March 14: Biblical 'treif'
By JERUSALEM POST READERS
03/14/2013 23:43
The issue concerning the kashrut of locusts is very much in question. And even if they were kosher for everyone, cooking them by dropping them – while still alive – into boiling oil must certainly render them treif (unkosher)!
Letters Photo: REUTERS/Handout
Ethics, headlines
Sir, – There is only one point made by Gil Troy (“The new
government should fight bigotry,” Center Field, March 13) with which I
disagree.
Troy compares a Judaism without ethics to a country without
democracy. I would offer something much stronger: A Judaism without ethics is
not Judaism at all. Period.
GERSHON HARRIS
Hatzor Haglilit
Sir, – I
wonder if anyone else noted the irony in your March 13 issue.
Gil Troy is
given four wide columns on the second- section front page in which to decry the
reprehensible actions of two ultra-Orthodox youths. By harassing (but not
physically harming) two teachers, the haredi youths, on their own, managed to
damage “the social fabric, the delicate lattice of social ties and values that
define a society.”
Buried on page four is “Danino: Youth violence ‘No. 1
threat’ to country.”
Somehow, I am fairly sure our secular national
police chief, Insp.-Gen. Yohanan Danino, was not referring to haredi
youth.
Well, I guess we now know who and what merits the
headlines.
MARCHAL KAPLAN J
Jerusalem
Good works
Sir, – Good luck to the
Cape Town organizers of Israel Peace Week (“Israel Apartheid Week and Abraham’s
Tent,” Comment & Features, March 12).
A good addition to their
efforts would be video screenings of the number of Arab patients, doctors and
nurses working together with all Israelis in every hospital.
MILDRED
WEGIER
Givat Ze’ev
Biblical ‘treif’
Sir, – In reference to an article you
published on March 11 (“Third wave of locusts from Sinai takes Israel by
swarm”), I must say that although pleased The Jerusalem Post would choose to put
something light and flippant on its front page in order to balance the often
tragic news that seems to take precedence, I found the content
disturbing.
The issue concerning the kashrut of locusts is very much in
question. And even if they were kosher for everyone, cooking them by dropping
them – while still alive – into boiling oil must certainly render them treif
(unkosher)! I am an avid reader of your paper, but it is beyond my understanding
that you talk about such a dish being served in a restaurant whose owner says
his establishment is about “biblical” food.
JOSHUA RIDER
Beersheba
Deri
forgets
Sir, – Arye Deri (“Deri: PM excludes poor, haredim from government,”
March 11) accuses Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of abandoning the weaker
sectors of society.
Has Deri forgotten that 13 years ago he was forced
out of politics and spent 22 months in jail on charges of corruption for taking
$155,000 in bribes when he was interior minister? It is perhaps true that in
recent years Bibi has not had his eye so much on the poor as on the global
economic situation, but as a result we are relatively well off as a country
compared to the worldwide economic situation. Nevertheless, the new government
will be shifting the country into another, far easier, gear, and Deri, with his
rhetoric, is stirring up thousands of people who at some point have considered
him a messianic figure.
He needs to be discredited, as do his ilk, who
have held sway over a corrupt religious court and adversely affected the lives
of many hundreds, if not thousands, of people, especially women – but mainly the
poor.
EVELYN STEINBERG
Jerusalem