LETTER: Jews only good if they reject Israel?

Contrary to Steven Friedman’s inverted interpretation of the “good Jew, bad Jew” concept, it has long been a favourite strategy of Jew-baiters to divide the Jewish community into those two defined categories (“When words lose their meaning, truth is not the only victim”, November 7).

Right thinkers have a package of beliefs, one of which is that Israel is evil and consequently anything or anybody who does not condemn Israel cannot be a right thinker and be part of any of their activities, including their intellectual pursuits. They are banned, cancelled outcasts.

This includes any Jew with even a passing sentiment for Israel but does not actually condemn it. These are the bad Jews, who are the majority. And then there are the good Jews like Friedman or Ronnie Kasrils, who make it their business to badmouth Israel as their trademark. 

They are welcomed into the “brotherhood of correctness” as were PW Botha’s blacks who loved apartheid, or the fundamentalist rabbis rolled out by Iran when it is threatening to wipe Israel off the map.

By the way, “from the river to the sea” has only one meaning, and it is not an invitation to Jews from Hamas to have tea in a new paradise.

Sydney Kaye
Cape Town

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