Letters: Judge wisely

It’s hard to imagine that only in the year 2016 have we finally witnessed this but two women from Israel’s Ethiopian community were appointed as judges.

By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters (photo credit: REUTERS)
Letters
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Judge wisely
It’s hard to imagine that only in the year 2016 have we finally witnessed this, but congratulations to Ednaki Sebhat Haimowitz and Esther Tafta Gardi, two women from Israel’s Ethiopian community, on their appointment as judges, “Ethiopian Israeli women appointed judges,” December 20.
May they be blessed with “the spirit of the Lord” and may they judge Israel in accordance with the laws set out in Deuteronomy 17.
KEITH DEMPSTER Omaha, Nebraska
Stop that
Kol hakavod to The Jerusalem Post’s New York correspondent Danielle Ziri and Cornell’s Prof. William Jacobson for bringing to the light the anti-Israel presentation for schoolchildren reported in the December 16 issue, “Video shows third-graders influenced by anti-Israel presentation.”
The article is about pro-Palestinian activists’ anti-Israel propaganda presented to very impressionable youngsters, 8 and 9 years of age.
Prof. Jacobson of the Cornell University Law School is especially to be commended for pursuing this case even to the courts. This insidious and invidious effort to affect our youngsters must be halted.
Every Jewish organization, including synagogues, as well as state departments of education and teacher organizations, must be alerted to this case so as to block it from happening again.
The teachers and staff involved in inviting this group and sitting placidly by need an official reprimand.
The apology from the school’s superintendent is insufficient.
MARTIN SIEGEL Jerusalem
The writer is also a resident of Schenectady, New York.
No guarantees
Once again our right-wing government is making the same mistake as it made in the evacuation of Gush Katif more than 10 years ago, “State asks for 45 days to evacuate Amona,” December 21.
Nothing has changed except the name, the place and the amount of families being forced to leave.
But the main principle remains: The prime minister is kicking these people out of their homes.
They’re taking families with small children and throwing them out in the middle of nowhere in the heart of winter.
Yes, we have been made aware of the accommodations that these proud residents will receive once the dust settles.
But how many average citizens personally know someone who has been evacuated from Gush Katif? I would say the answer is not many. They’re not getting the full story.
Kicking someone out of their home is a traumatic experience – whether they’ve been there for five years or 25 years. Psychologically it’s as if their whole world around them has collapsed. The children, especially, will have this cloud of insecurity hovering over them their entire lives: If there is no root of security coming from their home how can they have security in any of their endeavors? We, proud settlers of the Land of Israel, unfortunately, do know a family member or a friend, or a friend of a friend, who was evacuated.
And this trauma is what has happened to many of the former Gush Katif residents.
Why have we let it happen again? And where’s the guarantee that it won’t happen again? I intentionally change the vowelization on the famous slogan “Yehudi lo megareish Yehudi,” (“A Jew doesn’t expel a Jew”) to “Yehudi, lo migrash, Yehudi” (“A Jew, not a portion of land, a Jew”).
Maybe if we got our heads out of the dirt we’ll realize that we’ve been throwing our brothers and sisters into the street.
ELHANAN HIRSH Talmon
Timely find
I’m always amazed at the timely findings the country’s archeologists reveal, “Archeologists discover rare coin from Antiochus’s rule,” December 20.
What are the chances that this coin from the era of the Hasmoneans wasn’t actually found days before the holiday marking the Maccabean victory over Antiochus? I appreciate the effort to get the public excited about the discovery by announcing it near Hanukka.
But I also think that we, as a people, cherish our history, and discoveries such as these will excite the people at any time during the year.
Regardless, keep up the good work.
ALON ESHEL Safed
Trump-atic hysteria
Well, The Jerusalem Post has done it again.
Referring to the Comment & Features section from December 20, I see that it is chockablock filled with writers still deep in hysteria over the American presidential election.
Starting with Rabbi Michael Cohen from Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont, he notes that “more than anything this election was about the failure to understand freedom.”
And of course he accuses President- elect Donald Trump in so many words as running a campaign in which all forms of expression were considered acceptable.
Bennington is a left-wing campus paradise.
Then we have Mose Apelblat, a former official from the European Commission, damning the US electoral system and its electoral college and pointing out that if the popular vote had been the ultimate decider, Democrat Hilary Clinton would have won. Love that European arrogance! Now flip over to two of our elitist faculty contributors to the New York Times, that so-called “newspaper of record,” which doesn’t like Israel and the Jewish people very much.
We have Colby College Prof.
Neil Gross telling us that the continuing hysteria is a type of collective trauma over perceived repeats of “historical traumas linked with anti-democratic politics such as the emergence of fascism in interwar Europe and the rise of McCarthy in the 1950s.”
And finally, professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt of Harvard University bemoaning the president-elect with “authoritarian tendencies... who could pose a serious threat to American democracy. We must be vigilant!” Aside from the fact that all of these writers appear to be Jewish, it is the same drum-beating that has been going on since the election.
Currying the continuing hysteria with hand wringing, they encourage all the sore losers and keep agitating their supporters and like-thinkers into yet more hysteria and hand wringing, until this has become a tempest of serious dimensions.
Trump hasn’t taken office yet but this gang of criers and all their hordes of fellow criers are the ones it seems to me who are threatening American democracy.
True, Trump’s outrageous statements during the campaign were disgusting. But the Democrats were hardly Pollyannas. That’s what elections are like. But get real, grow up and give the man a chance before you try to lynch him.
And please, give us more balance on these oped pages.
JANICE GAINES Netanya
Jordanian déjà vu
Am I the only one, or did we just have a case of Jordanian déjà vu (“Gunmen kill four Jordanian policeman in clashes near Karak,” December 21, “At least nine killed by terrorists in Jordanian Crusader castle,” December 19)? Two terrorist events in the Karak region in three days.
The Jerusalem Post would be doing us a big favor by letting us know where exactly this region is in relation to the Jewish state. After all, Jordan is our neighbor.
For the benefit of all readers, Karak is about 40 km. southeast of the Dead Sea resort city Ein Gedi.
No one is pushing the panic button yet, but maybe we should start thinking about refortifying our eastern border.
YOSSI FOLKMAN Arad
Correction The opinion piece “The colonial origins of US policy on Jerusalem” (December 19) by Seth J. Frantzman incorrectly stated that Japan once maintained an embassy in Jerusalem. Japan’s diplomatic mission to Israel, opened in 1955, has always been in Tel Aviv. We regret the error.