February 8, 2011

Excellent...  posted article on FB.
 
WJR is fast becoming my favourite Canadian publication...  Thank you!
 
Rochelle Michaels

February 7, 2011

To The Editor,

Rhonda, thank you, this is very interesting. 

Benjamin Baader

February 7, 2011

To The Editor,

It is a fascinating story. I will pass it around.
 
Best, 
Gady Jacoby

To the Editor,

Feb 7, 2011

Hi Rhonda,

The article is fascinating.

Shelley Breslaw-Wynn

Peed myself laughing.....GREAT WRITING.
 
D Gurvey

To the Editor,
 
Eli Herscovitch is not only an amazing soul activated musician that dazzles my senses whenever I have seen him perform he also is a captivating “story teller.” Keep on keeping on Eli.
 
Three cheers Eli. My respect and good wishes to you and yours.
 
Hart Peikoff

Hart Peikoff
797.4000
[email protected]
H.A.R.T.  "Honest. Awareness. Reliable. Tenacious."
          DRUG FREE / THE WAY TO BE!
          "Are you stoned or are you stupid?" Huh?

To the Editor,

February 4, 2011

Congrats for scooping the story before it even happened!

Tina Greenfield

To The Editor,

Feb 4, 2011

I read all your news items, and they are very interesting,
informative, and keep up the good work.

Irene Marantz

Hi Rhonda,
Thank you for sharing you article with me it was very interesting to read it.

Orit Ben-Or

February 2, 2011

To the Editor,
 
This was posted on Facebook by an Israeli:  "Dear Egyptian rioters, please don't damage the pyramids. We will not rebuild. Thank you."      
 
Henry Ballon, Winnipeg

Feb 2, 2011
To The Editor,

Well done, Rhonda. Care to make any predictions about Judea & Samaria?

Regards,
Frank Hellner

Feb 2, 2011
To the Editor,

Rhonda thanks.The real quesion is now much planning and by whom went into ratcheting up the rallies in Egypt (Iran funding? Qatar? etc etc) and what is the role of the Muslim Brotherhood---which says that Hamas has a right to use force to take back conquered homeland, etc etc ....and what is the strange role of Obama in this whole scenario?
Dr. Eliyahu Richter 

To the Editor,

Hi Rhonda,

I read your article in the Jerusalem Post. Very nice!

http://www.jpost.com/Sci-Tech/Article.aspx?id=205978

Who is your contact person in Toronto? I am interested in cooperating with them.

Thanks,

Amihai Bannett,
Educational Director – Israel Connect

January 27, 2011

To the Editor,

Thanks for running the Dershowitz piece on the J Street double standard.  I think it's an important issue and I'm happy to see prominent liberals speaking up on it.  As a right-leaning gentile who regards himself as a gharqad tree I'm heartened by Liberal Jews who show this kind of balance.

Dershowitz made many good points and I'm happy to give his piece the thumbs up.  I don't mean to sound any sour notes, as I really appreciated it, but I feel the need to say that I think he missed a few key turns of thought on this issue.

First, the term "blood libel", unlike "Holocaust", is generic.  It does not qualify, in all instances, as a reference to (say) the Protocols.  Yes, for many that is the primary instance, but in general it is not the first thing that comes to mind.  The Protocols, to the general public, is not a household word while the Holocaust is, and probably far less than 50% of the public would have connected Palin's comments to the antisemitism issue without the elucidation of prominent persons who repeatedly and explicitly made the connection.   It is quite possible that Palin herself was not even aware of the association of the term with the Protocols, and even if she was, it is very probable that the connection did not enter her mind at the time she made the comment.

Further, while the principal meaning of the term refers to accusations of ritualized religious murder, esp. of children, it is common for the pro-choice movement to accuse the pro-life movement of "blood libel" in their discussion of abortion clinics, so the term has weight in a more secular, generic setting in so-called liberal discourse.  Indeed, it strikes me that perhaps we need a new term to describe this phenomenon, something like "blood libel libel", in which someone is
unfairly accused of blood libel.  Perhaps Palin is being accused of blood libel libel.  One could argue that this accusation against her is unfair by saying that it is "blood libel libel libel" (etc.  :-) )

Second, Palin is the wrong person to charge with injecting the term "blood libel" into this discussion.  No less a media powerhouse than the Wall Street Journal used the term to make exactly the same point two days before Palin recorded her statement.  I regard Palin's appropriation of the term as a paraphrase of the WSJ piece.  It is patently unfair to pin that term on her as if she was uniquely responsible for heightened levels of this kind of rhetoric.  She was injecting comment into an existing public discourse, long after the major players had already said their piece.  Her statement contained nothing new, and it registered far down the scale of "inflammatory comment" compared to prior statements by her critics.  The charges leveled against her to this effect are a clear instance of projection.

Third, the reason Palin is targeted can have a finer point put on it than even Dershowitz makes:  When Palin was announced as a VP candidate the response of the electorate was electric.  Since Obama's primary momentum in the election was founded on his star appeal, and the democratic media/lobby/political machine was relying so strongly on his personal charisma to carry the day, Palin was immediately seen as a lethal threat.  This perception is clearly seen in the response of the left.  Never in American politics have we seen such a vicious, sustained and personal campaign to delegitimize a politician, and on such flimsy bases.  One eventually loses track of the number of "ethics violations" she was charged wtih after entering the federal campaign, all of which were eventually thrown out, and almost all of which were obvious nuisance suits whose purpose was to colour short-term public discourse more than to establish any factual violations.   Not satisfied with assassination of Palin herself, the machine went after her family with a vengeance.  It is generally understood in American political discourse that such attacks on a candidate's family are beyond the pale, but the liberal media and para-political collectives like J Street showed little restraint in this regard, and  I've yet to see a Liberal of Dershowitz' stature call them out publicly on this (some minor Liberal voices have done so, including a few well-known feminists, I'm happy to say).

So it was quite natural for them to leap to try to make the stain from this tragedy stick to Palin -- it was simply another episode in their ongoing attempt to undermine her public support.  Judging by the sudden slide in her approval ratings, in seems that they have finally managed to have the desired effect.

Fourth, I'm surprised that a smart commentator like Dershowitz would  publicly profess to criticize Palin's use of "crosshairs" on a map.   He is surely familiar with the instances of similar maps produced for years in American electoral campaigns of all political stripes.  The only thing noteworthy about the "offending" poster of the Palin campaign is its ordinariness -- it fits comfortably into a well-established genre.  The language on the poster compares very favourably against some Democrat campaign posters from prior years in which targets are placed on Republican seats and considerably more militant imagery is invoked.

So, as long as Dershowitz is pointing out J Street's double standard he might have the presence of mind to include a mea culpa about this.

Finally, as you may perceive I'm no fan of Obama, but I have to say that his handling of the issue was excellent, and spoke well for his character.  He was one of the few Liberal principals who not only kept out of the fray, but called for their people to tone it down.  That won him some points with me, and apparently with the American public as well, because his approval ratings also took a small upward turn right then.  He has come off much better than many of the cogs in his support engine.

Robert Craigen

January 26, 2011

Hello,

I am writing from the University of Toronto Press, wondering if there was an address for a review editor to whom I could send a  review copy of one of our recent publications, The Defining Decade: Identity, Politics, and the Canadian Jewish Community in the 1960s by Harold Troper? I think it would be of interest to your readers. 

Thanks very much, 
Kaitlin

To the Editor,
Hi Rhonda,

I came across your article on Israeli links for the Winnipeg Jewish Review, and have another website you might want to add. I'm a Gray Academy graduate (class of 2006) and this fall, graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degree. For the past 4 months I've been living in Tel Aviv and doing an internship with a company called Omanoot.

Omanoot is a new Israeli startup that promotes Israeli arts and culture through its website www.omanoot.com. After years of hard work, the website's film section was finally launched 2 weeks ago. On the site, visitors can stream Israeli short films and documentaries for free, download them for public or private viewing, and also read about Israeli filmmakers and feature films and watch their trailers.

In the future, Omanoot will have sections for Israeli music, literature, and visual art and more films are being added to our website every week. We also have a blog (blog.omanoot.com) with weekly art events in Tel Aviv, and artist profiles.

I hope you like the website and blog and find that one or both of them is appropriate for the Winnipeg Jewish Review's list. If there's anything else you'd like to know, I'd be happy to give you more information.

Best,
Alix Billinkoff

Hi Rhonda can you take a look at the website when you have time?

http://www.breakfastwinnipeg.com/Reviews.html

Thanks
 
A Hassan

January 13, 2011

To the Winnipeg Jewish Review,

The body is the temple which houses our soul while we are on this planet. Using body parts to save another human's life during transplant operations is far different than disrespecting the "dead" with this claimed educational tool. This exhibit baffles decency vibrations. I am still in shock it was allowed to present itself to the public. In this situation morality has been pushed overboard. 

Sincerely,
Hart Peikoff

January 7, 2011

To the  Editor,

I am really grateful that you are following up on the Bryks fiasco.

Being on the Board of  Herzlia Synagogue at the time I know the hatred we [those who did not support Rabbi Bryks] went through when we broke away and started are own minyan at Ramah school.  I was the secretary at the time. There unfortunately were no minutes taken at the Board meetings at the time.

Ben Luffman, Winnipeg

December 31, 2010

To the Editor,

Hello, my name is Jacqueline Bechtold. I am not Jewish. I read an amazing article written by a young lady, Tess Doan. It was heart warming and so full of hope. That young lady is the daughter of a very close childhood friend. It is easy to see her maturity and sincerity in this article. It is evident that my friend has raised a beautiful daughter and supports her in her walk in the Jewish faith. I remember Tess as a little girl. She was sweet , innocent and radiated a beautiful spirit and this spirit of life is evident through the medium of her words. I am so happy that she is discovering her way in the Jewish faith. It is wonderful that she has support from a warm community. Because of Tess's article, I spent many hours reading your online magazine and I loved it. I have book marked it and will be looking forward to reading and enjoying your publication for many years to come. I hope that Tess will write more articles. She has a gift of touching people's hearts with her words. Its funny because her Mother was very much like that as a young girl. Tess you will not remember me but I am so proud of you and the courage you have to choose a wonderful life for yourself.
 
Sincerely,
Jacque Bechtold