Letters 391528

'A study of the warnings of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 shows that Auschwitz and the reasons for it were clearly presaged.’

By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Envelope (photo credit: ING IMAGE/ASAP)
Envelope
(photo credit: ING IMAGE/ASAP)
Obama’s priorities Sir, – Regarding “A conversation with Bret Stephens” (Interview, February 6), the article includes a photograph of US President Barack Obama meeting with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman in Riyadh on January 27.
Apparently this was more important to Obama than attending the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, to which he was invited. It was attended by many world leaders. His meeting with the leader of an Arab country that has not recognized Israel’s right to exist for 66 years and which is not exactly enamored of Jews says much about the US president and his priorities.
I wonder also what the men and women who serve in the US military think about his absence from the commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz, given the struggle and sacrifice by US troops during World War II (along with the other Allied forces) to help defeat the enemy and win the war.
LEAH YERUSHALMI Beit El Potent revelation Sir, – With regard to “A tree grows in Jerusalem” (In Plain Language, February 6), then-IDF chief of staff Ehud Barak, on his 1992 visit to Auschwitz, replied to the vexing question of many – Where was God at Auschwitz? – by answering: God was not here! Yet the Holocaust was one of the most potent revelations of God in action in history.
A study of the warnings of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 shows that Auschwitz and the reasons for it were clearly presaged.
Mass apostasy had proceeded apace among German Jewry since 1800, and reform, assimilation and intermarriage had ruined the Italian, French and Dutch communities. In Russia, the three million Jews had succumbed almost entirely to Communism and the Yevsektsiya (the party’s Jewish section). In Poland, Lithuania, Romania and Hungary, the masses were imbued with virulent Yiddishism, Bundism and atheistic Zionism, with an intense hatred for Judaism.
The Orthodox had become a small minority, and “once permission has been given to the Angel of Death to destroy, he does not distinguish between the righteous and the wicked” (Baba Kama 60).
It is a great benefit for the evil inclination to have prewar European Jewry held in high regard, in order to prevent any fear of God that could be gained from considering the Holocaust. See Divine Madness – A Defense of Hashem in the Matter of the Holocaust, by Rabbi Avigdor Miller.
AMNON GOLDBERG Safed Successful weapon Sir, – The sad truth is that the Palestinian national movement was conceived primarily as a weapon (“Does anybody really care about the Palestinians?” Opinion, February 6).
The whole “Palestinian people” myth, which came complete with a false history and false rights to the Jewish land and its holy sites, was concocted because the Arabs were unable to destroy Israel by military means. Unfortunately, it has been a very successful weapon in bringing about Israeli concessions in hopes of a negotiated settlement with enemies that never stop calling for our destruction.
I have never to this day understood how Israeli leaders show such willingness to commit national suicide. I have no such intentions and have no hesitation in telling the world that tried its best to keep the Jewish people homeless: This is my land, and I am not leaving.
Charles Bybelezer has it right when he questions the wisdom and effectiveness of implementing dubious and more-than-sometimes dangerous policies to placate international opinion. Surely it should be obvious by now that we will never be able to placate anyone.
We must act in our own best interests – which is to destroy those who would destroy us, giving no quarter, declaring sovereignty over the whole land and immediately taking back control of the Temple Mount. All else will beautifully fall into place and the world will see us as a force to be reckoned with, not the proverbial whipping boy that is humiliated, censored and denied its historical and legal rights to the Jewish land.
It’s time to free ourselves of our self-imposed shackles.
YENTEL JACOBS Netanya