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Letters to the Editor

This category contains 3 posts

Encouraging Dialogue

I find Bob Goldfarb’s response to the April Sh’ma — “What does it mean to be a loyal Jew?” — astonishing, especially in its contention that at the heart of the issue are “generic urgings to promote debate” for its own sake.  The people he knows “aren’t preoccupied with dissent” but rather “exemplify loyalty to their [...]

Correction from Maya Bernstein

The opening sentence of my essay in the February Sh’ma, which states that it is 80% more likely that Bay Area Jews will create a Bar or Bat Mitzvah ritual themselves than celebrate it at a synagogue, is NOT factually accurate. I was quoting the well-known 2004 population study which claims that 80% of Jews [...]

The Fading Faith of a Jewish Moral Exceptionalist Sh’ma 40/664 November 2009/Cheshvan 5770

Dear editor:
I strongly disagree with David N. Myers’ view of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. Its report is simply another example of the U.N.’s anti- Israel bias.  Several members of Goldstone’s “impartial” panel issued denunciations of Israel before investigations had begun; the commission willingly accepted testimony from Palestinian “eyewitnesses.” (Such testimony has [...]

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UPCOMING NEXT MONTH: Counting Jews

  • Ruth Gavison on trends in Israeli demographics
  • Ted Sasson on the significance of a growing Orthodoxy
  • Ruhama Weiss on the advantages of not knowing how many we are
  • Noam Pianko on notions of joining the "people" rather than the religion
  • Roundtable on asking good questions
  • Richard Hirsh on Sephirat Ha-Omer
  • Len Saxe on the relationship between changing population size and communal resources