In a letter to the editor in the May 31 issue, Alan Levin writes that Israel should deny equal treatment to the Reform and Conservative movements because most of their members “are olim [emigrants] from North America” and, he fears, have American values. He could not be more wrong.
No country should discriminate against its citizens based on where they were born. And no Jew should treat his fellow Jews as lesser because of where they were born.
Israel above all was built by olim and was founded to welcome olim. It should not proclaim any Jew a second-class citizen based on his or her place of birth. Nor should it ignore any Jewish ideals based on from where in the diaspora they came.
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