LETTER OF THE WEEK

In yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald, a letter from the Executive director, Executive Council of Australian Jewry Mr. Peter Wertheim writing about some of the blank page stuff omitted in Jason Koutsoukis' atrociously written piece on Israel's bigoted Ultra Orthodox rabbis:-

Israel repudiates bigoted rabbis

Your story "Students targeted after rabbi's anti-Arab edict" (December 18-19) omits some critical details. The petition of a group of rabbis in Israel to forbid renting homes to non-Jews was immediately condemned by political and religious leaders, including Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Tzohar organisation, representing 600 religious Zionist rabbis in Israel, rejected the petition as contrary to Jewish religious law and affirmed the right of Israel's non-Jewish minority residents to live with equal rights under the protection of the law. Israel remains the only country in the Middle East in which public statements of bigotry are met with immediate repudiation from senior mainstream political and religious leaders.

What surprises me is that bigoted journalists like Koutsoukis think they can get away with suppressing information that should give their stories proper context.