolute horrors of the Holocaust, Israel and the Jewish people have grown to be leaders in many fields: hi-tech, medicine and so much more. We are true examples to the world.
We truly mean – never again!
SHALVA DAVIES
Jerusalem
Failed utterly to achieve
Douglas Bloomfield (“The GOP’s revenge agenda,” September 15) provides a perfect example of psychological projection, accusing Republicans of actions in which Democrats themselves have engaged. For the past six years, Donald Trump has been subjected to a stream of unsuccessful impeachments, dishonest allegations of Russian collusion, unjustified investigations and, most recently, an armed FBI invasion of his home.
All of this was revenge for the original sin of winning the presidency in 2016. Democrats’ hatred of Trump was exacerbated when he did what he had promised, resulting in a strong economy, energy independence, low inflation, rising wages, and a secure border.
Bloomfield’s frightened prediction is that the Republicans will abolish the Congressional committee investigating January 6. He cannot admit that the committee is an extension of the “Get Trump” mentality. Their work has focused on a single goal that they have so far failed utterly to achieve – proving that Trump was directly responsible for the attack on the Capitol.
The committee, comprised entirely of people who voted for impeachment, has ignored president Trump’s repeated offers of National Guard assistance that were rebuffed by Washington’s Mayor Muriel Bowser and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. Nor have they considered that federal agents embedded in organizations later accused of fomenting the January 6 riot may have acted as agents provocateurs.
Bloomfield’s apparent outrage at what he calls an “insurrection” would be more believable if he had condemned fire bombings of federal courthouses and police stations and attacks on the White House and Supreme Court that were an integral part of the BLM/Antifa riots in 2020. He was also silent regarding the early Antifa riots and the calls to impeach Trump as an “illegitimate president” even before he took office.
Freedom of speech and equality under the law are hallmarks of any free country. But Bloomfield seems to approve of President Biden’s assertion that anyone who disagrees with the present government’s policies is by definition a “semi-fascist” who must be eliminated.
Bloomfield’s fear of Republican actions should they gain power suggests a deeper terror: They might reveal the truth of what the weaponized DOJ and FBI have done to stifle legitimate dissent and shield the Biden family from an entirely warranted investigation.
EFRAIM COHEN
Zichron Ya’acov
Leader with infinite powers
The politics of today and of the last few years in Israel really have nothing to do with beliefs, opinions or policies (“Time to remove liberal from the Likud name,” September 16).
Most of the politicians running for election just want to be on TV and to be written about in the newspapers. Editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post Yaakov Katz, in this column, calls it “political idolatry,” referring to the support that members of the Likud party give to their party chairman.
Actually, I myself prefer to call it egomania. The top gun egomaniac is, of course, Benjamin Netanyahu himself. He has the cunning, and amazing (and difficult to grasp by myself as uninitiated in the realms of psychology) ability to make crowds love him just by making speeches saying the things that he knows they want to hear. He is perceived by his crowds as their leader with infinite powers. Those in the crowds who are simple minded enjoy feeling that his strong personality of the “can do all” leader is never wrong.
They imagine that his strength becomes part of themselves and gives them an assumed and quite fictitious idea that they participate in his strength thus they themselves are strong and confident about the present and future. The parallel to this exaggerated imagining is that Netanyahu’s crowds are afraid of falling victim to the (political) enemy which would be followed by upset and aimlessness if their leader were suddenly not there. All these phenomena are completely out of proportion and out of place in a civilized democracy with normal values.
So for Benjamin Netanyahu’s crowd, Bibi must stay and no other can take his place. They are simple minded enough not to be able to grasp the importance of planning for the day when, inevitably, their king will be gone and they will be left as helpless orphans. But at the present time, he is there and the common knot is fastened when they know that also he needs their support to be victorious.
Those in Netanyahu’s party, the Likud, who are more able to see what’s going on are, for the present, either pretending to be part of the crowd so as not to lose their standing in the Likud, or naively believe that Netanyahu will not betray them and will fulfill his promises to them.
So it looks like that we are in for another stalemate and inconclusive election. I am pleased that none of our political stupidity has invaded the minds of the military.
NAHUM FROUMIN
Ramat Hasharon
Continuing virus of hate
In “Healing the disease, not the symptoms” (September 15), Gershon Baskin wants us to concentrate on healing the disease but he neglects to mention that the symptoms are precisely what this conflict is all about.
The Palestinians from birth and onward are indoctrinated and thereby infused with a mindset that Israel is a pariah state that should not exist, let alone be recognized.
From school textbooks to their leaders’ pronouncements, the falsehood is to the fore that the Jewish people have usurped their lands and violence is the only course of action.
With a terrorist organization running Gaza and a failing leadership in the West Bank, a healing process for the so-called disease cannot be initiated when one side is determined to spread a continuing virus of hate.
A permanent cure can only be achieved when the Palestinians are willing to accept that what ails them is self inflicted, and that by rejecting violence and through a willingness to seek out that path to peace, the disease itself might well be fully eradicated.
STEPHEN VISHNICK
Tel Aviv
Tradition, pomp and circumstance
Thank you for your editorial “A royal welcome” (September 12) which provides an excellent synopsis of the messages of praise by the leaders of our country to the people of the United Kingdom on the passing of the Queen Elizabeth II and the ceremonials we have been witnessing during these momentous days.
No country can compete with Britain in matters of tradition, pomp and ceremony, of Golden Coaches and Coldstream Guards, of Beefeaters and town criers, of castles and banquets, of lords and ladies, barons and dukes – indeed every man’s fairyland.
The entire world has been watching and totally enchanted and spellbound by the processions and ceremonies which we will continue to witness, both at the royal funeral and at the coronation. The Queen is dead! Long live the King!
I can imagine the festivities in the streets of London when the new king is crowned as I remember so clearly the celebrations in 1953, at the crowning of Queen Elizabeth, that young beautiful and vivacious girl, as Queen of England. I was a young lad, just before my bar mitzvah. Street parties spontaneously sprouted across the country and I, together with my brother and two sisters, entered and won the street fancy dress competition.
At the end of the reign of the longest-serving British monarch, let us hope that the advent of a new figure, who will undoubtedly bring new ideas into the world of British royalty, will portend good news for his realms and territories in general and for the Jews of the British Isles in particular.
LAURENCE BECKER
Jerusalem
Free exercise of religion
“US Supreme Court requires YU to allow LGBT student club” (September 16) is misleading and did not report the key statement of the four justices who support Yeshiva University. They indicated that this order to return to the NY state court for further review was routine and that if the NY state court does not reverse the current decision, the Supreme Court would take the case and probably reverse it.
“The First Amendment guarantees the right to the free exercise of religion, and if that provision means anything, it prohibits a state from enforcing its own preferred interpretation of Holy Scripture,” said the dissent, written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, “yet that is exactly what New York has done in this case, and it is disappointing that a majority of this Court refuses to provide relief.”
Alito said the four are likely to grant the case if the university is unsuccessful in New York state appeals court and “Yeshiva would likely win if its case came before us.”
ROY PINCHOT
Netanya