Ofra,
On the trip home I read your book from cover to cover. It is easily the most important thing I have read on Israel in years, perhaps ever. Why? because it gets to the structural underpinnings of the tragic “dead end” of Israeli life.
I have always been amazed and puzzled at the way in which the problem of religiously rooted Jewish exclusivity, so readily apparent to me, is airbrushed out of conversations on Israel and its “situation”. As you clearly and evocatively point out, it is, as the Spanish say, “la madre del cordero” (literally, the mother of the lamb), the core issue from which all other problems (and there potential solutions) are derived.
My admiration for you book is only matched by my disappointment in knowing that it has not been given the attention it deserves.
Keep up the good fight.
Best, Tom
Professor Tom Harrington, Trinity College, Hartford, CT
January 2008
Ofra Yeshua Lyth Publications 