In good faith
Regarding “Respect for Religion” (Editorial, June 3), the late, great Bernard Levin once said that he should be protected from “single-issue fanatics” and in the matter of Assistant Professor Pnina Peri, who disgraced herself by her obnoxious behavior toward a Chabad rabbi and a member of the public putting on tefillin in Ben Gurion Airport, I am reminded of the lady professor in a lift/elevator recently, who became so offended by a senior British professor who uttered the time-honored words “ladies’ underwear” as the lift moved between floors that she reported the man to his London University board of management with a request that he be dismissed.
What these two women [I won’t say ladies since that implies a degree of gentility] share is a complete immersion in their own field of academe to the exclusion of all else and which glorifies political correctness and simultaneously creates a climate in which men can do no right and women no wrong – a symptom of the sickness which political correctness has engendered over the past two generations.
For my own part, I am willing to forgive Peri for her outburst, citing the strong possibility of over-indulgence in alcoholic beverages on her flight or in preparation for it. STANLEY COHEN Jerusalem
I was happy to see an editorial on respect for religion that cited 1) the video of a woman harassing a Chabad rabbi who was putting tefillin on someone in an airport and 2) a satirical TV show where an actor impersonating Naftali Bennett is shown wearing tefillin on his head in a shocking manner.
The reference to the Pew research that showed that secular Israelis are more uncomfortable with their children marrying a haredi Jew than a Christian is alarming and, as pointed out in your editorial, this division between Jews is not acceptable.
However, I would like to point out that the JPost editorials often fuel this division, as do the many news articles that report on religious issues while never interviewing a haredi Jew to get their side of the story and never reporting on the many acts of kindness and volunteerism done by the ultra-Orthodox community for their fellow Israelis.
Editorials that blame the chief rabbis for every controversy, with never an interview or op-ed by the rabbis themselves, along with one-sided opinions bashing haredim can only keep the division alive and well. LEAH URSO
Modi’in
Respect for religion needs to be earned, as we learn, inter alia, in Pirkei Avot, that people who are respected are those who respect people. Religious who men demand that women move to the back of a bus; beat up religious soldiers in a uniform they themselves refuse to wear in defense of their country; and live on government payouts instead of earning a living while badmouthing that same country don’t deserve respect.
If they claim that this behavior is based on the Torah, they are committing blasphemy and earn contempt. Until the haredim in the country behave according to the real, wonderful social and moral principles of the Torah – like practicing justice, brotherly love and the pursuit of peace – they will only reap what thy sow: alienation from our beautiful religion, the basis of much of human civilization. URI THEMAL Kiryat Tivon