Like swallows returning to Capistrano, Congress’s annual determination to debate the history of the Ottoman Empire is a sign of spring. The Turkish government’s approach to the American Jewish community to help sink the proposed Congressional resolution officially recognizing the horrific killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in the early 20th Century as genocide is a similar ritual. Unlike the swallows, however, both Congress and the Turks are out of their habitat.

During the flowering of Turkish-Israeli political and security relations, it was easy for representatives of the “organized” Jewish community to speak on behalf of its Turkish friends and against the resolution. As the Turkish government began to slide-and then rush-away from its relationship with Israel and slide- and then rush-toward new accommodations with Syria and Iran, the Jewish community has become less inclined to use its organizational skill on behalf of the agenda of a country that is less inclined toward the Western side of the great divide. It doesn’t help that the Turkish “request” for “help” has begun to sound more like a threat of damage yet to come.

Thank you for your profile of the Joint Action Committee for Political Affairs (JACPAC), and its newly elected president, Clifton resident Gail Yamner. There are many one-issue pro-Israel PACs that do excellent work in helping to elect candidates who are strong supporters of a close U.S.-Israel relationship.

However, many of these candidates hold views on domestic issues, such as civil and reproductive rights, gun control, and church-state issues, that are at odds with the views of the overwhelming majority of Jewish voters. JACPAC supports a bipartisan slate of candidates who are both strongly pro-Israel and whose stance on domestic issues is more moderate and tolerant.

While a contribution to a single-issue PAC might have previously ended up helping to elect a Jesse Helms or a Tom Delay, and today may go to a Jim Demint, and tomorrow may wind up in the war chest of Sarah Palin, a contribution to JACPAC will go to candidates whose election will be good for Jewish interests in Israel and here at home.

A bit of light shines through all the heat in Phyllis Chesler’s Jan. 14 op-ed about the “Women of the Wall.” Ms. Chesler asserts that the women who flout the Israeli Supreme Court’s decision about where feminist services should take place near the Temple Mount are engaging in a “halachically acceptable” service, “not praying the way Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist Jews pray.”

Were I a Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist Jew, I would take deep offense at that statement. Why should a less traditional prayer service have less claim to the Kotel plaza than a “halachic” feminist one?

And there be the light. Either the Kotel Plaza is to be balkanized into a crazy-quilt of public prayer services (Jewish and otherwise — which was the point I made in my own op-ed, misrepresented by Ms. Chesler as contending that Jewish women “were trying to pray…” as “Buddhists or Taoists”) or it is to continue to function as a place of traditional Jewish prayer, as it has since 1967.

Catcalls and violence against other Jews are ugly and wrong. So, though, are provocation, fear-mongering, and name-calling. Let’s make this special, joyous Jewish month of Adar a time for regarding our wishes and differences with reason and logic, with only light, not heat.

I wish to commend The Jewish Standard for its timely coverage of the positive developments at the Jewish Center of Teaneck. Your article recognized the work done by our leadership over the last six months, which resulted in a clearer statement of our religious orientation as an Orthodox congregation.

The only omission in your coverage relates to our larger communal associations. The Jewish Center of Teaneck has always maintained strong ties with Yeshiva University, which it plans to continue. The late Rabbi Dr. Judah I. Washer was a proud graduate of the first class of Yeshiva College (1932) and a devoted musmach of RIETS. The Jewish Center of Teaneck over the years has sponsored many fund-raising events to support YU’s various schools. Moreover, Rabbi Zierler has remained a loyal and active alumnus of both Yeshiva College and RIETS, from which he received semicha 25 years ago.

In recent years, under Rabbi Zierler’s leadership, we have been honored at the Jewish Center by the presence of both YU’s president, Richard Joel, and Rabbi Zierler’s teacher and mentor, HaRav Dr. Moshe D. Tendler. We look forward to seeing this relationship with yeshiva flourish even more in the years ahead. And we welcome the continued partnership of other organizations such as the Orthodox Union, which has of late supported our efforts by providing the Jewish Center of Teaneck with speakers on timely issues, including Rabbi Menachem Genack and Dr. David Luchins. The Jewish Center of Teaneck is proud of its illustrious history as Teaneck’s first synagogue and looks forward to its vibrant role in the future within this blessed Jewish community.

The news out of Dubai has been rife with speculation about who assassinated Hamas terrorist commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a hotel there. Israeli agents and al-Mabhouh’s Palestinian rivals are high on the guess list. But amid the who-did-it debate, a happier Dubai event was taking place. A few weeks ago, Shahar Peer became the first Israeli woman to compete in a professional sporting event in the United Arab Emirates.

Peer, a superb tennis player, defeated several highly ranked competitors on her way to the semi-final round of the annual Dubai tennis championships. The 22-year-old then lost to American star Venus Williams, who went on to reclaim the title she had won the previous year. But no less significant was Peer’s stunning performance and how she got there in the first place.

The organized American Jewish community and our non-Jewish allies, with broad representation from across political and religious lines, are poised to launch a major initiative to counter the campaign to delegitimize Israel.

The sky is not falling. President Obama and the U.S. Congress remain firmly committed to Israel’s fundamental security and opinion polls consistently reflect broad American public support for the Jewish state. But there are clouds gathering on the horizon that must not be ignored.

When you get behind the wheel, think Torah. It may save someone’s life — perhaps even yours.

In the first six weeks of 2010, 32 drivers, 12 passengers, 18 pedestrians, and one bicyclist were killed in 59 fatal traffic accidents in New Jersey. That works out to three deaths every two days.

The Orthodox community, here and in Israel, has been confronted in recent days with important issues, forcing its leaders to grapple with significant issues touching on the very definition of Orthodoxy.

For example, after Rabbi Avi Weiss, religious leader of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, recognized a woman as an equal member of his rabbinic staff, Orthodox groups mobilized to express their feelings on this startling development. (Until now, 33-year-old Sara Hurwitz was dubbed HIR’s “maharat.” She is now to be called “rabba.”)