Letters to the Editor | Dec. 15, 2025

Thank you for publishing Rabbi Linda Holtzman’s op-ed about why a ceasefire in Gaza isn’t enough, we must also stop arming Israel.

Today, we got news of the first Gazan child — in this case, a baby — dying of hypothermia. She froze to death because there is no adequate shelter in Gaza, it’s winter, and it’s freezing at night. With its relentless bombing, shelling, and deliberate destruction of housing, hospitals, universities, and schools in Gaza, Israel reduced 90% of Gaza’s homes to rubble.

The ceasefire agreement required Israel to send in desperately needed humanitarian aid to Gaza, 600 trucks a day of tents, tarps, bedding, blankets, food, infant formula, and potable water, medicines, and medical supplies. Israel has at most sent in 100 trucks a day. The tents Gazans have been living in for months are torn apart by winter storms; they need new tents, tarps, and blankets to keep them as warm as possible.

Israeli troops occupy most of Gaza and have killed unarmed civilians, including children who are searching for wood to burn or looking for the remnants of their homes in the increasingly occupied eastern part of Gaza. Israeli army Chief Eyal Zamir said a few days ago that the “Yellow Line” in Gaza, which demarcates Gazan land occupied by Israel, is Israel’s new border, meaning Israel will almost certainly never give back the portion of Gaza it’s supposed to be only temporarily occupying.

There is no ceasefire, no food or shelter or medicines for the Gazans. Given that Donald Trump gave birth to this “ceasefire” and so-called peace plan, he needs to hold Israel accountable. Palestinian children are just as precious and deserving of life as Israeli children.

Genie Silver, Wynnewood

It is both astonishing and appalling that Rabbi Linda Holtzman fails to grasp the irony — and hypocrisy — of her invoking the holiday of Hanukkah to support her efforts to block certain defense aid to Israel. The Maccabees, the heroes of the Hanukkah story, not only successfully revolted against the oppressive Syrian Greek empire, but they zealously fought against the assimilation of the Jews of that time. And where did these historic events in the second century BCE take place? In the land of Israel!

As an anti-Zionist, Holtzman does not believe the Jews have a right to live in a Jewish state in the land of Israel. Despite the attempts of so many of Holtzman’s allies to distort what Zionism is (with many even despicably comparing Zionists to Nazis), the definition of Zionism is actually quite simple: it is the movement for self-determination of the Jewish people in its ancestral homeland. And an overwhelming percentage of Jews identify as Zionists.

On several occasions, Holtzman describes Israel’s response to the horrific slaughter of Oct. 7, 2023, as genocide, as if that’s a given. Never does she even mention Hamas, a terrorist organization which perpetrated brutal killings, burning of babies, and rapes and sexual mutilations (and glorified it all). No, Rabbi Holtzman, fighting back against an organization whose entire cynical strategy is based on hiding behind Gazan civilians in order to generate more casualties is not genocide. It’s a war against a truly genocidal enemy, a war that the Maccabees would have supported and led.

Richard Lowe, Oreland

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