Painting Israel into a Corner
As many of us feared, the Iran Deal has become more and more problematic for Israel on many fronts. President Obama has stated that “the whole world” favors this deal, and only Israel is in opposition. (Whether this is true or not doesn’t really matter. If President Obama repeats it often enough it becomes “true” in the media and in public perception).
A recent article in New York’s Jewish Week quoted an elderly man who said that lately he wakes up in the middle of the night “feeling terrible, depressed—I’ve never felt this bad.” This man had been a major financial supporter of his synagogue for many years.
He had attended daily services, was active on the Board, and played a key role in many synagogue activities. Now, at age 90, he is bitterly depressed. He didn’t pray at his synagogue on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, but attended a “break-away” congregation.
A story is told of an incident on a bus in Jerusalem. A pretty young lady got on the bus and sat down in a vacant seat next to a Hareidi rabbi. The rabbi arose in a huff and walked quickly away from the woman. At the next stop, a Sephardic rabbi got on the bus. Seeing the empty seat next to the young lady, he sat down. The young lady was perplexed. She asked the rabbi sitting next to her: “When I sat down next to a Hareidi rabbi, he got up and stomped away from me. But you’re also a religious man, and yet you sat down next to me. How do you explain this?” The Sephardic rabbi replied: “That Hareidi is a rabbi. I am a Hakham!”
(Pinchas Landau is an economist and writer, living in Jerusalem.)
Shalom, and welcome to our new blog. I hope to use this blog to share my thinking on a variety of topics, and to elicit your responses, comments, questions.
