I fail to understand why The Jerusalem Post chose to print “Natalie Portman ‘very upset’ over Netanyahu’s reelection” (May 7).
By LETTERS TO THE EDITORLetters(photo credit: REUTERS)Worthy opinion? I fail to understand why The Jerusalem Post chose to print “Natalie Portman ‘very upset’ over Netanyahu’s reelection” (May 7). The article summarizes an interview given by Portman to The Hollywood Reporter in which she goes on to say: “I find his racist comments horrific.”Why is Portman’s personal opinion worthy of publication? Is she a political analyst? Can we learn something new from her outburst? Placing the irrelevant comments of a prominent Jewish actress long after the election results is inappropriate. It seems to me that it created the exact thing she feared – it could be used to defame Israel.LOIS FEINERMAN JerusalemOne wordDavid Margolese (“Why you should move to Israel,” Comment & Features, May 7) beautifully echoes my own journey of aliya. I just want to add what I told my local synagogue before we left.“I was writing a pro/con list of aliya when I suddenly remembered my roommate in college.He had decided to make a pro/ con list of the traits of each girl he dated, to determine her suitability for marriage. Years later, he still wasn’t married. Pro/con lists are not objective; they are the mind working to convince you that inertia is the best solution to your problem.“For me, making aliya is not a question of what is good for us now, but what will be good for us, our grandchildren and all the generations to come, in the future. And that list has only one word on it: Israel.”JACOB HIMMELFARB JerusalemHow dare you! The letter from reader Judy Bamberger (“Ethiopian Israelis,” May 7) left me with my mouth agape. Her making an equivalence between Ethiopian Israelis and Israelis of “Palestinian descent” is morally corrupt, despicable and an egregious affront to all Ethiopian immigrants.She claims that when Ethiopians “demonstrate and riot they are blessed with government attention,” but when “Palestinian Israelis” do so they are “shot, beaten up and incarcerated.”How dare you compare the two populations? Not one Ethiopian Israeli has boarded a bus and blown it up. Not one Ethiopian Israeli has rammed his car into a bus stop. No Ethiopian Israeli has slit the throat of a young woman waiting at a bus stop.ZE’EV M. SHANDALOV Ma’aleh AdumimBuried treasure Regarding “Olmert pleads to avoid jail: I respect the decision, do not take conviction lightly” (May 6), I feel sorry for former prime minister Ehud Olmert’s grandchildren, who, according to the article, are asked embarrassing questions about their granddaddy.But that’s not a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.Why doesn’t anyone, any criminal, think about his or her grandchildren’s shame before stealing and lying, being bribed and accepting illegal money? I’m sure Olmert was able to buy his grandchildren some nice presents with all that extra cash. Its not like he donated it to ZAKA.What should Olmert say to his grandchilden? How about this: “I’m going to jail to set a good example of what not to do. Now you be a good little children and learn from my mistakes – and the money is buried behind the olive tree in the back yard.”LOIS GREENKadimaMany complaints Sawsan Zaher has many complaints about the laws and decisions of our top court (“Supreme Court decision in Anti-Boycott Law case and the suppression of internal dissent” Comment & Features, May 4).Among the myriad complaints listed is the Nakba Law, “which limits freedom of expression related to commemorating Nakba events.” Now what country in the world would fund public demonstrations that call for an end to the self-same country, decrying its establishment as a “disaster”? A second complaint is that we have the nerve not to supply Gaza with much-needed electricity and fuel. Of course, when we left Gaza, we stopped being responsible for its needs. What we do give it is much more than any other country would deliver to its enemies. They wanted independence, they wanted a border.They got them. No further obligations.Another claim is that Jews want to be permitted to enter the Aksa Mosque while “Palestinians do not enjoy such a ‘right’ in the most holy mosque for them.”Really? If that’s the most holy mosque, what about the ones in Saudi Arabia? And since when do they not have the right to enter the Aksa Mosque except for days following instances of rock throwing? Finally, Zaher claims that “political prisoners being held in Israeli prisons” have been banned “as a group, from receiving higher education.” For many years, Israel was truly a sucker state, enabling security prisoners to study while incarcerated, a rare privilege in other countries. If these prisoners were so interested in furthering their education, why didn’t they go to university instead of blowing up innocent people?RHEA ISRAELRehovotPerfidious actIn the wake of recent letters to the Post about Polish behavior toward Jews in the 1930s and 1940s, I wish to relate that in 1938, the anti-Semitic Polish government withdrew the passports of all Jews who had lived outside Poland for more than five years.Nazi Germany promptly expelled such people from the Reich; they became refugees, moving back and forth between the borders of Poland and Germany.My beloved maternal grandfather was one such Ost Jude. The result? He could not be reunited with family in adjacent Czechoslovakia.The last sign of him was in Krakow in July 1939. En route to his native Galician shtetl, he was engulfed in the vortex engendered by enactment of the infamous Molotov- Ribbentrop Pact, which divided Poland.KARL HUTTENBAUER Berlin Playing with fire After The Jerusalem Post published a list of warnings regarding Lag Ba’omer bonfires (“Enjoy Lag Ba’omer while avoiding preventable injuries,” May 4), it placed a large photo on the front page of its May 6 issue showing a group of unsupervised youngsters at a bonfire, while one is seen jumping over the fire.The caption states that children are at “play next to a bonfire.”It seems the photo sends the wrong message about fire safety.ARI BERGWERK Nof AyalonVarious authorities warned about taking care around fires.Despite publishing such warnings in previous days, it appears the Post didn’t understand the message.MARK BARDA Tel MondThe photo showing a child jumping over a fire was the very worst example of preparation for a holiday. We are shocked that you printed such a picture and hope that parents avoided letting young children see it,FRIEDA and CHAIM MANDEL Alon ShvutThe Letters Editor responds: I take full responsibility, having been duty editor the night that issue was prepared. (Yes, some of us around here wear more than one hat.) When we’re crashing on the front page for a strict press deadline, we often don’t notice the minor things.Coalition bargaining, racism in our society, the specter of Iranian nuclear weapons are big things. A young boy jumping over a small fire (something I often did eons ago as a rambunctious kid, usually getting through it without encountering so much as an ember)? Not so big. It’s the nature of news reporting in the face of deadlines. But considering that the Post regularly has its health correspondent write articles about ways to make it though holidays safely, I’ll have to remember that others who do unsafe things might not end up as lucky as I did.
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