Critical yet pro-Israel
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Critical yet pro-Israel

I would like to thank Martin J. Raffel for his recent column “For critics of the Jewish state BDS is not the answer, but what is?” (May 1). It is critical that people know that it is OK for a committed Jew to criticize Israel, and that it is possible to criticize Israel without being anti-Israel.  

I am currently a high school student in a Modern Orthodox day school, and at all of the Jewish day schools that I know well, students are not taught that there is any position in between full support of everything that Israel does and being anti-Israel. From my experience, the only organizations that come to our school to speak about Israel are organizations such as AIPAC and NORPAC. None of the ones you mentioned, such as J Street or Ameinu, have ever visited any of the Modern Orthodox day schools that I have attended during my time at those schools. We have classes devoted to learning ways to defend every Israeli action when we get to college. 

While my school explicitly takes the general stance of being pro-Israel, it seems as if they only support one type of pro-Israel advocacy: unquestioning support. I thank Mr. Raffel for exposing me and hopefully others like me to other ways to support Israel.

Yogi Sragow
West Orange

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