This They Call Leadership?
It was more than a little dismaying to read of the meeting between a delegation of representatives of Jewish organizations and President Obama (“Jewish Leaders Give Obama No Push-Back on Settlement Freeze,” July 24).
Not one person there had the courage to point out that Israeli settlements have never been a problem, and that the issue of those in the West Bank is completely artificial: Before 1967, there were no such settlements, yet there was no peace; and post-1967, settlements in Sinai were not a problem when Egypt signed its peace treaty with Israel, nor were those in Gaza an obstacle when Israel unilaterally withdrew from there.
Nor did anyone apparently point out to the president the distortion of Jewish history, and the history of the State of Israel, contained in his Cairo speech, and which seems to lie near the heart of his attitude. The Jewish communal leaders failed to point out that the connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel dates since time immemorial, and was recognized in major international law instruments antedating the Holocaust.
By not even noting the conscious omission from the invitation list of two very significant organizations — the National Council of Young Israel and the Zionist Organization of America — no doubt because they would have upset the pre-determined result, those who were there became accomplices to the White House’s machinations.
Is this really the best leadership the American Jewish community can produce?
Harry Reicher
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Tuning in to WEVD To Learn a Little Gemara
There’s a lot more to say about the photograph of men studying Talmud that accompanied your July 17 article “Luftmenschen Take to the Airwaves” than your caption explains.
It is actually a photograph of my father, Rabbi Pinchas M. Teitz, giving the initial broadcast on January 17, 1953 of “Daf Hashovua, the Talmudic Seminar of the Air.” This pioneering program, which ran on WEVD for 36 years, introduced the use of modern media for teaching Talmud. It was broadcast on stations in the United States and Canada and even reached Russian Jews through Kol Israel Lagolah.
For more on “Daf Hashovua,” see “Learn Torah, Love Torah, Live Torah” (Ktav, 2001), my biography of my father. I still meet people who remember the radio being turned on at 9 o’clock on Saturday night to hear “Lomir lernen a blat gemara!” — let us learn a page of Gemara!
Rivkah Teitz Blau
New York, N.Y.
Eric Yoffie said: Most Jews Supported the Obama Policies - What kinds of Jews are Yoffie's Jews? Eric Yoffie is no different than me or countless other rabbis ordained in the USA. We barely represent anyone. During elections 80% of "Jews" vote Democratic but that includes more Jews than the 40% of Jewish Jews of the organized Jewish community. Jews who do not belong to anything communal are "wicked" according to the Haggada. "They deny the basic principle of Jewish life- they do not belong to anything Jewish." As an American Israeli Jewish Jew, I do not identify with the majority of Jews in the USA - they never belonged to my movement; they never belonged to my synagogue, and they never contributed to Jewish charities, and they never visited Israel. When rabbis speak, they speak for themselves and very few others. I learned very early in the American rabbinate the following principle: 1. Even in my synagogues, Jews vote economics over Israel 2. Even in my synagogues and my movement, Jews vote overwhelmingly Democratic and not Republican no matter what the stand on Israel 3. Even in my synagogues, Jews are more liberal than conservative, and they become increasingly less liberal with the aging process. The older they are they support Israel more and the younger they are they are more universal than particularly concerned with Israel. 4. Even in my synagogues, American Jews are not principled and would rather save their jobs than take controversial positions. This is certainly true of too many rabbis who worry more about their own security than they do about the security of Israel. 5. Whenever I took kids to Israel or for that matter adult Jews, the bottom line for them was always not what is in Israel’s best interests, but what was in the best interests of the American Jewish community back home. Israel was a tool for Diaspora commitments. I am proud to say that whenever I stood on a pulpit in America, I was always criticized for loving Israel too much. However, I was a proud volunteer US Army Chaplain; I was always a Police Chaplain for 25 years in America; I was always a Synagogue Council of America and Israel Bonds leader. I was always proud of my loyalty to both America and Israel at one and the same time. I am proud to say “Both my countries, Right or Wrong; when Right to be kept Right, and when Wrong to be made Right.” [I forget who said this first!] Eric Yoffie had better learn that none of us no matter who we are or what office we hold has the right to speak for “majorities of Jews.” Yitzchak Richard Yellin - Netanya Israel +972 52 3294142 1-561-927 0223 Presently - President of SFEJ Scholarship Fund for Ethiopian Jews in Israel; Senior Advisor Hillel Student Organizations of Israel Formerly, Rabbi of Congregations in Korea, DC, Mass., Florida Rabbinic Chrmn of Cabinet of Israel Bonds, CEO Development Foundations of Beer-Sheva and Netanya
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