How our readers respond to what they are reading
In response to Dr. Gleicher’s monthly A PIECE OF MY MIND article, which was first appeared on January 2, 2025 and a few weeks later in the January/February double-issue of the CHR VOICE with the title, “A probably too long and personal take on modern-day antisemitism in education, academia, science, and medicine”. The author and CHR’s Medical Director and Chief Scientist, Norbert Gleicher, MD, received a response from a German colleague on February 21, 2025. Translated instantly from German to English with an A.I. program by the CHR’s Director of Research and Clinical IVF, David Barad, MD, MS. We are very pleased to present the letter below:
Subject: A Piece of My Mind
Dear Colleague Norbert Gleicher,
Please allow me to write to you in German and to respond so late to your article “A Piece of My Mind” from early January.
I was unsure whether a response from a German to your article would be welcome. However, the events of the past few days have compelled me to write to you.
What we are witnessing are horrifying, incomprehensible, and unspeakably cruel atrocities committed by Hamas, who have taken people hostage, treated them in inhumane ways, and brutally murdered them. When we see the images of how emaciated and mistreated the survivors of captivity look upon their release, when we read their reports of months of abuse, while at the same time noticing the good condition in which Arab criminals are released from Israeli prisons, there can be no doubt about who adheres to human standards in a lawful manner and who does not. It is a scandal that the inhumanity of Hamas is not more clearly called out by name.
Through their unimaginable cruelty in dealing with innocent people, including infants and young children, Hamas members have stripped themselves of their human dignity. Such individuals have forfeited their claim to be considered human.
We, who in our profession fight daily for the creation of new human life, can grasp the immense loss suffered by the father of Ariel and Kfir Bibas, as well as the loss to all of humanity through the ruthless and despicable murder of these two innocent children and the subsequent desecration of their bodies.
I stand in shock before these acts of horror and before the fact that the government of my country wants to send these murderers and their accomplices in Hamas hundreds of millions of euros, -supposedly for humanitarian purposes, but in reality to further finance their gruesome and contemptuous acts. I am deeply ashamed and outraged by this and can only assure you that I will raise my voice against it.
Together with my Jewish friends here in Berlin, I sincerely hope that the Israeli hostages will return home as soon as possible, and that this entire Hamas nightmare will be brought to an end once and for all.
Dear colleague Gleicher, hoping that my message is not unwelcome to you, I sincerely wish you Shabbat Shalom and all the best.
Best regards,
Dr. Matthias Bloechle
Berlin
EDITORIAL COMMENT: We, of course, cannot publish every comment we receive but could not resist publishing this letter. A big Thank You to Dr. Gleicher, the whole Editorial Team, and to Dr. Bloechle in Germany. We, of course, are especially appreciate receiving this letter from Germany, not only for the obvious historical reasons but also because we are delighted to see that both of the CHR’s communication outlets, the VOICE and The Reproductive Times, are now reaching a growing public outside of the U.S.