WENDY BLUMFIELD HaifaSir, – I believe the government strategy to place Falash Mura olim in a small number of substandard neighborhoods is incorrect. Even worse is saddling them with mortgages.My grandparents and great grandparents immigrated to America more than a century ago. No one “sold” them a tenement apartment on the Lower East Side of New York.They didn’t know what a mortgage was or understand that they would have to stay in a ghetto until they sold the apartment – if ever. Instead, they rented an apartment they could afford, worked hard to acclimate themselves to their new lives, and moved out and up as soon as they were able.I’m a volunteer with the Forgotten People Fund in Netanya (www.fpf.org.il). We work closely with the Ethiopian community in the area, following up on requests from social workers and initiating proactive programs. Our “Rapid Response Team” spends a lot of time and money helping Ethiopians get out from under obligations (like mortgages) that they would never have taken upon themselves if they knew what they were getting into.The government must find a better solution, quickly, to help new immigrants from from Third World countries to acclimate to life here in hi-tech Israel.STEVE KRAMERAlfei MenasheSir, – Reader Monty Zion asks whether Israelis really welcome new immigrants (Letters, July 8). The olim themselves sometimes wonder.Brought up with the idea that Israelis are like the sabra plant – prickly on the outside but pleasant inside – olim arrive prepared to forgive a great deal. But they still find it hard to meet people whose job is to deal with the public although they generally lack any training in courtesy or customer relations. Nobody explains the local system to you. You have to learn the hard way or find a relative or friend who found out by often unpleasant experience.Absorption counselors who give you counsel and support? Forget it. Professionals (including rabbis) who are “simpatico”? Forget it. Officials or tradespeople who know your Hebrew lacks technical terminology? Forget it. Drivers with manners? Children with manners? Forget it.You bring skills and experience with you from the Diaspora? Here we prefer you to be a nobody. Menschlichkeit? Here we write books about it but can’t give you a smile or help you along.Dr. Zion says Israel likes aliya but not olim. Maybe he has a point.RAYMOND APPLEJerusalem
The writer is rabbi emeritus of the Great Synagogue in Sydney.No problem at allSir, – The towering 300-foot redwoods of California are immune to pests, disease and even forest fires, and are believed to enjoy perpetual life (“Fallen giant: Visiting Dyerville in Humboldt Redwoods,” Travel, July 8).Yet remarkably, dendochronology (tree-ring dating) shows that none are older than 4,000 years. They were mere seedlings when Noah died, saplings when the Tower of Babel was being built, and sturdy young giants when Solomon inaugurated the First Temple.Uniformitarian evolutionary paleontologists call this “a vexing problem.” But not creationist/ catastrophists, who hold by a worldwide Noahic deluge some 4,000 years ago.There is a huge body of solid scientific evidence showing that the Jewish year 5771 on the cover of The Jerusalem Post may well be literally correct – “The world will exist for 6,000 years” (Talmud Sanhedrin 97)!AMNON GOLDBERGSafedNeeds evidenceSir, – Alon Ben-Meir (“Root cause behind the Israeli-Palestinian impasse,” Above the Fray, July 8) probably knows that as an ivory tower academic with a Hebrew name and sitting in New York, his credibility rating in Israel starts off at a disadvantage. Yet inexplicably, he consistently does everything in his power to ensure that this innate problem is aggravated and exaggerated to the greatest degree possible.In his latest piece, Ben-Meir uses the odious tactic of moral equivalency. Both sides have their truth, their narrative, their regrettable history. What we need is for both sides to acknowledge the other and everything will be okay. Yet he doesn’t consider the possibility that one side may have a narrative and history, but no truth.What then? Can real peace be made between truth and a lie? Was Munich a real peace? Was Versailles a real peace? Even the much-vaunted Northern Ireland example wobbles and staggers – and there everyone is Christian.Where is Ben-Meir’s evidence for his statement that “each side knows the basic framework of a negotiated settlement”? The Arabs (but not mainstream Israel) have repeatedly rejected this framework.The so-called Saudi plan is a far cry from this basic framework.It would be better for him to admit that the Arab narrative is a lie, and the “Palestinian people” is an Arab League invention, with the PLO being founded only in 1964! It would be better to acknowledge that mainstream Israel yearns for peace but that there is no parallel Arab peace movement and never has been.Lastly, for Ben-Meir to call for more involvement of religion in the dispute seems to be evidence of complete separation from reality. Who are and where are these “respected independent scholars” in whom he places so much hope? Names, please. Religion has always been a force for continuous and ever greater extremism and fanaticism on both sides.ANTHONY LUDER Rosh PinaSir, – Alon Ben-Meir rightly pinpoints religion’s importance.He also points out that the trauma of the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis is unmatched in size and scope.It is matched, however, in thoroughness.The destruction of Judaism in Arabia during the rise of Muhammad and before his colonization of the Middle East and North Africa was so complete that it didn’t leave a traumatized remnant to mourn and make it part of our tragic heritage. In contrast to the Nazi project, where within decades of its end, thriving Jewish communities have been re-established in Germany, Austria and the rest of Europe, Arabia has managed to keep itself free of Jews.There is another important difference: Whereas Arab apologists are writing the Holocaust out of history, the genocide at the root of Islam and its contempt for Jews is recorded in the Islamic narrative.SYDNEY L. KASTEN Jerusalem