Galus-Minded Politicking
Perhaps Rabbis Broyde and Rothstein (“A Mitzvah Like Maror,” September 27) should focus on another mitzvah of Pesach: geulah. The fact remains that President Trump was the first president to recognize Jerusalem as our eternal capital and did everything in his power to bring us peace in the entire region. Continuing to increase a false narrative and proliferating liberal talking points will keep us all enslaved.
Yoni Greenberg
Via E-mail
A Poison Pill
Rabbis Broyde and Rothstein sound an alarm that Jews who are deciding to vote for Trump should be acutely aware that Trump is far from an ideal candidate. Rabbis Broyde and Rothstein particularly emphasize Trump’s actions following his loss to President Biden in the 2020 election, culminating in the riot at the Capital on January 6, 2021. Essentially, they suggest voting for Trump is akin to swallowing a bitter pill. To a certain extent, I concur with their views. However, our Sages would never advise us to swallow a poison pill.
I submit that voting for Harris and Walz is antithetical to both Jewish and American values, which overlap. It appears that the Democratic Left has been partially successful in assuming a monopoly as the guardians of “our democracy.” Yet their posture as defenders of democracy is belied by their actions. For example, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, testified that the Biden-Harris administration successfully pressured Facebook “to censor certain Covid-19 content, including humor and satire.” The Biden-Harris administration has successfully carried out digital censorship. In 2022, the Biden-Harris administration announced the formation of the Disinformation Governance Board, dubbed by The Wall Street Journal and others a “Ministry of Truth.” Although DHS shut down that board in response to the intense backlash, I see no reason to be confident that such a “disinformation board” would not be reinstated under a Harris administration.
Recently, Judge Alexandre de Moraes in Brazil banned X (formerly Twitter) in Brazil, leaving 20 million Brazilians disconnected from X. It is very instructive to note that despite such targeting of an American company by a foreign entity, Biden and Harris, both of whom have a deep disdain for Elon Musk, owner of X, expressed no criticism of such action.
Let no one be unaware that if she becomes the president, Harris would try to force Israel to accept a two-state solution and would withhold the sale of weapons to Israel over its failure to bend to the dictates of a Harris administration. A bitter pill, if that’s what Trump represents, we can swallow and survive. A poison pill, which I believe Harris represents, is a threat to the survival of democracy in America and a threat to Israel’s ability to defend itself.
Dr. Robert Semel
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Twisting The Truth
The article by Rabbis Broyde and Rothstein reads like the fake mainstream media anti-Trump propaganda of the last eight years. Particularly egregious is the claim that Trump is a threat to democracy. He already was president for four years and there isn’t even a hint of that; in fact he was subjected to false impeachment charges to oust him. The Democrats, media, and Big Tech censorship leading up to and including the 2020 election proved themselves to be the actual threats to democracy.
It’s ironic that they quote Dick Cheney, who lied about WMD in Iraq, started a war because of it, and cost this country billions of dollars and thousands of lives.
Trump was a great president for the U.S. and for Israel. He bankrupted Iran, defunded UNRWA, recognized the Golan Heights as part of Israel, recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, closed the PA office in D.C. – and Biden/Harris undid all of it. I am proudly and enthusiastically voting for the Trump/Vance ticket and praying for a clean landslide victory.
Sam Lindauer
Queens, N.Y.
Heed Amb. Friedman’s Message
Kudos to The Jewish Press for its front page article highlighting Ambassador David Friedman’s new book, One Jewish State, and for the launching of his movement “to kill the two-state solution” (September 27, 2024). His book is described as offering ideas which recognize the Jewish Biblical claims to the land as well as the imperative for Jewish sovereignty.
In the concluding words of the Torah in Parshat Ekev, Hashem details once again the borders of Eretz Yisrael: “Every place whereon the sole of your foot shall tread shall be yours; from the wilderness, and Lebanon, from the river Euphrates, even unto the hinder sea shall be your border.”
How many times have we heard Jewish leaders and followers lament, “If we only had transferred the Arabs out after the 1967 miracle victory…” “If only we had retained religious authority over the Temple Mount after Rabbi Shlomo Goren famously proclaimed ‘Har HaBayit Beyadenu’…” “If only we had annexed Judea and Samaria in 1967…”
Well, we did indeed annex Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, and Jaffa, Beersheva, and Sefad. Now these areas are settled and inhabited by Jews. How do we distinguish which parts of Eretz Yisrael are “holy enough” to liberate and settle and which areas we are “supposed to” give away to the terrorists or even to “peaceful” non-Jews? Aren’t such decisions akin to a Jew picking and choosing which mitzvot to observe, or deciding which “branch” of Judaism fits his lifestyle?
Members of Knesset Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich along with former MK Moshe Feiglin all have ideas for the future of Gaza. Their thoughts, along with Ambassador Friedman’s touting of a One Jewish State solution, need to be unpacked and discussed. It is essential that the Jewish media continue to report and encourage constructive conversation concerning the future of Gaza and Lebanon, Judea and Samaria – those parts of the Holy Land which have cost much Jewish blood in the continuing process of liberating and re-liberating the land, but never finally annexing and settling it.
David Ferster
Great Neck, N.Y.
