The tide is going to turn now

Letters to the Editor in today's Jerusalem Post include one for and one against ideas of the "Israel Lobby" essay by Walt and Mearsheimer. Dr. Lily Polliack of Hebrew University points out that Mearsheimer has been "dead wrong in the past" and wonders if all the "fuss" is "really necessary."

And then we have James Richardson of San Diego, who thinks The Professors "hit the nail on the head." He writes,

Israel does exert too much influence on US policy, and sooner or later the American people must pry Israel's hands off our government and out of our wallets. I think the tide is going to start to turn now, ever so slowly.

I have to go teach my 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds at Sunday school now. We're starting to learn about Pesach.

And it is This...

"...which has stood for our fathers and for us; for in each and every generation they stand against us to destroy us, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu rescues us from their hand."

Exactly what "This" refers to is not immediately clear. Is it the promise made to Abraham, mentioned previously? Or that "Hakadosh Baruch Hu always rescues us from their hand?"

Here is a third possibility -- a unique insight into the phenomenon of anti-Semitism: This, that "in each and every generation they stand against us to exterminate us" -- This is what has stood for us. Hard as we may try to forget our Jewishness and adopt the ways of our host nation, sooner or later they rise against us, remind us of our uniqueness, and awaken our commitment to Judaism.

Rabbi Shlomo Zweig, in the name of his father's father