An urgent necessity

Judaism views superstition and the invoking of miracles with grave suspicion, if not outright hostility. Viewed in this light, the recent antics of Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel and his Haredi allies in arranging a mass “pray-in” at the Western Wall to end the drought (“Four dry years,” December 29) seems like desecration.

For most of us, it was simply a joke, if not a sign of insanity. Yet sadly, each religious fanatic tries to outdo his neighbor with ever more extreme and ridiculous demonstrations of the bizarre. This would be amusing, but so much of the Israeli world is caught up in its weird fantasies and religious coercion, whether it’s inflicting on us the dislocation of vital civil engineering work on busy workdays, the “minimarket law,” avoidance of civil duty, self-inflicted poverty and ignorance or the ongoing trampling of human and religious rights that characterize modern Israel.

We have become the laughing stock of the world, as well as its target. None of this has anything to do with Jewish heritage or the sanctity of Shabbat – simply the political games played out by a cruel, cynical and corrupt religious establishment.

Separating religion from state used to be a desirable aim for a modern country. It has now become an urgent necessity. ANTHONY and JUDITH LUDER Rosh Pina