truly.

A touching letter - it should be translated into Farsi and emailed or faxed directly to Mahmoud or posted to his web site.

Ed

just to be clear, the above Ed is not me.

If you love Judaism so much how come you seem totally fine with your cousin stabbing the entire community in the back by marrying outside the faith?

I hate to have to explain basic math to you but if you have 1 and you minus 1, you end up with zero. If you have 3 million american jews and they marry 3 million american non-jews, then eventually, in a few generations, you will have 0 american jews. How come you don't find your "intellectualism" the least bit hypocritical? On one hand you devote yourself to studying, learning and teaching judaism and then on the other hand accept, aknowledge and approve of the exact thing that is decimating it all?

the jewish destrudo at its best.....
Jewish Destrudo

Has it ever occurred to you, Jewish Destrudo  and the others on this site bitching out the intermarried, that people aren't likely to listen to you if you adopt such a harsh, hectoring tone and use violent terms like "stabbing in the back" and "decimating"?  Other commenters on this site have used the terms "second holocaust," thereby implicitly comparing intermarrying Jews to Nazis.  Not exactly the way to outreach to your fellow Jews, or to fulfill the mitzvah of ahavat yisrael.

Intermarriage, regrettable though it may be in some ways, is here to stay, and you can't browbeat people out of doing it.  It's a free country.  Better to conduct positive outreach to intermarried couples, showing them the joy and pleasure in living a Jewish life, rather than taking the oy-yoy-yoy-you're-a-shandeh approach which died out with Tevye the Dairyman.

Try more loving, less hating. 

This was one of the most touching and wrenching things I have read in a long time. The quiet eloquence with which you express the importance of the human truths you and your family live every day speaks more loudly than any thuggish leader ranting about the destruction to come. We can draw hope in a dark season by picturing the riotous exuberance of people of different backgrounds who had found love and companionship and happiness melding their families across faiths that might otherwise or elsewhere be a source of conflict. I felt welling up some of the same tears you shed at seeing the Torah and the Koran in their own embrace. A beautiful and powerful letter.
Max Friedman

....but nothing you said contradicts basic math.

Why should we love someone with open arms who doesn't love us back enough to even keep us alive?

Because not everyone who practices the Muslim faith hates Jews enough to kill them. You're taking the opinions of extremists, and blanketing the entire faith with them. It's tantamount to saying 'all Jews are cheap' or something along the same lines, only the assumption you make is much worse.

It's true. If every Jew married someone of a different faith, and chose not to practice Judaism anymore, the religion would eventually disappear. But Jews marry Muslims, Catholics, Christians, athiests, pagans, Buddhists, people of all different religions and beliefs all the time, and many people choose to share values from both sides with their children and family members. Isn't a world where people can see the right and the good in all faiths better than one where individuals, such as yourself, so readily take such a hateful and extremist stance against their fellow man?

Mahmoud abbas hates israel, not jews.
there are many jews living happily in Iran.
Furthermore, the way in which you extoll the virtues of your secular observance and how it is shared by your muslim outlaws would be yet another reason Abbas might hate you.
Islam started as a means to simplify the religeon but increse faith, to see a watered down version as you describe would strike at the core of Abbas's nerve and he may well blame the jews for encouraging it.
I am in no way endorsing Mahmoud's statements or mentality, but I DO wish people would gather the facts before berrating him.

If only this article had been about Mahmoud Abbas...

IS56 demands inclusion of eunuchs and foreigners. I'd include the Isaiah passage but it's rather long. Still it is to the point and even more so when you consider that these are the two categories of people that were never ever never ever included in the congregation of Israel. Also there is the story, condensed much so: "Jesus, your mother, sisters, and brothers are outside." "HERE are my mother, sisters, and brothers. They who do my will are my mother, sisters, and brothers." It makes things more difficult but marrying outside your faith is not a sin. People are not dogs to be kept pure bred.

"IT" starts at home before "IT" happens in our community and "IT" happens in our community before "IT" happens around the world.

Debbie

I recommend you read Rabbi Joseph Edelheit (if you haven't already), who is perhaps the most effective speaker I have ever heard.

Dear Dr Shneer,

It is beautiful to see that light is everywhere: even in religions that some misinformed now think are barbarians. No matter for how much time they've been radiating light, no matter the quality of the light their believers radiated.

But some commenter is right: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not as anti-Semitic is it may seem. He's actually against the state of Israel, and the way it was created. Not against the Jewish people.

Since one of emotional reasons for the creation is the Holocaust (i suppose you call it Shoah) he promoted a revisionist symposium, to deny the Holocaust. But please remember that there were Jews against Israel (no matter how strange it is) in this symposium, and that no persecutions to Jewish community of Iran have been related lately.

So, indeed, i guess your touching text makes sense everywhere, everytime and for everyone. But concerning Mahmoud Abbas, he needs your teachings for a different reason.

Maybe, for instance, he should start thinking that the state of Israel is an unrefusable reality and any attempt of denying this will only bring sadness and sorrow for everyone, Muslims and Israelis.

Respectfully yours,
An Admirer of your Work and Courage.

Unless you're more worried about -RACIAL- purity than religious continuation.

I am neither muslim nor jewish, but found the letter touching in the extreme... and some of the subsequent comments quite laughable, if they weren't so tragic.

Tony S.
Johannesburg
South Africa

PS The math problem almost kept me from posting this comment!

Remember, if you don't like the math problems, just create a user account. No more math problems for life!

Maybe the poster who thinks Mr. Shneer doesn't understand basic math is missing out on something. Or maybe I did. But at what point did he say that every American Jew should intermarry? At what point was he saying that his familial experience speaks for all Jews? Obviously, there are Jews like yourself that will never intermarry, therefore, the Jewish race will never disappear. That's a much simpler logical interpretation then the so called "basic math" you're attempting to administer. You should probably settle down, take a deep breath and actually try reading the letter before pounding on your keyboard hatefully. You've entirely missed the point.