Letters to the Editor: Not surprised

By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Updated: DECEMBER 22, 2016 20:20
Letters (photo credit: REUTERS)
Letters
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Not surprised
Regarding the December 22 report “Rebbe Nachman’s grave desecrated with pig’s head,” I visited the venerated hassidic rabbi’s grave in Uman back in the 1990s on four occasions.
In a moment of enlightenment, I decided never to return to Uman to visit the rabbi’s grave. Do droves of Jews have to annually pump the coffers of blatant and ardent antisemites in Ukraine? Therefore I am not surprised that a pig’s head and blood have defiled Rebbe Nachman’s grave.
As someone who has visited to Uman, I urge Breslov adherents to re-inter their rabbi’s remains in Israel.
That, not Uman, is where his remains belong. I know the history of why Rebbe Nachman was buried in Uman. But his grave in Israel, not Uman, is where Am Yisrael should congregate to respect his blessed memory.
LEVI J. ATTIAS
Gibraltar
Syrian tragedy
When I read the article of the heartwarming speedy collection of half a million shekels for the Aleppo victims, (“Israelis raise almost half a million shekels for Syrian children,” December 19) three thoughts came to mind.
Firstly, this is a true example of tikun olam (repairing the world). It is true that we have the principle of “the poor of your own city come first,” but this means that there is another place in our Jewish hearts to help others in need.
Secondly, despite the Koranic injunctions about charity, I have not heard of any outpouring of aid from Syria’s co-religionists.
And why is it that when there are private projects that benefit the local Arab community or the Palestinians, there only seem to be Jewish donors in these organizations, such as the Abraham Fund, the Peres Center and the New Israel Fund? There is no shortage of Arab millionaires, and indeed billionaires, such as the one behind the new Palestinian town of Rawabi.
How much Saudi or Qatar money goes into madrassas (Islamic religious schools) to inculcate prejudice and incitement, or to heads of universities and think tanks that also spread propaganda and encourage incitement? Or how about buying football clubs? One could even ask Yasser Arafat’s widow, Suha Arafat, why she can’t return some of the billions of dollars her late husband stole from the Palestinian people.
Lastly, can there be any doubt as to whom – excluding war criminal Basher Assad – history will judge as the man being most responsible for the Syrian tragedy.
He received the most unwarranted Nobel peace prize, second only to the Arafat farce.
Is it not President Barack Obama’s bounden duty to return the money he received and give it to the refugees?
LOUIS GARB
Jerusalem
Peddling revisionism
I’ve written 10 letters or so to your paper since first subscribing. It has been very rare that certain words, expressions, or complete sentences have not been edited out.
By contrast, you allow Gershon Baskin to continuously mention a “State of Palestine” as if it is an existing entity.
His most recent catechism- laden article (“Settlements, annexation and the death of Zionism,” Encountering Peace, December 22) mentions “Palestine” in three different paragraphs.
Why are these references allowed to remain? Does the Post believe “Palestine” is a genuine entity? Also, he mentions the “advancement of the twostate solution is the fulfillment of the Zionist dream, nothing less than that.”
I don’t recall ever seeing Theodor Herzl, or any of the other tens of thousands of Jews who in the late 1800s and early 1900s proclaimed their longing to return to Zion (and in some cases, risked life and limb to make it a reality), ever adopt a “two-state solution” as their rallying cry.
What kind of “revisionism” is Mr. Baskin peddling?
NOAM COHEN
Efrat