Three weeks ago in the "letters to the editor" column of the English Yated, a reader spewed hatred and venom against the State of Israel and its founders!
Two week ago a reader refuted the anti-Zionist garbage the initial writer wrote.
Last week the Yated chose to print a bunch of hateful letters backing the initial writer who bad mouthed the Zionist founders of Israel!
Here, read this week's response from two different readers!
Letter #1
Dear Editor
Two weeks ago, the Yated printed a letter to the editor purporting that Jews lived peacefully with the Arabs until the advent of Zionism, and that Zionists colluded with the Nazis to kill Jews during the Holocaust. I found this letter's message horrifying.
In my naivete, I sent a letter, which your paper titled "Indoctrination." My goal was to try to refute the hate-filled canards of the first author. I tried to show that, historically, the Arabs always oppressed the Jews. I also hoped that anti-Zionist readers might be encouraged to examine their anti-Zionist beliefs with which they may have been indoctrinated from early childhood. The unfortunate result of these beliefs is mindless hatred, sinas chinam, of wonderful Jews, and hatred of Israel.
I was horrified to open the paper this past week and find that you gave a public forum to more letters filled with hatred that would gladden the heart of any anti-Semite.
These letters disillusioned me totally of my naive belief that underneath, all Torah Jews love on another. I always suspected that many streams of Jews were indoctrinating and infecting their children with hatred against other Jews. These letters brought the "machalah" the cancer of deep hatred, out into the open in great detail. These horrific letters shattered any illusions that this illness was not so profound and pervasive as it seems to be.
The entire Jewish nation is now under siege. Jews from every stream of Jewish life are being brutally murdered in Eretz Yisroel daily. The entire world is boycotting us economically, and anti-Semitism is rampant and spreading.
Eis tzzarah hee l'Yaakov
We are fortunate to have Gedolim, Ashkenazic and Sefardic, Yeshivish, Chareidie, Chassidish and Zionist.
Gedoilim are teaching Am Yisroel to collectively work on the middah of achdus, and ahavas yisroel.
From past experiences with anti-Zionist and anti-Israel articles in the press, I am certain that if you showed Rav Chaim Kanievsky, or Rav Ahron Leib Shteinman the letters you published this week, they would pasken not to publish such letters, because they only result of reading them is to stir up hatred against
Jews.
Especially during the great eis tzarah in which we find ourselves today, the way to awaken Hashem's rachamim towards Am Yisroel is to show Him that we love and care for one another.
My father z"l was a survivor of Warsaw. He used to tell me how some Jews went to the boxcars still arguing with each other about socialism, Zionism and whatever beliefs they had. The enemy did not care who they were. They were all slated for annihilation.
Yidden, isn't it time to learn something?
A Reader
Yerushalyim
Letter #2
Dear Editor,
Your 8 Kislev/November 20 Readers Write column contained two lengthy letters severely castigating the approach of certain Zionist leaders during World War II, including the following representative statement:
"It is actually well-documented that the Zionist leaders were at best indifferent and at worst actively helped move along the destruction of European Jewry."
Regardless of whether or not the extreme allegations of these writers are entirely true, partially true, or misleading, the very expression of these statements in your paper is incredibly distressing.
The Gemarrah Kesubos 112a clearly indicates that Eretz Yisroel is so suffused with kedusha that it is considered motzei sheim ra to say something critical even about the inanimate objects of Eretz Yisroel (the condition of the roads, in the Gemarrah's example).
I would think that this principle would be so much truer in the case of slander of the people of Eretz Yisroel. What to'eles could there possibly be that would justify in any way the scurrilous statements made by these two letter writers?
At a time when it seems that the entire world is against us and our brethren are being brutally murdered on almost a daily basis, are these letters the method by which those readers hope to gain the sympathy and rachamin of Hakodosh Borch Hu?
It also seems a bit incredible that one of those letter writers admits to having spent several hours gathering facts for his letter and encourages others to do the same in order to verify his allegations.
Does this letter writer believe that those few hours, with no apparent purpose other than digging up dirt, were well-spent, when he could have used that time to be engaged in Torah learning, performing chessed, or davening heartfelt tefillos on behalf of our besieged brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisroel?
Could these letter writers conceivably be motivated by a bizarre belief that the current prime minister of Israel and his cabinet are willing to callously sacrifice Jewish lives in order to promote their political agenda?
If not, then why dredge up, almost gleefully it seems from the tone of the letters, what allegedly happened over 70 years ago?
As we all know, in an extreme manifestation of the severe and lasting damage lashan hara about Eretz Yisroel can cause, the slanderous statements of the meraglim managed to turn an ordinary day into Tisha B'Av for the ages. At a time when our main task should be to turn Tisha B'Av on its head into a day of geula, is it really productive to spend one's time and energy digging up old dirt and publicizing it?
Let us hope that future letters will reflect the achdus we so desperately need that such letters will lead us in a constructive direction, rather than fostering resentment and divisiveness for no conceivable good reason.
Respectfully
Thomas Furst
Great Neck, NY
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