March 21: Bringing joy

"I appreciated Ruth Eglash's "Mentoring program seeks volunteers for children at risk" on the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Israel."

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
letters 88 (photo credit: Courtesy)
letters 88
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Bringing joy Sir, - I appreciated Ruth Eglash's "Mentoring program seeks volunteers for children at risk" (March 19) on the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Israel. She captured the joy that becomes part of the lives of both the Big and Little Brothers and Sisters when a mentoring relationship based on warmth and caring is built over time. To clarify just one point: The common denominator of all the children in our organization is that they are all great kids from single-parent homes and not necessarily children at risk. We have begun a recruitment drive for Big Brothers and Sisters. For info, call 02-5612131, or see www.bigbrothers.org.il LIBBY REICHMAN, Director Big Brothers Big Sisters of Israel Jerusalem What a gift! Sir, - Re "For Israel's anniversary - electing MKs from 60 regions?" (March 11): Passing this bill would be the best celebration the public could receive! Sixty representatives for 60 years! Kol hakovod to Ophir Pines-Paz, Gideon Sa'ar and Menachem Ben-Sasson. These three pioneering MKs promise to be the initiators of a new democratic era in our history. Hopefully they will be joined by additional members of Knesset. We in the Citizens Empowerment Public Action Campaign (CEPAC) pledge our support to those parties and individuals who support this essential action. ELAINE LEVITT AND DAVID RAAB Co-Chairmen, CEPAC Migdal Tefen It's a good life Sir, - I found Gil Troy's "This family's answer to the menace of terrorism" (March 12) very moving and completely agree with his conclusion. This year I celebrate 50 years since I arrived here from South Africa. It has been an incredible period! Three years after arriving I met my future wife, also from S. Africa, and we have four children and 12 grandchildren. Life certainly has not been dull. Apart from the wars and terrible terrorist attacks and the two intifadas, the country has had many difficult economic crises. In spite of all this we feel privileged to live here, to have raised our families here, to have worked in our fields and tried to make a small contribution to this amazing place. The development that has taken place during this short period and in spite of the many problems, is quite incredible. Israel has grown from a poor, underdeveloped country into a world leader in many fields, notably hi-tech. Its advances in culture and the arts, particularly music, during the last decade have been outstanding. We try to lead as full a life as is possible, and as pensioners are delighted at the variety of reasonably priced courses available to us to enjoy. That is "our family's answer to the menace of terrorism." SOLLY REISNER Ramat Hasharon Woman erased Sir, - When my teenage daughter and I read "The great rub-out" (March 12), Varda Epstein's counter-response to readers' reactions to her letter about the ban on female images in the haredi world, we wondered: Why does she think that girls do not need to see women filling myriad roles in order to realize their own full potential and "attain greatness"? How does erasing the images of half of humanity "empower" that erased half? If women are born with a "special spiritual nature," surely all of us are naturally modest? Furthermore, if rubbing out photos of young girls will teach these girls modesty, why are young boys not taught this important lesson? Surely, considering their visual nature, they need it more.... Representing such a total negation of girls and women as empowerment shows how even a self-described feminist can twist logic in order to justify her acceptance of the norms of a highly insular community. Under the circumstances, we were rather surprised to see Epstein's photo adorning the piece. It greatly saddens us to see how far this un-Jewish mythification of women has penetrated. After all, the only place to go from a pedestal is down. LISA AND ALANA AMELAN Jerusalem Could you oblige? Sir, - As an ex-Brit brought up on soccer in winter and cricket in summer, I have been weaned and am now utterly and completely devoted to Israeli basketball. Over the past year there has been a considerably marked improvement in the reporting of the sport. However, there must be some solution to opening the Post on Friday morning and not finding one word about the Euroleague match the previous night, especially with the spectacular Maccabi victory. This forces me to go out and buy a Hebrew daily, which always has a two-page coverage of the game. You cover all (?) the sports from North America - baseball, football, Big Grizzleys, Little Grizzleys - in which I haven't the slightest interest; my fault, not the Post's. There must be many other Anglos like me. I beg of you to rectify this glaring omission; and of the games that are reported, to add the players' match statistics, including the Sunday evening games. ZVI FREEDMAN Tivon The Sports Editor responds: I sympathize with this reader's concern. Unfortunately, our deadline on a Thursday sometimes prevents us from reporting the Maccabi Tel Aviv Euroleague game, as we would like to, especially away games in Europe, which start well after 9 p.m.; even more so when the game goes into overtime, as it did in Madrid. Re the statistics, we would like to include them, but issues of space and time restrictions make it impossible for the moment. We in the Sports section do our best to provide coverage of as many events, international and Israeli, as we can to our wide audience, which includes Americans, Brits, Australians and South Africans.