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Samuel Ackerman in his March 9 letter criticizing my earlier letter, and me, as anti-Semitic, hits below the belt when he writes, “Spritzler's repertoire also includes articles such as 'Do Jews Really Rule the World,' thus continuing the promotion of anti-Semitic ideas that have been popular fare among anti-Semites for many years.” Ackerman left out the question mark that is in my article's title, and neglects to tell his readers that the answer I give to the question is a resounding “No,” very explicitly in the second paragraph.

Also, Ackerman's dismissing Einstein's objection to a Jewish state as equivalent to Tory colonists opposing independence of the American colonies is absurd: the Israeli Knesset asked Einstein to be the President of Israel in 1952;

I doubt any Tory was asked to be anything like that in the newly independent colonies. Ackerman also claims that Einstein's views would have changed after 1948. But it was on December 4, 1948, six months after Israel declared independence when Einstein wrote his letter to the New York Times condemning the future Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin with these words:

“The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a 'Leader State' is the goal.”

Deny it all you want, but defining the goal of being a Jewish State that requiring an 80% majority Jewish population, and denying non-Jews their human right to return to their country because they aren't Jewish, is racist. It is particularly racist when Ackerman makes the false claim that the majority of Arabs left voluntarily and therefore have no right to return;

the racism is not in Ackerman's false historical facts but in his logic: that Arabs who leave voluntarily, unlike, say, Americans who leave the United States voluntarily when they vacation in Europe, give up their right to return to their country. I'm sure Ackerman doesn't say that the Jews of Tel Aviv who left that city in droves voluntarily during the first Gulf War in fear of Iraqi SCUD missiles gave up their right to return?

John Spritzler