Editorial (March 19, 2010)
The unleavened price of unleavened bread
FORGET the four questions. At this time of year, with Pesach fast approaching, traditionally there’s a fifth question on everybody’s lips: Why is this price different from all other prices?
Four, though, is a theme of the festival — the four questions, the four sons, the four cups of wine. And, inevitably, the for-tune we have to spend on kosher l’Pesach products. Indeed, there’s a certain irony in the fact that during Passover we are meant to avoid things that rise.
And yet, year after year, that’s precisely what the price of kosher food does — and there’s no escaping it. Or perhaps there is. Imagine our delight when we visited a number of kosher outlets across the country this week and discovered that, the cost of many Pesach staples had fallen.
The reductions will, no doubt, be appreciated by those who adhere to the dietary restrictions of the festival. Whether they have the added benefit of enticing less observant individuals to stick to the rules remains to be seen.
Ultimately, given its cost, kosher food already has a bad rap, with many protesting that the prices are prohibitive even outside of the festive period. But with its extra expense, the Festival of Freedom simply seems to exacerbate that perception and one can well imagine that doling out so much dough is a paschal sacrifice that many are not prepared to make.
The problem, of course, is neither new nor limited to these shores. And it is encouraging to see some religious authorities taking active steps to encourage a responsible approach from retailers. Last year in the US, 30 prominent Orthodox rabbis signed an edict urging storekeepers to be compassionate towards their customers and keep prices to a minimum.
It’s a sentiment shared by kosher consumers the world over. And while we welcome the reductions made by retailers in Australia, we add an extra line to the traditional Passover refrain “Next year in Jerusalem” — “Next year may prices continue to drop.”
A regrettable reaction to a regrettable announcement
THERE is something odd about the way the Obama Administration has taken Israel to the woodshed over the approval of an expansion of a Jewish neighbourhood in East Jerusalem during US Vice-President Joe Biden’s visit to the region.
For US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to subject Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to a second round of criticism after Biden had ostensibly buried the hatchet was particularly strange.
The Israeli government had no motive for embarrassing Biden, so prima facie, there is no reason to doubt Netanyahu’s contention that he had not known that such an announcement was going to be made.
The timing, just about everyone agrees, was regrettable. But Israel had never promised the United States that it was going to stop building housing in Jerusalem. On the contrary, as Netanyahu pointed out to the Knesset on Monday, no Israeli government has ever placed any curbs on Jerusalem construction.
The United States is entitled to disagree with that policy. However, let no-one be deluded: for Washington to place Israel’s East Jerusalem neighbourhoods on the same footing as the most isolated West Bank settlement represents an ominous shift in American foreign policy.
Perhaps the US condemnation would not sting so much if Washington held the Palestinians to the same standards to which it holds Israel. Yet, it clearly does not. Like Nevada Democratic Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, we are also curious as to why the State Department failed to respond with outrage when the Palestinians named a town square after a master terrorist.
Similarly, we question the State Department’s milquetoast response to Palestinian incitement over the reopening of the Hurva Synagogue in the Old City this week. And while the timing of the historic shul’s rededication was strictly coincidental, it’s hard to ignore the lessons of the Hurva.
The fact that the synagogue needed rebuilding only because it was intentionally destroyed by Jordan in 1948 serves as contrast — as Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat pointed out — to the way that Israel has vigilantly safeguarded the city’s holy sites for all religions.
And let the perseverance in rebuilding the synagogue 62 years later be a reminder to all that the Jewish people’s unbreakable connection to Jerusalem deserves respect, from our friends — and foes.
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