Rosenbloom’s Stand Is Inspiring
Yasher koach to Rabbi Seymour Rosenbloom (“Rabbinical Assembly Expels Retired Local Rabbi for Performing Interfaith Weddings,” Dec. 22). His insight about officiating at interfaith weddings is completely on point.
Rabbi Rosenbloom has shown strength of character and commitment to his values by his willingness to officiate at the risk of being expelled by the Rabbinical Assembly. It gives me hope that more Conservative rabbis will be willing to do the same.
While I understand the halachic reasons for rabbis to not be permitted to officiate at interfaith weddings, in today’s world it is an unsustainable model for the Conservative movement. Judaism is fluid. Not that many years ago Conservative rabbis were not permitted to officiate at gay weddings. Somehow, the halachic tradition has evolved to allow that as long as both partners are Jewish.
Interfaith couples committing to a Jewish household and to raising their children as Jews should have their union blessed from the chuppah.
Shelby Simmons | Devon
Nothing Impressive About Chabon’s Work
In the panegyric published about the author Michael Chabon, both the anti-Semitic content and message of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is totally ignored (“Philadelphia Author Unwittingly Assists Michael Chabon With New Novel,” Dec. 22). In this novel, an isolated Jewish community in Alaska appears powerless, but this conceals a powerful cabal plotting malignant manipulation of the United States into a bloody war with a totally pacific and peaceable Muslim world. The conspiracy is foiled by a Jewish policeman who realizes the anti-human qualities of Judaic practice and Jewish loyalty, and exposes these “elders of Zion.”
Nor is Chabon’s book the only anti-Semitic novel. Twelve Days, by Alex Berenson, posits a Jewish plot to drag the United States into war, while Stephen Berry’s The Alexandria Link claims that all alleged Jewish ties to the Land of Israel are mythical falsehoods, as well as invoking a cabal, “The Chairs,” headed by a deformed Jew.
The literary climate is ominous, and it is the duty of Jewish journalism to properly assess the danger.
Nahum J. Duker | Melrose Park
Nothing Mysterious Obama Israel Policy
In your editorial last week, you wrote that there seems to be no “better explanation” for President Obama’s decision to have Ambassador Samantha Power abstain on U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 — which endangers Israelis and Jews everywhere — other than a “personal animosity toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu” [“Obama Abstains on Israel,” Dec. 29].
Here are other possibilities: He sat in the pews of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Chicago church for some 20 years, hearing vicious anti-Israel sermons and reading reprints of Hezbollah literature. Or it could have been that he was raised in a Muslim environment and attended Muslim schools in Indonesia. Or it could have been his friendship with Palestinian News Service official Rashid Khalidi.
Of course, it could be all of the above, because no matter who the prime minister of Israel would have been during Obama’s presidency, his associations all lead toward a hostility to Israel, and by extension, the Jewish people.
Edward A. Rosen | Warrington
