Out of love with the politicians
The banner headlines on the front page of last week’s issue left me with a sense of sadness. The country I fell in love over forty years ago, is passing laws that are becoming evermore draconian. With a daughter living in Israel I am becoming ever more fearful for the future democratic disposition of the country. As with most Israeli Prime Ministers past and present, Benjamin Netanyahu is in the thrall of disparate parties, who serve their own constituencies, as opposed to the greater good.
I am sure that amongst Anglo Jewry I am not alone in finding it evermore difficult to defend the indefensible. Whether it is banning people from entering Israel or settlements, as much as I want to I cannot agree with a government that since President Trump came in to power seems to be running amok.
Prime Minister Netanyahu should know that every past President has always looked after America’s interests first, and very often played lip service to its so called allies. President Trump looks like being an expert achiever in that role. Despite my anxieties, when I make my annual pilgrimage to the holy land, as ever I will step off the plane and feel I am on home soil. It’s the people I love not the politicians.
Robert Dulin, London N21
I am disappointed but hardly surprised by your editorial on this. It does generate a lot of high-minded waffle by Western liberals. But would the UK or US or any other country welcome foreigners dedicate to destroying those countries, by economic means if not violence?
Israel, however, is not meant to object. Why not? Israelis are allowed free speech in their own country, even if they are its avowed enemies - though of course some prefer to find their way to UK universities. There are clearly some who believe that Israel should not behave like any other country but should constantly apologise for its existence. Why?
M Schachter, London NW6
In denouncing Israel's Boycott Law which is directed primarily at the BDS movement, your leader is in good company with other mainstream Jewish bodies. But why is it undemocratic for Israel to refuse entry to representatives of organisations which are plainly anti-Zionist and antisemitic?
Many countries, including the UK, have laws that enable them to bar hate mongers and those that would damage the interests of the state and its citizens. Why should Israel be different? Admittedly the law may give rise to practical difficulties, such as you point out, for a Jewish member of the NUS. But the fact remains that the NUS from the top down is anti-Zionist (not just against particular policies) and Jewish students are not obliged to belong to it.
BDS is a vile antisemitic movement and Israel has every right to take action against it and similar organisations.
Lionel Blumenthal, London NW11
Memorial pride
Two Jewish peers have registered their disapproval of the new Holocaust Memorial, one on the grounds of expense and one on location. British Jewry should be intensely proud that the government should choose to erect such a prominent memorial in this country and in a location, the importance of which is second to none. Furthermore the galaxy of famous artists competing for the design is another reason for pride.
Could this be a reflection of the Jewish community's, quite disproportionate to its numbers, contribution to British life over say the last one hundred years? As to cost, the reported figure of £50m seems enormous. Could it be that a nought has been added by press exaggeration?
Neville S Conrad, London W11
Fake news?
Yet again the JC has left out so much of an important article that it is borderline “fake journalism”. It’s all very good to mention Mordy K. Silverstein and his research into the side effects of eating too much chicken soup, but the initial research goes back much further – and was concealed from public notice by the Jewish Chicken Soup Lobby in Washington.
The original research was done by a famous Dr Osler from McGillah University, and also Johns Hopkins and Oxford University. Osler’s main controversial conclusion was that high chicken soup consumption leads to a person being ready to die by age sixty or at most sixty-seven. Three famous colleagues of Dr Osler disagreed. Dr Abigail Hadassah, a generation later in the early twentieth century, further developed Professor Osler’s lead, but the medical profession concluded ‘What do women know?’ and discarded her life’s research!
Whenever there have been attempts to publicise the dangers of chicken soup the industry cries ‘anti-Semitism’ with the result that many Jews continue to eat chicken soup, rejecting the volumes of research. When asked to comment the Vashti Persian Beth Din replied, ‘A custom is a custom and we ignore doubtful research by anti-Semitic scientists.’
Joseph Feld, London NW11
Was this a joke too?
Your Purim spiel on page 18 concerning the relaxing of kashrut fees for some simachot was almost believable had you said it applied to all celebrations rather than those for 174 guests.
However, I was, like most readers surprised and disappointed to learn that chicken soup does not possess the therapeutic qualities we had all come to believe. I wonder if research is backed up by fact.
Does Prof. H. Aman have figures to back up his claims? Or are they all stuck up at the Ahasuerus Research and Scientific Enterprises labs.
Flo Kaufmann, London N2
Self-fulfilling
"Your name can determine the way you look" according to your article. The explanation suggested by the researchers, Dr Ruth Mayo and Yonat Zwebner, is that this could be because of a process of self-fulfilling prophecy, as we become what other people expect us to become.
What the researchers don't seem to have taken into account is that while we don't choose our own names, our parents do. Could it be that their choice of name reflects their own attitudes, their expectations towards their child, which in the long run also contribute to turning the child into the sort of person they hoped he or she would become when they chose the name?
Anna Lowenstein, London N10
Wrong melody
Daniel Sugarman (March 10) writing about the significance of the Hatikvah to the Jewish people attributes the tune to a Romanian folk tune whereas it was composed by the Czech Bedrich Smetina. The Hatikva melody is taken from his composition,Vltava( the Moldau river) and is part of a symphonic cycle Ma Vlast (my homeland).
Melvyn Lipitch, London W14
