Reader's Comment Letter Chava G.

Hillel -

This blog may be one of the most important things you can do...but it is only the beginning. The Israeli elites and their media have their ways of marginalizing people they don't like - just look at how they marginalize the Sefaradim WITHIN the "Green Line" - Shderot being the prime example! And we haven't even gotten to the development towns, badly neglected, where Sefaradim live. How about Kiryat Moshe, Rehovot, and other places where Ethiopian Jews live in squalor and face discrimination?

If you want to stop the demarginalization of YESHA Jews and these others, you will have to follow the WIIFM rule: What's In It For Me?

What, indeed, is in it for Tel Aviv and its sister cities to remember the humanity of people like you and me? I am afraid they don't know, and no one among us has successfully told them. They feel we (dati, Sefaradi, Etiopi, yeshuvi, Yerushalmim) are their worst enemies. That's right: worse than the Arabs. They are afraid and ashamed because when they look in the mirror every day, a davening guy with a beard and peyot or a gal with a headcovering and covered body, pregnant and with 6 little children trailing behind her, might stare out at them. This scares them out of their collective mind!

They might not want to hear it, but here are some suggestions:

*Deflecting enemy fire from yourselves to "expendable populations" within the country only brings it closer to you. You will see this for yourselves, possibly before the fall of Shderot (chas v'shalom).
*We are your real people. The Americans and Europeans you emulate are not. Wishing otherwise doesn't make it so. Too bad for you (NOT).
*Whether you remain in the Land or escape ala Avraham Burg (with a foreign passport and citizenship), we will remain.
*The land under our mutual feet has rules and abides by them - and so do we, your brothers. We, the Jewish people, have found out the hard way that if you don't, eventually the land will spew you out. Why make it harder for yourselves?
*By way of corrollary, making life hard for us automatically makes life harder for you as well. Do you really want us, some half a million strong, on your streets begging for your sustenance and for someplace to stay - or worse? You are having a hard enough time dealing with the fallout of the 2005 expulsion edict; the country is nearly bankrupt from it and there is even less food supply now that Aza farms no longer operate. Do you really want worse? We will be the ghosts that haunt you, forever if necessary.
*Consider this alternative: if you really believe that this land is Arab land and doesn't belong to the Jews, you yourselves should move out and let them move in to your nice expensive houses and apartments! Don't force others do what you believe in - do it yourselves! Lead the way - using the famous IDF rallying cry, Acharai!

They have some scary qualities of their own, as indicated above. The way they dress and live their lives resembles the more decadent parts of the US and Europe than anything that belongs here in the Middle East. The despicable way they treat their fellow Jews -- by denying the relationship, they feel they can do whatever they want -- even the goyim don't do that to their own. Their lack of politeness leaves a lot to be desired (as opposed to my neighborhood and yours, where people are very nice). Who was it that said we must greet everyone with a pleasant face every day? Isn't that in the Pirkei Avot - at the very least?

I have to do shiurei-bayit now - lots of it. Keep writing - I look forward to reading and I have bookmarked the site! One little problem: I couldn't respond right on the site because I don't have a GOOGLE account.

Chava G.