In a well-intentioned but misguided guest column, “Mandating teaching about antisemitism” [Gazette, Aug. 6], Chris Mohn inadvertently promulgates the very scourge she professes to deplore.

“The Zionist state does not reflect the values of the Jewish religion,” she writes, “although it is understandable that the two might be conflated.” Apparently there are “good” Jews who, if they pass a litmus test and repudiate Israel, are acceptable and “bad” Jews who, if they support the right of a Jewish state to exist, are OK to ostracize.

The need to study “the colonization in Israel/Palestine” is also mentioned in the column. Unless one’s ancestors were Native American or brought to these shores in chains, it is the height of hypocrisy to impose such a narrative on Jews, who have lived continuously in the Middle East since before recorded time, thousands of years before the advent of Islam.

Mohn also urges the study of the Balfour Declaration to increase understanding between “the Zionist political state of Israel and the Jewish religion.” I hope the course of study includes the 1937 Peel Commission when the British, in an attempt to placate Arab governments and dissuade them from siding with Nazi Germany — which they ended up doing anyway — recommended that any proposed Jewish state should receive 17% of the land.

The Jewish authorities at that time accepted the commission’s recommendations. The Arab governments rejected it out of hand, refusing any Jewish sovereignty over any “Muslim land,” no matter how minuscule, just as they rejected the United Nations partition in 1947.

For the past 2,000 years, with the exception of this blessed country, Jews haven’t fared too well by depending on the kindness and protection of others, which is why there is a need for a Jewish state. I don’t support settlements in the West Bank or a “Greater Israel” or religious fanaticism of any kind, but I do support Israel’s right to exist. I would hope that doesn’t make it kosher for those who believe as I do to be targeted.

Steve Bloom

Amherst