To be a democracy there must be a separation of religion and government. A nation cannot be a democracy and also be an atheist, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish or Muslim state. A citizen's religious beliefs or lack thereof is no business of the government of a democracy.

David f - Blessed be He who revives the dead!

I have been missing you and hope your are well!

Dear Yuyutsu,

Marie died on March 26 of last year, and I have been sometimes in a dark place since then. I lacked the will to join her. Now, I want to live on. I wish that there be peace in Israel but feel no country should be attached to any religion since that makes the people who live in that country and do not belong to that religion second-class citizens. Singer is nuts. To question Israel and what it does is not anti-Jewish. I am Jewish and question the acts of Israel.

More calls for the crime of ethnic cleansing from the singer.
Is advocating for crimes against humanity really allowed on OLO.

Dear David f,

Please accept my sincere condolences for Marie.
I am glad that you want to live on.

I also wish for peace in Israel and am very critical and concerned about its actions under its present government, which is racist, headed by a criminal and for the first time in Israel's history includes Kahane Nazis.

Yet I am not inclined to discard the baby with the filthy bath-water.

I do find it valuable for people with special needs to be able to establish a small state of their own that caters to their particular needs. Let us not argue whether or not these are truly religious needs or otherwise as we would probably disagree, but the fact is that Orthodox Jews do have unique needs which others do not.

Israel is the only place in the world where the weekend is Friday-Saturday, not Saturday-Sunday, and the public holidays correspond with the Biblical Jewish festivals. Thereby, Israelis can be confident that they will not be discriminated against for not willing to work on the Sabbath, nor summoned to court or other such institutions during the Jewish Sabbath, nor even have to press an electric button for getting a pedestrian green light when they want to cross an intersection with traffic lights on the Sabbath.

Israel is the only place in the world where one can be confident that if they be institutionalised for any reason, then the food there will be kosher by default.

Israel is also the only location where certain Biblical commandments (Mitzvoth), such as Shmitah, can be fulfilled.

Then of course, Israel is the only country whose language is Hebrew.

The list goes on - Israel is designed as a Jewish-friendly state and while I dislike the racist notion of a "Jewish state", I would like Israel to remain "Jewish-friendly" in cultural character - obviously not at the expense of others!

As for the "Singer" bot, as I oppose to and avoid AI (Artificial-Intelligence), I stopped reading its articles long ago and suggest you do the same.

Glad you are back!