Diaspora and Trump

In justifying Donald Trump’s travel ban on people from some Muslim states and the deliberate lack of mention of Jews in his statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day (“Diaspora Jews lose the moral plot,” As I See It, February 3,) Melanie Phillips has lost her bearings.

She justifies the travel ban as preventing terrorism. There has been no attack in the US from anyone from the banned countries since 9/11, more than 15 years ago. Yet Saudi Arabia, where the bulk of the 9/11 perpetrators came from and which continues to fund and support Islamic militants, is not on the list. President Trump’s knee-jerk reaction requires critical appraisal rather than blinkered support.

Ms. Phillips then goes on to defend the lack of Jewish mention in the White House’s statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day by bizarrely blaming the Jews, because some Holocaust museums mention other mass murders of the 20th century. Once again, the victims are blamed for what happened. Anyone visiting the major Holocaust museums can have no doubt that their central message is the attempted extermination of the Jews by the Nazis.

Would Ms. Phillips have made this defense of the White House statement if it had been issued last year by then-president Barack Obama?

In her rush to support Trump, she is moving from being an analyst and commentator to becoming an apologist and cheerleader. LESLIE WAGNER Jerusalem

I wish to point out that I am disgusted with the way British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Rabbi Mirvis and other Jewish leaders attacked US President Donald Trump’s executive order.

Religious leaders should stay out of politics. When they decide to intervene to protest religious persecution, they should at least do so in a fair and balanced manner. I don’t remember hearing from any of these people while former president Barack Obama was persecuting, all the way to the Supreme Court, the welfare organization Little Sisters of the Poor, whose members spend their lives counseling poor people who are dying and have no close relatives – the ultimate mitzva.

As Catholic sisters, these women provided their employees with the most generous health care benefits available except for two things – abortion and contraception, because these practices are against their religion. Instead of giving them a waiver, Obama simply told them that if they did not give their employees free contraception, he would fine them out of existence.

Im addition, if Rabbi Mirvis and others now wish to redeem themselves, they should at least speak out against the unfair and unjust character assassination of Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court. For taking the trouble to uphold religious liberty in a ruling upheld by that court, Democrats are now falsely yet deliberately accusing Judge Gorsuch of “favoring large companies against their poor workers.” IRWIN GUTKIN Jerusalem