Letters/Discussion Forums
It’s appropriate that Jews stand together
Geoff Sifrin in his Taking Issue column in last week’s Jewish Report headed his article on Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the US Congress, by way of a question: “In whose Jewish name does Bibi speak?”
Maurice Skikne
Within his column Sifrin made the points that Netanyahu:
- might be seen as the Jewish Churchill, voicing his fears of an Iranian nuclear threat to Israel and the world in general.
- some Jews do not march in lockstep, and he mentions the Jewish “Not in My Name”
campaigns.
- Ronnie Kasrils, right here in SA, expressed a similar sentiment. Does he purport to be a Jew? I rather think not.
- some 500 “Proudly Jewish” persons including prominent ones, denounced Israeli actions against Gaza in 2014. Do they regard themselves as above us “common Jews?”
As Netanyahu representing Israel is effectively the only Jewish voice to stand up and speak at Congress, one reckons that he does speak for us- Am Yisrael! Who else has had the guts to do so? Did not Churchill do so similarly during the Second World War and did the British people “Not in my name” him?
I have studied Churchill fairly thoroughly and cannot find evidence, when England had its back to the wall, that there were very many dissenters. So why do some of our own Jews always have to oppose leaders of Netanyahu’s ilk? Do they suffer from a “I know better than you” syndrome?
Since the Second World War, Judaism is facing the threat of another Shoah. In the light of history of some 80 years ago, it is appropriate that we stand together. May Hashem protect us.
Maurice Skikne
Johannesburg
Rube Bark
March 15, 2015 at 9:48 am
‘I am a 88yearS old and I am not a ritual Jew but this does not detract from what i want to believe in being a passionate Jew and my question is as follows on the circumstances of the history of our planet which is about 4.5 billion years. The question which is time worn is evolution can provide evidence of of how humanity evolved through natural selection versus the old testament in beliefs of a supreme being. I have great difficulty in understanding at best that every even like major earthquakes, floods are Gds will, The life of a planet forming through millions of years long before any beliefs existed and no actual evidence by religious means can be proved leaves more questions than answers from tracts of passages written by humans, maybe at best 10,000 years back. I don’t wish to philophsize, but science can prove the known and creation is a human belief, which could be a wish rather than fact or based on fear.’