By LETTERS TO THE EDITORLetters(photo credit: REUTERS)Two different issuesWhile Ephraim Halevy makes an excellent point for accepting olim from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union as “Israelis” (“Ex-Mossad chief Halevy knocks conversion rules,” March 20), it is a nationalistic issue. “Jewishness,” however, is a religious issue, with rules that must be adhered to.SAMUEL ROSENBLUMBeit Shemesh Better use for the space As a citizen of Israel these past 13 years, I rely on The Jerusalem Post to provide detailed news and analysis on local, national and international events that my language skills do not permit me to obtain from the various Hebrew-language newspapers.In addition, most of your regular columnists provide additional insight to the many complex issues facing Israel and Jews. Even those columnists with whom I am in constant disagreement provide a useful service – the comic relief provided by Gershon Baskin (Encountering Peace), who never met an Arab that didn’t crave peace, and the constant complaints of Douglas Bloomfield (Washington Watch) that all of the world’s evils are attributable to Republicans or Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Nevertheless, I have to draw the line on so many of the No Holds Barred columns of Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. His column of March 20, headlined “The lust marriage,” is the latest example of ruminations that have no justification for being part of your Comment & Features section.At a time when there is an uptick in Arab terrorism, crises in the coalition and the criminal investigation of Prime Minister Netanyahu, why does the Post think that Boteach’s views on lust and marriage are worthy of a third of a page in its paper? Please spare us Rabbi Boteach’s tripe in the future and put the space to better use.ARTHUR MILLERBeit Shemesh God help us. There was an attempt at a joke by Shmuley Boteach. He would be best served if he remembered that comedians play for the laughs, not for the truth.DANIEL ABELMANJerusalem Trivializing the Holocaust I would like to add an insight to Tamara Zieve’s article “Indian publisher features Hitler in book on ‘great leadership’” (March 19).Not long ago, I attended an event involving a large group of children. At one point, some of the children brought out a board game they began to play with great excitement. Curious to see what the fuss was about, I walked over and to my horror discovered that the game was called “Secret Hitler.”The players, assigned the positions of Hitler, fascists or liberals, proceed to combat each other on the board. Faced with my protestations, the children explained to me that it was a “good game” because the liberals always tried to defeat Hitler, much in the same way games are played at Purim time to defeat Haman.I realized that to these children, the Holocaust, occurring more than 70 years ago, was on a par with ancient history.Trivializing the Holocaust in games and books is nothing less than Holocaust denial. Today, we are witnessing various groups trying to rewrite the events of a horrific time that resulted in the murder of 6 million Jews, including 1.5 million children, as well as millions of others.Although the Holocaust is one of the most heavily documented events in history, we need to be continually vigilant to make sure that future generations are educated in the facts of not only the killings, but the ideologies that led to them, so that the lessons of man’s inhumanity to man are never forgotten or repeated.MARION REISSBeit ShemeshThe writer is author of Not To Forget: The Story of Harry Reiss and the Creation of the Rockland Center for Holocaust Studies and a gallery educator at the Museum of Jewish Heritage/A Living Memorial to the Holocaust.A shocking readI was shocked to read Jeff Barak’s March 19 Reality Check column (“When the laughter ends”) in which he states that “in a parliamentary democracy, the duty of the opposition is to oppose the government at almost any and every opportunity.”Was this a misprint or does Mr. Barak really believe this is the negative, uncooperative and uncompromising approach to be adopted?HERTZEL KATZRamat Hasharon And yet another honor Noting the interesting reports and an ad in the March 16 Jerusalem Post about awards given to exceptional Israelis (the Rothschild Prizes, the Genesis Prize grant and the Chaim Herzog Award, I was surprised that no mention has been made in your paper (or, to the best of my knowledge, any other Israeli newspaper) about yet another notable prize awarded that week.The Paul Ehrlich Prize was presented to an outstanding Israeli scientist, Prof. David Wallach of the Weizmann Institute, who is internationally renowned in his field. The presentation was made at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, and was widely reported in the German press in spite of the concurrent death of Stephen Hawking and the anniversary of Albert Einstein’s birth competing for news space on the same date.I’m sure your readers would be interested in the international recognition of a top Israeli scientist, whose achievement brings honor to all in our country.CHARLES SMITHShoreshHawking and the JewsTwo comments on “Physicist Stephen Hawking is dead at 76” (International News, March 15).While Hawking was an atheist, the late Jacob Bekenstein of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who made a major contribution to Hawking’s work, was a Jewish believer.Second, it was Jews such as the US academic Noam Chomsky, and Malcolm Levitt and Jonathan Rosenhead from Britain, who persuaded Hawking to boycott Israel in 2013. The Guardian and the magazine New Scientist reported on the anti-Zionist campaign on May 10, 2013, and June 12, 2013, respectively.JACOB MENDLOVICToronto Truth about Jerusalem It is time we told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that we know the truth: Jerusalem is not, nor has it ever been, an important Muslim site in spite of what the United Nations, UNESCO and the other corrupt international organs postulate.Jerusalem became King David’s capital just over 3,000 years ago. His son, Solomon, built the First Temple there. Jerusalem was and is the soul of Judaism.Christianity grew out of Judaism. Jesus was a Jew, and his gospels took place in and around Jerusalem. So Christians have a two-millennium attachment to Jerusalem.When the Arabs spread out of Arabia (also adopting the Jewish and Christian stories) in the 7th century, they raped, looted and pillaged their way across the Middle East, North Africa, most of the Far East and much of Europe. Jerusalem was never their capital. Yes, they built the Dome of the Rock atop the ruins of the Second Temple, and the Aqsa Mosque off to the side. The Dome of the Rock is beautiful, but the site pales in comparison to the fabulous structures they built in Cairo, Casablanca, Istanbul, Seville and elsewhere.The Babylonians, Romans, Arabs, Christians and others never considered Jerusalem important enough to make it their capital, but it was the Jewish capital whenever Jews had dominance. Today, Muslims want it only because the Jews again have it.LEN BENNETTOttawa
Related Tagsstephen hawking israel
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store
