Letters Up Front Edition

• Published in: The Jerusalem post
• Main Author: E. Marks, Gershon Harris, Shahar Hendler, Aharon Rosenbaum, Barry Newman, Sha'i Ben-Tekoa, A Messianic Jew, A. Cohen
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Jerusalem The Jerusalem Post Ltd 13.05.2005
• Subjects: Hartman, Donniel

Sir, - From its first sentence, the Beduin saying "'I took revenge after 40 years... I was hasty,'" to its last - "Ironically, a Jewish academic from Buffalo may prove a major instrument for preserving Beduin tradition for the Beduin themselves" - Abraham Rabinovich's "The law of the desert" (UpFront, May 6) was an unalloyed delight. His description of people living "on the edge of subsistence in one of the world's harshest environments," as researched by Dr. Clinton Bailey, painted a picture that was fascinating, funny and instructive by turns. How marvelous to learn that "Beduin life... is marked by a courtly etiquette rivaling that of the royal houses of Europe." And I laughed out loud at legendary traveler Wilfred Thesiger's account of how he and three Beduin companions, "all starving, killed a hare and had just finished cooking it when three other Beduin appeared over a sand dune." His companions, obeying the Beduin rule of hospitality, insist that the newcomers eat the hare. Thesiger's comment: "I felt murderous." Sir, - I was astounded by Donniel Hartman's ability to erase the Jewishness of anybody who believes in Yeshua (Jesus), saying he is not a Jew simply because he is a member of a different community ("Pessah defines 'Who is a Jew,'" April 22). Rabbi Hartman is apparently unaware that close to 10,000 of us live in Eretz Israel - up to 200,000 worldwide - and that we are in fact strong members of the Israeli community, some even in high places. A good number of us actually left our countries of origin in order to more closely identify with the Jewish state, our heritage and culture, seeing it as the "ultimate Jewish experience."