Readers letters: 15/10/2014
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Readers letters: 15/10/2014

By Justin Cohen October 15, 2014, 1:30 pm Edit

Justin Cohen is the News Editor at the Jewish News

Our weekly Readers’ Letters page, now published online and in print.

Wish you all well over the fast!
Wish you all well over the fast!

If you want to contribute to the readers’ letters, the postal address is PO Box 34296, London NW5 1YW •

The email contact: letters@thejngroup.com.

  • Sacks morasha is also very special
Dear Sir,
We enjoyed reading your article about what makes certain Jewish primary schools special (Education: A Primary Concern, Jewish News, 2 October).
As headteacher and members of the senior leadership team at Sacks Morasha JPS, a thriving voluntary-aided single form entry school in North Finchley, we aim to provide our children with a strong academic background in both secular and Kodesh studies.
We were recently awarded a ‘Good‘ judgement from Ofsted with ‘Outstanding’ leadership and behaviour. We strive to make lessons fun and enjoyable, ensuring that children make good progress year on year. We aim for our children to be proud and foster a deep understanding of their Jewish text, culture and values, learning a love for Judaism while also embracing the customs and traditions that make Judaism so unique and special. It is also of utmost importance to us that we teach our children about our British heritage, and to respect and understand other faiths and cultures, too.
We are a close-knit community school where children are nurtured and treated as individuals. Lessons are all differentiated to ensure all children have equal opportunities for learning through an integrated curriculum.
Parental support and involvement in the school is welcomed and encouraged. As we are a new school (we’ve only been in existence for seven years) we are less well-known than our counterparts, but wanted your readers to learn how special a school we are.
Hayley Gross, Miriam Kaye, Justin Kett and Tamar Cohen
N12
  • Death camps were German, not polish
Dear Sir,
Your online article on why, as Jews, we should stand up for Roma rights, was spoilt by inaccuracy and remarkable omissions.
About halfway through the article, there were the following sentences: “Across Poland, Gypsies were relocated to Jewish quarters, including the Lódź and Warsaw ghettos. In Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Treblinka, and other Polish camps, gypsies shared the unspeakable fate of Jews.”
This is inaccurate and misleading.
The sentences would be more truthful as: “Across German-occupied Poland, Gypsies were relocated to Jewish quarters, including the Lódź and Warsaw ghettos. In Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Treblinka, and other Nazi German camps, gypsies shared the unspeakable fate of Jews.”
There were no Polish camps. It is harmful and offensive to describe these places as such. The concentration/death camps were created by Nazi Germany during the Nazi German occupation of Poland. Your reviewer also avoids the use of the word ‘German’ despite the irrefutable fact that the Nazis were German; ‘Nazi’ apparently now being the politically correct term for the heinous regime and genocidal activities.
The important distinction is that ‘Nazi’ was a party and ideology but it was Germany, as a state, that invaded, brutalised and committed massive atrocities, including mass murders, in many other territories. Poland was not occupied by Nazis; it was occupied by Germany.
Occupation was an act of the state, not the Nazi party. Why are these errors made and the second biggest category of Holocaust victims in German Nazi camps always forgotten?
Chris Jezewski
By email
  • Bibi does have a wide support base
Dear Sir,
Letter writer Mark Berg’s advice to Benjamin Netanyahu, from a so-called supporter of Israel, was way off the mark (Jewish News, 2 October).
He seems to suggest that if another conflict were to break out with Hamas, Israel would not receive the same support it received from many democratic states, as well as the silence of most of the Arab world and the vast majority of world Jewry.
I beg to differ.
I believe that since the last conflict, much of the world is seeing Hamas in the same light as ISIS, now that Islamist extremism is threatening them. He bases his criticism on the decision by the Israeli government to build the much-needed housing in Gush Etzion.
He calls this area appropriated Palestinian land, which it is not. Gush Etzion was always regarded as being incorporated into Israel in a peace deal and one third of the homes will be for Arabs. He may not be aware that all of Judea and Samaria was part of the territory designated for the Jewish state.
How can he say it was appropriated? It was the Arabs who appropriated the area when they invaded Israel. Mr Berg seems to have missed this fact. He also seems to imply Jews should not live in this area. I would ask, why not? Jews should be able to live anywhere and it is racist to suggest otherwise. Many Arab states do not allow Jews to reside in their countries and Abbas has stated that in the event he gets a state, he would not allow even one Jew to live in it.
Mr Berg recommends Mr Netanyahu makes a peace deal with Abbas, but neglects to say how this can be achieved and if he’d give the same advice to the PLO.
Uri Rabin
Redbridge

 

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