November 6: Suggest something

Readers comment on recent stories in The Jerusalem Post.

By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters (photo credit: REUTERS)
Letters
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Suggest something
Sir, – With regard to “More police are not the answer in east Jerusalem: (Comment & Features, November 4), the emotional and financial costs of stationing troops in Shuafat weighs heavily upon all of us. Yet, it must be done.
Violent forms of protest call for these measures. Were there no rock throwing, if the residents of Shuafat did not allow the destruction of the light rail station, no troops or police helicopters would be necessary.
The blame for the rioting must be placed at the feet of the “responsible” adults in Shuafat.
By their silent acquiescence to the riots, they share responsibility with the stone throwers.
What does Yara Dowani suggest? Total separation? If so, would she have gotten this good life guard job in west Jerusalem? Many residents of Shuafat are pleased to have the light rail because employment and shopping opportunities are expanded.
While they, too, share her political concerns, they express them by nonviolent means, gaining respect thereby.
Imagine if the Jerusalem city planners left Shuafat out of the light rail system – there might be no rock throwing but accusations of “ghetto-ization” would arise.
Would that be preferable?
BENJAMIN LERNER
Jerusalem
‘Journalistic fabrication’
Sir, – With regard to “US rabbi leaves conversion court over women’s role” (November 3), my opposition was to the committee itself, men and women.
Some suspect the Rabbinical Council of America of including women merely to quiet the media storm and pave the way for substantive changes to the gerut system we painstakingly established seven years ago – one that has worked remarkably well. My resignation, as I write at length, was to protest the culture of negativity and suspicion that has been fostered against all rabbis because of the alleged sins of one. I saw no need to continue to serve – as a volunteer, no less – in an environment in which I was not trusted.
I even wrote explicitly that there certainly was a role for women on a committee that would deal with the prevention of abuse, but that such a committee was unnecessary.
All the safeguards imaginable will not prevent a miscreant from perpetrating his evil.
Construing my resignation as based on opposition to feminism is a falsehood, as a simple reading of my words will indicate. It was a journalistic fabrication to fit the narrow agenda of the journalist.
STEVEN PRUZANSKY
Teaneck, New Jersey
Sam Sokol responds: All opinions and quotes attributed to the rabbi in the article about his resignation came directly from his blog. His imputations of journalistic malfeasance and bias have no basis in fact.
Hold the kugel
Sir, – As Health Minister Yael German acknowledges, diet is an important factor in fighting diabetes (“German: Diabetics need cheaper whole-grain food,” November 3).
There’s no surprise that the disease is spreading among the ultra-Orthodox. The international table of glycemic index offers information on how foods affect blood sugar and insulin. Topping the list, with the highest glycemic index and listed as the most unhealthy of foodstuffs, is “Jerusalem kugel pie.”
What does surprise is the spread of diabetes in the Arab sector.
Chickpeas and humus have a zero glycemic index and accordingly are the most healthy.
The rule of thumb for people who are advancing in years is to eat more protein and less carbohydrates.
If our health minister wants to combat diabetes, she should act to lower both the price of meat and the subsidy on white bread.
DANIEL ABELMAN
Jerusalem
Message of love
 Sir, – “Wild messengers” (Comment & Features, November 3) made my day. What a beautiful way to comfort yourself by seeing in a bird a reminder of a loved one long gone – a message of love.
In my case a flower or a song does the same after so many years that Mom is gone. We are as we were.
Thanks for giving us something so beautiful in between so much sad news.
OLGA P. WIND
Holon
Swedish lambs
Sir, – In light of remarks by Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman (“Israel to Sweden on Palestinian state recognition: Thanks for IKEA furniture, but it’s missing screws,” November 2), Margot Wallström, the new Swedish foreign minister, was quoted as saying that intelligent people have humor.
Yes, but intelligent people do not recognize Article 7 of the Hamas Charter, which reads: “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, O Muslim, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”
This is no laughing matter.
Shame on Sweden! By recognizing a Palestinian state where Hamas is in the unity government, it condones the killing of Jews.
MLADEN ANDRIJASEVIC
Beersheba
Sir, – Regarding “Israel recalls envoy after Sweden recognizes ‘Palestine’” (October 31), the “new” Sweden has an Islamist-flavored government that includes tax-evaders, illegal immigrants, clairvoyants and people convicted of terrorism.
The new finance minister, Magdalena Andersson, might be an exception. She says: “[We have inherited] particularly poor figures for public-sector spending and national savings.... It isn’t exactly a laden table we’ve come to sit at – it’s scraped bare. In fact, I’m not even sure the table itself is still there.”
The new foreign minister, Margot Wallström, counters: “Over the next five-year period, foreign aid to Palestine will increase from today’s 500 million kronor to 1.5 billion kronor – over and above the other forms of humanitarian aid we continue to provide.”
It is easy to deride such rank amateurism, such in-your-face incompetence at the very highest level, such obsession with “Palestine” at the expense of the country one is elected to serve. We are, after all, talking about bleeding dry the finances of the peaceful, sovereign state in order to nurture the vicious, jihadist state of “Palestine.”
The foreign minister, whose only policy statement since taking office has been to recognize “Palestine,” announces a decision to treble donations by further draining the pensions of Swedes who have worked hard all their lives. In any other country this would lead to open revolution. But not in Sweden, where the populace goes like lambs to the slaughter.
ILYA MEYER
Västra Frölunda, Sweden
The writer is deputy chairman of the western branch of the Sweden- Israel Friendship Association
A reminder
 Sir, – Concerning your October 22 article “Jordan’s Abdullah compares ISIS to ‘Zionist extremism’”), we should remind the Jordanians that for the first 19 years of our statehood they controlled Jerusalem.
During that time, not only couldn’t Jews pray or even visit their holy places, but the Jordanians destroyed all of our synagogues and vandalized our cemeteries.
I think we also need a reminder.
YOEL TAMARI
Tel Mond
Naughty, naughty!
Sir, – Reuven Rivlin, our new president, sol sein gezint un shtark, has many admirable qualities, but in his new domain he still has something to learn.
Greer Fay Cashman reports (“Poles and Jews – a symbiotic relationship” Grapevine, October 31) that Rivlin finished his address to the Polish president at the opening of the Polin Museum in Warsaw with the throwaway comment concerning the eating of pork, an extremely popular meat in Poland: “How do you know that you’re not hurting the pig when you slaughter it?” In these days of rampant anti-Semitism in Europe, both covert and overt, why fan the flames of the anti-shechita (Jewish ritual slaughter) lobbies across the continent? Naughty, naughty, Reuven!
STANLEY COHEN
Jerusalem