Some
"letters to the editor" (This is not at all
complete - I need to collect more)
Some letters by Eunice:
(1) "Enemies can become
friends". Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Jan 3, 2008
This was
during the Israeli shelling of Gaza, prior to the land invasion
(2) Letter to Condoleezza Rice, on the election in which Hamas won many
seats (not on line yet)
(3) From the Christian Science
Monitor, October 30, 2006
Do fences make good neighbors or just put off problem
solving?
Your Oct. 19 editorial about fences was outstanding -
well thought out and well written. It ends by saying that, "[F]ences
stand as sentinels to unsolved problems...." and that these issues
"will need facing up to."
When Korea was divided into North and South, the two
nations talked less with each other and, consequently, understand each
other less today. This has led to increased trouble between them.
Currently, Syria wants to talk with Israel, but Israel
has dismissed Syria's offer. Many Israelis feel that war with Syria is
inevitable. Would war be preferable to talking?
Governments could save a lot of time, money, and lives
by dealing with their problems promptly and solving them realistically.
Unsolved issues need facing up to in our personal lives
as well as in international relations. In 1943, as a sophomore in
college, I was afraid of everything and everybody. Then I asked myself,
"What would happen if your worst fears were to come true? Which is
worse, your fear or having your fears realized?"
"Oh," I said, "the fear is worse." Then the solution
was evident: Go out and meet the fears and deal with them as soon as
possible.
Fear of terrorists was the reason the US was willing to
engage in a preemptive war. Fear is the reason we tolerate the loss of
habeas corpus, the inhumane treatment of prisoners, the death of our
sons. We have been led to think that it is unpatriotic to ask how we
can better understand why some Muslims and Arabs hate us enough to be
suicide bombers. We need to stop being afraid and go on to solve the
world's problems instead of making them worse.
Eunice B. Ordman
Memphis, Tenn.
(4) Memphis
Commercial Appeal, Sept 10, 2010
Letter: Missing the message in the Quran
The Florida preacher Terry Jones, who proposed to burn Qurans on 9/11,
seems not to realize that the Quran honors Jesus. For example, it says,
"The Messiah Jesus son of Mary was (no more than) a Messenger of Allah,
and His Word, which He bestowed on Mary, and a Spirit proceeding from
Him: so believe in Allah and his messengers."
Was the preacher trying to reduce the number of people who believe in
Jesus' message?
Eunice Ordman
Memphis
Some letters by Edward: (most recent,
Sept 21, 2009, is at
the bottom)
The Christian Century, April 8, 2008
I follow "Science and Religion" discussions, and occasionally hold
forth on the subject. This letter appeared in the Christian Century, in the
April 8, 2008 issue.) It is one of those strange
coincidences that I wrote a letter commenting on my belief in miracles
just a few weeks before a daughter was diagnosed with ovarian cancer,
and it appeared after the diagnosis. While medical care is
proceeding, I note here that I have no objection at all to miraculous
cures or sponteaneous remissions, should they occur.
Re: Polkinghorne and miracles...
I’m a mathematician and a Jew, and my notion
of miracle may be a
bit different from that of the physicist and priest John Polkinghorne
(Gregory Jones, "Physicist and Priest", Jan 29). I have a view
closer
to that of Gregory Jones ("Spiritual soccer", Jan. 29) who sees
something miraculous in South Africa changing regimes without the
bloody civil war so many expected. It may be presumptuous to
judge what may be seen as a miracle by our descendants - the fact that
Judaism survived the 1940's comes to mind - but I suggest that we can
choose to see God’s hand at work, and appreciate miracles,
without
demanding certifiable abrogation of the laws of physics.
Polkinghorne says, “If life wasn’t raised from the
dead, Jesus’
life ends in extreme failure.” I don’t need to believe that Jesus
was
raised from the dead to be in awe that Jesus’ ideas survived, and
about how Jesus’ message spread the word of the God we share to many
places and peoples where the Jews did not deliver that message
themselves. And I can have the same wonder that the message of
Muhammad spread so widely.
Just as many of us see valuable truths in both
science and
religion, and see ways they cast light on each other, it is important
now that we see the values shared and the insights provided by other
faiths. The best Advent sermon I heard in the season just past, I
heard not in a church but in my neighborhood Mosque in Memphis,
Tennessee.
Edward Ordman
Memphis, TN
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency,
April 13, 2008
The local Jewish
weekly paper in Memphis, The Hebrew Watchman, recently printed a
strongly anti-Obama article from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), a
Jewish news agency. That article appears at
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/2008031820080318obamawrightfoxman.html
but the Watchman often prints JTA articles a week or two
late. So I found a current JTA article,
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/2008041020080410obamainterview.html?12671
and commented on it, on the JTA website which has a more widespread
readership than our local Jewish paper.. Note that I was not here
entering into a Clinton-Obama debate (I'd be much happier with
either than with a continuing fight between them) and was writing for a
Jewish audience.
To the Editor:
The radical right (which unfortunately
includes some Jews) is gearing up to resist Obama any way they can. If
they can't find something wrong in Obama's statements, they focus on
Wright's. Rev. Wright has done a great deal of good in the Black
community around Chicago; it is perfectly appropriate for a pastor to
call on "us" (his parishioners, and all Americans) to examine
ourselves. I've heard Rabbis do the same, in other contexts. Taking a
very few out of context quotes (Wright was quoting a TV
commentator about "chickens coming home to roost", not making the
statement himself), and talking about Wright rather than Obama, are
simply ways of avoiding the issues in the upcoming election.
Obama appears to have a reasonably balanced view
of Wright, and Wright is not the candidate. Obama is, and we need to
examine what he can do for the United States and for Israel.
Many Jews strongly believe that one way towards
peace and security for Israel is for the United States to have
leadership that can converse with and be listened to by all parties to
the several conflicts in the Middle East. Obama's sense of
justice, and his willingness to listen to and talk with people with
whom he disagrees, could lead to far more progress for Israel than the
"we don't talk with our enemies" view of our present administration.
04/13/08 @15:16 | Edward Ordman
(end quote)
From the Commercial Appeal,
Memphis, Sept 21, 2009 (title
added by the editor)
Scriptures guide policy on aliens
It has recently come to my attention that in the story of
the Good
Samaritan, Luke 10:25-37, the Good Samaritan inexplicably cared for the
injured man without first carefully checking the man's citizenship
papers. In Matthew 8:5-7, Jesus appears to heal the servant of a Roman
centurion, clearly a foreigner and an enemy.
Perhaps our legislators who are working so hard to
guarantee that
our hospitals will not be paid for treating aliens should arrange to
have these passages expunged from our Bibles, so that no one will
mistakenly form the impression that those following the values of Jesus
believe in caring for our neighbors, or in healing the sick of all
nations.
Edward Ordman
Memphis
Edward Ordman
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