Alienation from Jewish life is not due to poor environment

As a Jew who has spent five high holiday seasons here at Harvard, I was dumbfounded to read the remarkably closed-minded opinion piece “The Eleventh Plague” (Opinion, Oct. 1). During the holidays, Harvard Hillel sponsored the religious services of four separate prayer communities—each with its own unique character—and the Chabad House at Harvard held its own set of traditional and yet highly participatory services. Both Hillel and the Chabad House also served family-style meals and break-fasts which were free to all undergraduates. If the authors felt alienated by the Reform services on Rosh Hashana, they should have made the effort to visit the services of another community on Yom Kippur. The Harvard Jewish community is among the most vibrant you will find at any university, but not if you blindly shut your self off to the myriad religious options that surround you.

JONATHAN WACHTER ’01

October 4