Sabbath-observant Jews not as Sichel portrays them

We are writing in response to Ilana Sichel’s recent column, “Who is the Jewish Vote?” (Nov. 5) The column posits a correlation between sabbath-observance and “being anti-choice, discriminating against gay people and supporting tax cuts for the rich.” Such a claim is simply false. Furthermore, it is harmful to all sabbath-observant Jews, who will now be presumed to be bigots by all of Sichel’s liberal readers.

Not only does Sichel accuse all Sabbath-observant Jews of homophobia, etc., she does so in flippant manner that prevents real discussion on the issues. In an otherwise legitimate column on Mideast policy, she suddenly inserts this unsubstantiated claim.

Finally, Sichel argues that Sabbath-observant Jews are politically naive, or perhaps just stupid. In her eyes, apparently, Sabbath-observant Jews are incapable of understanding that there is, of course, nothing inherent in Sabbath-observance that “warrants” holding any particular social views. In fact, and as Sichel well knows, the political views of Sabbath-observant Jews are quite diverse. For example, one of us is a committed Republican with generally conservative views on social policy, while the other is equally committed to a liberal social agenda. Both of us, however, ground our political views not in our shared commitment to Sabbath-observance, but in the vast corpus of Jewish law and tradition, the existence of which Sichel completely ignores.

We would have no objection if Sichel critiqued her peers in an intellectually honest way. It is rather less helpful that she has critiqued them in a dishonest way. We urge her to be more cautious with her words in the future, as her words have caused a great deal of pain to many members of our Congregation.

ARIEL WOLF ’05

JOSH ROSENBLOOM ’05

November 7

The writers are Co-Chairs of the Harvard Hillel Orthodox Minyan (Congregation).