professor

Having read professor Jack Wertheimer’s essay in Commentary as well as Ruth Messinger’s response in The Jewish Week (“Encountering Our Faith Through Serving ‘The Other’,” April 2), I believe the disagreement mirrors a significant and growing chasm within the larger Jewish community. The issue is not whether the Jewish people have a role and responsibility within the larger world. We are not the children of Noah but of Abraham. Noah built an ark only for himself and his immediately family. Abraham was concerned for the whole city of Sodom.

Phoenix — While conventional wisdom has it that American Jewry is suffering from a dearth of young leadership, the preliminary findings of a major report, to be published this summer by the Avi Chai Foundation, suggest otherwise.

Nonetheless, a number of tomorrow’s leaders do not share traditional values regarding support for Israel, Jewish peoplehood, intermarriage and collective responsibility, which is worrisome to the study’s sponsor.

‘Next year in Jerusalem.”

With that renewed cry from Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad about the creation of a Palestinian state as early as next summer — with east Jerusalem as its capital — several analysts feared this week that Fayyad has built up Palestinian expectations  to a point that could spark violence.