It is a disgrace that we enforce a prohibition on Jews who so much as move their lips at our holiest site. It is time to assert the fact that the Temple Mount is ours.
By LETTERS TO THE EDITORLetters(photo credit: REUTERS)More on UNESCOAgain and again, the Palestinians accuse us of violating the “status quo” on the Temple Mount, and again and again, we deny it in vain (“Netanyahu recalls envoy to UNESCO for ‘consultations,’” October 27).The odd thing in all this is the status that then-defense minister Moshe Dayan arbitrarily granted to Jordan and the Wakf Muslim religious trust in a shameful abdication of Jewish sovereignty.It is a disgrace that we enforce a prohibition on Jews who so much as move their lips at our holiest site. It is time to assert the fact that the Temple Mount is ours.SIDNEY HANDEL Tel AvivI suggest that any communication by another entity in regard to the Temple Mount that does not use phraseology recognized by the Israeli government, such as Har Habayit or even just “Temple Mount,” be ignored.HERBERT KOPPEL JerusalemApparently, reader Henry Kaye is surprised by the silence of Pope Francis in light of the UNESCO moves (“Not a peep,” Letters, October 25). He should not be, given that the pontiff is a political animal.When he visited Bethlehem, instead of exclaiming “Where are my people?” in regard to the exodus of Christians from the birthplace of Jesus, Pope Francis pontificated on the “plight of the Palestinians.” As for his non-attendance at the funeral of Shimon Peres, the pope probably felt that since Peres had generally displayed a lack of interest in religion, he could not justify his attendance.ALEX ROSE AshkelonBy chance, I happened to be watching Sky News and was amazed to hear two news announcers discussing the original UNESCO vote regarding the Temple Mount. How did they refer to the issue? They referred to it as “the UNESCO vote ignoring Israel’s right to Jerusalem and the holy places in the area.”Note “ignoring” instead of “denying.” How about that for distortion?JOYCE KAHN Petah TikvaBack to school Reading “The complicated process of picking olives in the West Bank” by Adam Rasgon (October 25) caused me to spill my coffee. This left-wing opinion piece is shameful and should have been a counter- point opinion piece rather than a news piece.Time to go back to journalism school.SHLOMO FISHEROWITZ JerusalemTherapeutic tattoosYou printed two letters objecting to the therapeutic tattoos that were to be done at the Israel Museum (“Trauma and tattoos,” October 23).Personally, I think both readers were being far too legalistic and forgetting that while Leviticus 19:28 prohibits tattoos, 10 verses earlier it says you should love your neighbor as yourself.As for the healing effect of tattoos, it might not be physical, but they can definitely help with emotional healing.I hope that people considering such tattoos did not read these letters and risk damaging their emotions even more.BOB KNIGHT Modi’inWiesenfeld scroll Further to “Smuggled scrolls” (Simhat Torah supplement, October 23), I wonder if anyone can be of assistance.I have been asked to help friends trace a Torah scroll that was saved by their grandmother, Mathilde Stern (née Sichel) on Kristallnacht in November 1938.The scroll, pulled out of a fire, was given to a Catholic family in Wiesenfeld, in northern Bavaria, for safekeeping during the war. Mathilde and her husband, Hugo, asked their neighbors to give the scroll to the first Jew they met after the war should they, the Stern family, not survive.It would appear that the neighbors kept their promise and handed over the Torah to an American rabbi who was with the troops who liberated Wiesenfeld in 1945, saying they felt the scroll had protected them during Allied bombing raids throughout the war.Does anyone know which US troops liberated Wiesenfeld or where this Torah scroll might have ended up? I can be contacted via The Jerusalem Post.SUSAN EDEL Petah TikvaSome small changes Ever ready to vent their vehement animus against the very existence of the State of Israel, Palestinians are now embarking on an utterly preposterous year-long campaign of denigration against the 1917 Balfour Declaration. It could be succinctly summed up by the following (edited) version of the declaration that the Palestinians likely would much rather have preferred and, indeed, one that would have come much closer to actual British implementation: “His Majesty’s government views with disfavor any establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to deny the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which would preserve the civil and religious rights of existing Jewish communities in Palestine or restrict the right of Arab immigration from any other country.”RICHARD D. WILKINS Syracuse, New YorkThose postal blues I have written before about the trials and tribulations of Jerusalemites in receiving our mail.My four-year-old granddaughter, who lives a 12-minute walk from my home, wanted to surprise us with a New Years and sent one to my wife and myself. It’s a good thing she dined with us on Rosh Hashana and personally wished us a good year. The card? Nowhere in sight! The postman has not been to our house since before Rosh Hashana, well over three weeks ago. I went to the branch in my neighborhood of Bayit Vegan and told the manager that we were waiting for two letters with checks inside, one from Switzerland and one from New York, for over six weeks. I must admit that at least it looked like he felt sorry for us (although there’s not much use in that).But last Wednesday, I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel. A “Shimon” from our postal branch called and said that there was a package waiting for us, and if we didn’t pick it up by the end of the week, meaning in two more days, it would be returned to the sender.I remember the good old days when they sent a small card notifying you about a package and gave you at least two weeks. I suppose that under the new system, one must guess whether there might be a package waiting and then go every few weeks or so and inquire.But calling is actually a great service! Imagine, a clerk can be handed a whole sack of mail and instead of bothering the postman to physically go to the homes of customers, the clerk will open each letter, one by one, call the customer and read it to him over the phone. Wow! The future is almost here! By the way, I was very happy when I read quite a few weeks ago that the Palestinian Authority was to meet with representatives of the Israel Postal Company.I sure hope it wasn’t the poor Arabs who were to learn from us.YOSEF TUCKER JerusalemINVITATIONLawrence Rifkin, letters editor for The Jerusalem Post, will speak this evening (October 30) at 8 o’clock at the Netanya AACI. Subject? Letters, of course – some background and history, what the letters section is for, what the letters editor is up against, how to write a letter, how not to write a letter, and anything else you might want to know. For further information, contact the Netanya AACI office at 09-833-0950.
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