In response to:

Jihadi Suicide Bombers: The New Wave from the June 12, 2008 issue

In Ahmed Rashid’s “Jihadi Suicide Bombers: The New Wave” [NYR, June 12], it should have been made clear that the “greater jihad,” referred to in the first paragraph of his piece, is the struggle to become a better human being and the “lesser jihad” is to fight for Islam and self-defense.

In Harold W. Attridge’s article about the Gospel of Judas [NYR, May 1], Jean Donovan, martyred in El Salvador in 1980 with Sisters Dorothy Kazel, Maura Clarke, and Ita Ford, was not herself a nun but a lay volunteer.