One of our people at The Center recently sent this letter to the Jamaica Consulate. I believe it will prove interesting – and instructive – to our readers. Norman Lamm Dear Sirs: I think it only fair to inform you that I had planned, quite some months ago, to spend my winter vacation in Jamaica together with some of my friends. I had done so in the past, and found your country simply delightful. Jamaica is, for me, one of the most relaxing and beautiful spots on earth. Regretfully, I have changed my plans and will now spend my winter vacation elsewhere in the Caribbean. My reasoning is quite simple: I do not go where I am not wanted. And obviously I am not wanted in Jamaica. The reason for this is the vote of your government in the United Nations abstaining from the resolution equating Zionism with racism. You see, I am a Zionist. I can be little else but a Zionist, in view of the fact that my grandparents were born in Eastern Europe, and that the great majority of their family was destroyed by the Nazis. I love Israel, and I identify with her national aspirations. Now, however, the United Nations has condemned me as a racist – which, I know very well, I am not. Nevertheless, those who have officially branded me as such have no choice but to consider me, personally, a racist. Since your delegation at the United Nations abstained in this resolution, that means that you entertain serious doubts about my humanitarianism, and quite conceivably suspect that I am a racist. I – and a large number of my friends – have therefore decided that we must abstain from spending our vacations in Jamaica. We certainly do not want to foist the presence of racists upon your lovely island. I am truly sorry about this, but I have never wanted to be an unwelcome guest.Ask ChatGPT

All the Illusions are vanishing. Once we thought the world would accept Israel as deserving of nationhood no less than any other people, because of guilt over the Holocaust. Now we see that it is no linger true. The emergence of the Third World, uninvolved in the Holocaust, makes the guilt issue irrelevant for them. And the new generation in the West refuses to be held accountable for the sins of its fathers. Even Germans feel no more responsible for Nazi atrocities than Spaniards today feel for the Inquisition 500 years ago. Guilt may last forever, but guilt feelings are evanescent. Age erodes them. Israelis and American Jews projected the image of Israel as an ’outpost’ of the Western world in the Middle East. We meant well, and were proud of our technological achievements, whether in making the deserts of Israel bloom or offering much needed assistance to underdeveloped countries in Asia and Africa. Now this very fact is used as a stick to beat us. Israel is now viewed as a bridgehead of Western imperialism, as an alien, aggressive interloper which disinherited the Indigenous population.The State was righteously declared "socialist," with all the idealism and Ideology the term is meant to convey. Now Israel has become the target of all Leftist groups throughout most of the world.We piously proclaimed that Israel was "the only democracy in the Near East," and all but convinced ourselves that this is what Destiny preserved us for. Now we are dismayed to learn the bitter truth: So what? Who cares? Not even other democracies do.’ We read G-d out of the equation, and told ourselves and others that Israel was the "creation of the U.N.," and waxed rhapsodic about Israel making a reality of "the parliament of man,” and affecting a reconciliation within "the family of man." Now... All attempts to Justify our existence in the eyes of the world, by appealing to the canons of the world and ethos, have come to grief.What now?Now we must, perforce, come down (or "up") to esse…

Dear Members of The Center Family: It is difficult to exercise normal objectivity and restraint in describing the experience of Sukkot in Israel, and especially in Jerusalem. It is a time when differences in opinion and background seem to vanish, or at least mellow, and the whole country is swept up in its joyous celebration. Instead of a systematic and logical description, I shall simply offer a few disconnected vignettes in the hope that, together, they will somehow suggest the exhilaration felt by an American visitor.*Meah Shearim, the dags before Sukkot. The narrow streets are crowded with vendors and purchasers, haggling happily over price and quality of the arba minim. Pedigrees of estrogim are carefully described. Small and delicate Ashkenazi-type etrogim more green than yellow, growing naturally without the pitem — a sign of the purity of the species. Large, melon-sized Yemenite etrogim which most Americans have never seen. Jews of all types, with little children everywhere. This is what erev Sukkot must have looked like not only in the shtetl, but in ancient Babylon and ancient Israel as well.*Jerusalem, Sukkot. All traffic lights turn into blinkers as streets are crowded with old and young carrying their lularim and etrogim to shul. People seem to be planning for the great events at night — the beginning of Simhat Bet Ha’shoevah. This water-drawing festival begins on the eve of the second day of the holiday and continues to Shemini Atzeret. We attended the opening session at the Yeshurun synagogue, addressed by the Chief Rabbi and Ministers of Religions, and ending with the dignitaries and crowds joining in the dancing. How strange for an Amercan Jew to hear a band playing in the synagogue on the eve of the “second day of Yom Tov!” Every night, a different synagogue in a different area of the city sponsors such a celebration. Truly zeman simhateuu, “a time of our joy!”*Hol Humoed in the Vpper (ialilee. Turning a bend on the Northern Road, right at the Leb…