Letters, March 2018 | Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle

Letters, March 2018

 

To the editor:

Whew! Tell us how you really feel! Even for a guy like me who is sometimes slow on the upload, it is readily apparent that Mr. Zak Mazur (commentary in February issue, page 27) does not like President Trump.  Rather than discuss feelings, perhaps a review of the facts surrounding President Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem will be helpful.

Mr. Mazur states that, “had any previous U.S. president officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, he would have wholeheartedly supported it.”  The law requiring relocation of the embassy to Jerusalem was passed, without a presidential (Bill Clinton) signature I might add, on Nov. 8, 1995. After promising to move the embassy, President Clinton had eight chances to make the move but signed the waiver each time.

Presidents Bush and Obama both made promises as well, both had 16 chances to make the move, but both signed the waiver each time. President Trump had two chances. He signed the waiver on the first chance and acted on the second.

Rather than “all talk,” he finally made the move as promised.

Furthermore, Mr. Mazur states that “Trump merely articulated what the world already knows: Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.” Oh, really? On Dec. 21 of last year,128 members of the U.N. voted in favor of a resolution condemning the move of the embassy to Jerusalem and 35 abstained. Shamefully, only 9 voted against the resolution.

It seems that almost 95 percent of the world does not know that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. Whether someone may or may not be a fan of the President is irrelevant. What matters is that a president of the U.S. finally did what was right and long overdue and I will give credit where credit is due. Thank you President Trump for keeping your promise.

Rich Hacker

Mukwonago

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To the editor:

I am a Jew, a dual American-Israeli citizen and a former Milwaukean. After following this story not only in the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle but also in the Israeli press I was deeply disillusioned. Think of the German Jews in 1938 lining up in front of every consulate desperately trying to get visas anywhere that would take them. Think of the Nazi racial concept of a pure Aryan state, a state rid of every Jewish person or person of partial Jewish origin. The Torah repeats 36 times the commandment to remember the stranger for we were strangers in Egypt. And now we see Israel behaving like an Eastern European country regarding the immigrants fleeing the misery in their home countries.

I also noticed that (this is an assumption) all of the rabbis who signed this statement are Reform or religiously liberal. Not an Orthodox rabbi among them. Heval. With this sad outcome of the Sudanese and Eritrean refugees, combined with the 50-year occupation over another people, Zionism is challenged as never before. How can Israel be both a Jewish state, which we are proud of, and a democracy for all its citizens? This is a dilemma which has not been solved and under the religious right controlling the government, the future is very ominous for us as a people termed: Or l’ goyim, a goy Kadosh if we witness these deportations and remain silent.

Yaakov Sullivan

Newburgh, New York

Editor’s note: Most of our content runs in print before it appears online, out of deference to our valued advertisers. We made an exception and ran “Local rabbis: Israel should ‘shelter the powerless’” (p. 58) on our website before this edition was printed, at the rabbis’ request. This letter is in response.