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Kerry’s Pressure

Secretary of State Kerry is pressing Israel to accept the two-state surrender solution. However, Mr. Kerry surely knows that two states for two people effectively existed from 1949 to 1967. The Arabs had total sovereignty over every inch of East Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and the Golan. Instead of peacefully living side by side with Israel, they launched hundreds of murderous attacks against innocent Israelis.

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Kerry also knows that presently a twenty-two state solution exists: 21 Arab states surrounding one tiny Jewish state. Despite such a disproportionate situation the Arabs refuse to live in peace with Israel. So to pilfer Israel’s heartland to create yet another Arab state is insane.

Rather, Kerry should proffer Israel the option of becoming an American protectorate, or the 51st state. Such a pact would leave the Arabs scant alternatives but to finally halt their belligerence.

Henry J. Moscovic
Flushing, NY

Pushing Girls To Marry Non-Earners (I)

Re Ari Lapin’s “What Were We Thinking?” (op-ed, Jan. 17):

I think schools that discourage boys from seeking a profession and encourage girls to marry non-working boys are doing a terrible disservice to these young people. What happens if they have special-needs children, and the mother can’t continue working, or if she herself gets sick or has childbirth complications?

I don’t understand how any self-respecting young man can sit and learn all day while his wife works and then comes home to a full-time job there as well. Who is taking care of the kids?

Bonnie Gleicher Farkas
Montreal, Canada

Pushing Girls To Marry Non-Earners (II)

Some words from the Rambam on Pirkei Avot:

Anyone who decides to be engaged in Torah [study] and not to work, and will be supported by tzedakah – this person desecrates God’s name, degrades the Torah, extinguishes the light of our faith, brings evil upon himself and forfeits life in olam haba since it is forbidden to derive benefit from the words of Torah in this world. (Avot 4:5)

They further commanded and said (Avot 4:5): Do not make them [the words of Torah] a crown to magnify yourself or an axe with which to chop.

They further commanded, saying (Avot 1:10): Love work and despise positions of power.

And (Avot 2:2): Any Torah not accompanied by work will eventually be nullified and lead to sin.

Mindy Schaper
Memphis, TN

Remembering Ariel Sharon

I had the opportunity to be with Ariel Sharon on two occasions. The first was at an Israel Bonds rabbinic cabinet mission to Israel in January 1992 and the other as part of a United Jewish Communities National Mission a decade later. In the first instance he was minister of housing and I asked him a question about the settlement blocs. His response was to immediately instruct one of his assistants to provide all of us with maps to better illustrate the answer he was about to give. This was typical Sharon. As a military strategist he lived his life in large measure according to his maps. He always traveled with multiple sets, especially when speaking to the press or visiting delegations like ours.

On the second occasion he was prime minister and addressed a special session of the mission participants at Kiryat Moriah, the educational compound of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem. When I asked on that occasion what message he would like us to take back to our children in the United States, his immediate and seemingly natural response was: “Tell them to study the Bible.”

Ariel Sharon’s life very much reflected the confluence of our Land and our Lore – on the one hand he dispensing maps and on the other he encouraging the study of Tanach.

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