Letters to the editor
Readers respond
Abbas’ call to negotiate is ingenuine
Abbas’ calls for Israel to return to the negotiating table and for supporters of the two-state solution to engage with AIPAC ring hollow (“Mahmoud Abbas urges Palestinian Americans to engage with AIPAC,” online, Oct. 3). He has a long history of refusing to engage seriously in negotiations, feeling that only Israel needs to make concessions and that the signing of a peace treaty will not end the conflict. He has not prepared his people for life in a state co-existing with the nation-state of the Jews, preferring to incite his people to “violently resist the Occupation (sic)” and richly rewarding murderers (and/or their families) for answering the call. His vision of two states is a Palestinian state from which all Jews have been banished and a Muslim-majority Israel populated by millions of Palestinian refugees — multi-generation descendants of Arabs who fled Arab-initiated violence against the Jews in the 1940s. They have been imbued with the idea that murdering Jews is a Muslim’s ticket into heaven. Jews would be second-class citizens, if they were tolerated at all
in a Muslim-majority Israel.
Toby F. Block
Atlanta, Georgia
Progressive congregations may be alienating those who don’t lean far left
Jeff Rubin is absolutely correct that over the past 10 years or so many Reform/progressive rabbis have created an atmosphere in their synagogues that makes Jews who do not share their far-left views feel unwelcome (“For the sin we have sinned by making people feel unwelcome at synagogue,” Sept. 30).
To the exclusion of all others, preaching their belief in the antisemitic Black Lives Matter movement, the antisemitic critical race theory movement and those accepting of Judith Butler’s ferocious anti-Zionism, is it a shock that those Jews who do not drink from this far-left trough find their presence in these synagogues unwelcome?
For many Jews, Chabad, which only asks, “are you Jewish?”, is a much more welcoming place to worship.
Richard Sherman
Margate, Florida
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