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Letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu Regarding the New Knesset

03/24/2023 05:01:26 PM

Mar24

by Joanna Berke, Kesher Israel Committee chair

We present this letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu in the hope that others will find inspiration in it to contact members of the Knesset. Their individual contact information follows the letter.

Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu,
I am a Reform Zionist Jew living in the U.S. city of Madison, Wisconsin. I find it hard to express myself to you at this time of change. The changes your government is proposing are so very threatening and hurtful to me. 

I have lived a Jew and, in time, I will die a Jew. I've visited Israel three times, each as part of a group of congregants of Temple Beth El, Madison, Wisconsin. When I stepped off the bus and looked up at Jerusalem for the first time I had a spiritual sense that I was home. I see, feel and believe that Israel is my homeland. Yet, under the new government it would be impossible for me to settle there.

My family is 50% gay yet your government would throw out the gay community.

My daughter and son-in-law are black. What would you do with black minorities in Israel? 

I am a Jew. I study Torah every Saturday morning with a group of scholars. We follow the Israeli sequence. I am a Jew through blood, I'm a Jew through history, and I'm a Jew according to the moral teachings of Torah and Talmud.

And there I come to the central issue: where is your morality that you would erase whole portions of the Jewish people from existence?

If this government continues as is, you will split the Diaspora from the rest of Judaism and cripple the growth of our Nation. 

Please think carefully about this, Mr. Prime Minister. The future of our people is at stake.

Sincerely,
Joanna Berke
Chair, Kesher Israel Committee
Madison, WI 53711

Email addresses for prime minister and other Knesset members for communication: 
Benjamin Netanyahu - bnetanyahu@knesset.gov.il
Danny Danon - ddanon@knesset.gov.il
Moshe Saada - mosaada@knesset.gov.il
Itamar Ben-Gvir - ibengvir@knesset.gov.il
Nir Barkat - nbarkat@knesset.gov.il

May 5, 2024 27 Nisan 5784