|
|
Article: Soviet Jews and the West Bank (Cont'd.)
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- February 26, 1989
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
|
David A. Harris' Feb. 20 letter about Israel and Soviet Jewry
requires comment. He states that Israel wants Soviet Jews to go to
Israel merely because its raison d'e^tre is the "in-gathering of
exiles." But very few Jews see themselves as exiles. Most of
today's Jews have no lineage to the people exiled from Judea and
Samaria in the first century A.D.; rather, they are descendant from
peoples converted to Judaism who never lived in Palestine. The
presumptuous idea that we Jews should pick up and move to Israel has
been nearly a complete flop in America (to the disappointment, I
imagine, of any anti-Semites).
It is apparently so with Soviet Jews as well. More than 90
percent come to the ...