aJonathan Tobin’s defense of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (“How A Netanyahu-less Israel Might Play Here,” Sept. 27) swerves into a critique of young American Jews, their assimilation and their disdain of an Israeli consensus of current (Netanyahu) policies. He is wrong on all fronts.
Netanyahu does not represent a consensus of Israeli thought; instead he represents a desperate coalition that gives the ultra-Orthodox an outsized influence. Surely Tobin knows that a majority of Israelis are secular.
It is not our assimilated youth who have their bar and bat mitzvahs, go on Birthright tours, intermarry and retain their Jewish identity (visit our Reform temple) who threaten Israel’s long-term future. But it is charedim, who do not serve in the army, whose men do not work, who drain the treasury for housing, education and family subsidies even while denying the legitimacy of the State of Israel.
They and the Palestinians are the fastest growing segment of the Israeli population and whose numbers will put greater pressure for space and natural resources on a country with little of either. Without a greater effort in a two-state solution, Israeli Jews will lose the breeding war and total chaos will ensue. Perhaps it is Tobin who might “address Israel in a more rational manner.”
Kent, N.Y.
The New York Jewish Week brings you the stories behind the headlines, keeping you connected to Jewish life in New York. Help sustain the reporting you trust by donating today.
