To the Editor:

Re: “A Passover Message Re: Resistance,” Opinion, April 14.

In her Tuesday column, the author attempted to deliver a Passover message in response to Palestinian resistance in Gaza. However, with the exception of the snide comments in her conclusion, the column passes over the entire story and meaning of Passover.

For those who do not know the story of Passover, here is the Readers’ Digest version: The Jews were slaves in Egypt and G-d told Moses to ask Pharaoh to free the Jews. Moses went and warned Pharaoh what would happen should he not choose the path of peace. With each plague G-d sent, Moses went back to Pharaoh, but repeatedly Pharaoh refused peace.

As a student at one of the schools that was not off this festive week, I was left to face the challenge of observing Passover at Cornell. The most difficult challenge for me, like many, is avoiding bread products. Once a year I understand why people on carb-free diets are so miserable. Later in this article I want to express my disappointment towards Cornell dining, for I believe there are simple steps the University should be taking to help students who wish to observe the holiday. First, however, I want to raise a second challenge that I faced this Passover — explaining to people what Passover is and why I insisted on eating my hamburgers without buns.

Transforming from a track to a dining room, Barton Hall seated 50 tables of Cornell Jews and non-Jews last night as students celebrated the first night of Passover at Cornell’s Super seder. As in years past, Cornell Hillel hosted The Super seder in coordination with Cornell dining.

It’s been two weeks since The Column That Launched a Thousand Ships. And I want to preface this one by saying that it is no apology, but rather an addendum.

The chaos that my column spurred, while not completely unexpected, certainly reflects a reality: It hit a sore, sore spot for many. I originally wrote it because there had not been anything in The Sun about the Israel/Gaza situation. I felt that strong feelings must be festering on all fronts that would doubtlessly explode soon. Indeed, I learned that I was not the only one whose “fire had been ignited” over break — people from all political persuasions, from all religions, took my column and used it to explode all over the place.

Ariela Rutkin-Becker wants to know what I want to know, and the bomb-loving crowd won’t tell: “What I want to know,” she wrote on Tuesday, “what burns me up at night is how are so many other American Jews not red-in-the-face, infuriated, embarrassed and righteously indignant now with Israel’s response to Gaza’s rocket-fire?” Ms. Rutkin-Becker, unwillingly and unknowingly conscripted by her temple sisterhood into the Stay-Here-in-America-but-Send-Money brigade of the Israel Defense Forces, isn’t the only one with a presumptive synagogue.

To the Editor:

Re: “The Wrong to Remain Silent by Ariela Rutkin-Becker,” Letters, Jan. 28

Ariela Rutkin-Becker overflows with feeling in her recent article “The Wrong to Remain Silent,” but unfortunately she lets this emotion get in the way of reason.

You don't have a heart if you do not feel pain for each and every innocent Palestinian Arab who has suffered in Gaza. You don’t have a brain if you fail to understand that those responsible for the suffering are the Palestinian Arabs themselves.