March 14: Biblical 'treif'

The issue concerning the kashrut of locusts is very much in question. And even if they were kosher for everyone, cooking them by dropping them – while still alive – into boiling oil must certainly render them treif (unkosher)!

By JERUSALEM POST READERS
Letters 370 (photo credit: REUTERS/Handout )
Letters 370
(photo credit: REUTERS/Handout )
Ethics, headlines
Sir, – There is only one point made by Gil Troy (“The new government should fight bigotry,” Center Field, March 13) with which I disagree.
Troy compares a Judaism without ethics to a country without democracy. I would offer something much stronger: A Judaism without ethics is not Judaism at all. Period.
GERSHON HARRIS Hatzor Haglilit
Sir, – I wonder if anyone else noted the irony in your March 13 issue.
Gil Troy is given four wide columns on the second- section front page in which to decry the reprehensible actions of two ultra-Orthodox youths. By harassing (but not physically harming) two teachers, the haredi youths, on their own, managed to damage “the social fabric, the delicate lattice of social ties and values that define a society.”
Buried on page four is “Danino: Youth violence ‘No. 1 threat’ to country.”
Somehow, I am fairly sure our secular national police chief, Insp.-Gen. Yohanan Danino, was not referring to haredi youth.
Well, I guess we now know who and what merits the headlines.
MARCHAL KAPLAN JJerusalem

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Good works
Sir, – Good luck to the Cape Town organizers of Israel Peace Week (“Israel Apartheid Week and Abraham’s Tent,” Comment & Features, March 12).
A good addition to their efforts would be video screenings of the number of Arab patients, doctors and nurses working together with all Israelis in every hospital.
MILDRED WEGIER Givat Ze’ev
Biblical ‘treif’
Sir, – In reference to an article you published on March 11 (“Third wave of locusts from Sinai takes Israel by swarm”), I must say that although pleased The Jerusalem Post would choose to put something light and flippant on its front page in order to balance the often tragic news that seems to take precedence, I found the content disturbing.
The issue concerning the kashrut of locusts is very much in question. And even if they were kosher for everyone, cooking them by dropping them – while still alive – into boiling oil must certainly render them treif (unkosher)! I am an avid reader of your paper, but it is beyond my understanding that you talk about such a dish being served in a restaurant whose owner says his establishment is about “biblical” food.
JOSHUA RIDER Beersheba
Deri forgets
Sir, – Arye Deri (“Deri: PM excludes poor, haredim from government,” March 11) accuses Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of abandoning the weaker sectors of society.
Has Deri forgotten that 13 years ago he was forced out of politics and spent 22 months in jail on charges of corruption for taking $155,000 in bribes when he was interior minister? It is perhaps true that in recent years Bibi has not had his eye so much on the poor as on the global economic situation, but as a result we are relatively well off as a country compared to the worldwide economic situation. Nevertheless, the new government will be shifting the country into another, far easier, gear, and Deri, with his rhetoric, is stirring up thousands of people who at some point have considered him a messianic figure.
He needs to be discredited, as do his ilk, who have held sway over a corrupt religious court and adversely affected the lives of many hundreds, if not thousands, of people, especially women – but mainly the poor.
EVELYN STEINBERG Jerusalem