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Here's the text of the letter that I mailed to him - it's basically just an adaptation of what I posted here, which I also submitted to various newspapers' op-ed departments:

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Mr. Josh Ruebner
c/o JPPI
PO Box 4177
Arlington, VA 22204-0177

April 10, 2003

Dear Mr. Ruebner,

I read your recent open letter to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, published in Al Ahram.

We are fast approaching the season of Pesach, where we recall our deliverance from bondage in the land of Egypt. As you join your friends and family for Seder and fulfill the mitzvah of discussing it late into the night, I hope that you will consider my comments.

In the days leading up to our liberation in Egypt, we drained that nation of all its wealth by "borrowing" the gold and jewels of our slave masters. There was an intense "air campaign" waged against them, involving the spoiling of drinkable water, devastation of food supplies, and even "biological warfare," involving boils and livestock disease. This campaign finally culminated in the death of every first-born child in every Egyptian family, causing a terrible cry of anguish throughout all of Egypt, the likes of which have never been heard again.

This is certainly a far more catastrophic scenario than even the most wild-eyed predictions of the war protestors as to the conduct of coalition troops in Iraq.

Every Pesach, we drink a cup of wine to symbolize the joy of our freedom from the suffering of our slavery in Egypt, but we diminish this cup by 10 drops, one for each plague visited upon the Egyptians in the course of our liberation.

A mere ten drops out of a full cup of wine does not suggest insignificance of the suffering and loss inflicted against our slave-masters in the course of our liberation, but rather it represents the enormous magnitude of joy found in finally shattering the yoke of harsh servitude and bitter oppression, and being able to live as a free people once again.

In the commemorations of Iraqi liberation three thousand years from now, they surely will spill out drops of wine, diminishing their cup of joy in memory of the children maimed and killed, of the mothers and fathers, the sons and daughters who were caught in the maelstrom of enormous forces, and did not live to see the day of Iraqi freedom.

But in three thousand years, the name of Saddam Hussein will be forgotten, just as the name of Pharaoh has been, and Iraqi families will recline in comfort, happiness, and safety and drink their cup – less those drops – and remember the joyous day when they danced in the streets and smashed the idols of their oppressor.

Shalom & Chag Sameach,
Michael Pelletier