STILL PERSECUTED

Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz in his latest parasha column (“Promise and hope,” November 16) tells us of the life of Jacob, the third Patriarch. Jacob, we are told, symbolizes the nation in exile, where the Jewish people were poor, persecuted, humiliated and demeaned, something hard to grasp in our democratic and egalitarian world.

Sadly, not a lot has changed since then, as the Jewish people are still poor – one in five families living under the poverty line; still persecuted in the Jewish land, often by their own leaders. Humiliated and demeaned at their holiest site, the Temple Mount, where the Muslim flag flies instead of the Magen David with the consent of the prime minister of the sovereign State of Israel, with not a peep out of the rabbi of the Western Wall and holy sites.

Yes, we all survived with “the promise” that we would return to the land. The rabbi states, “How symbolic it is that the promise given to Jacob was given at the site where later the Temple would be built, the Temple Mount – the site where great hope flourished that filled the hearts of Jews in exile. This is the site to which, until today, we look towards with anticipation of the rebuilding of the Temple.”

So many words, so much talk, yet even though God brought us out of exile and into the Promised Land, we have surrendered His land and holy sites to our enemies, even as they kill us and destroy our land – enemies that he commanded us to destroy, not support, as is happening until this day.

EDITH OGNALL Netanya