Shabbos With The Jewish Press
I want to thank The Jewish Press for enhancing the Shabbos reading in the Silber household for more than 50 years.
My father, Mr. Irv Silber, z”l, just passed away two days after his 93rd Jewish birthday. He was born in Brooklyn and moved to Cleveland with my mom in 1965. He was an avid reader of The Jewish Press. In fact, it wouldn’t have been Shabbos without The Jewish Press in our home.
I will continue the mesorah and think of my dad every Shabbos while reading The Jewish Press.
Yudi Silber
(Via E-Mail)
Editor’s Note: The management and staff of The Jewish Press extend their condolences to the Silber family.
Jerusalem Without Apology
The centrality of Jerusalem to the Jewish people was widely denied for some 2,000 of the 3,000 years of its obvious status as our capital. And then along comes an American president who complies with a two-decades-old U.S. law doing just that.
One need not have heard a Jackie Mason routine about “Jewish sickness” to diagnose the pathology of a people who hold out for the “consent” of professional refugees of four generations before these Jews dare to accept this long-overdue recognition without reservation.
The Jewish people resettled, without complaint, 800,000 Jews who resided for two millennia in Muslim lands and who were plundered, persecuted, and worse for simply being Jews. There are no such Jews today existing as refugees – while 500,000 Arab-conceived (“The Jews into the sea”) Palestinian refugees are now somehow 6 million.
When the Palestinians are ready to accept Israel’s repeated and generous offers for peace, we will know. In the meantime, my fellow Jews, you need not be their lawyer.
Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld
Great Neck, NY
Roy Moore’s Loss (I)
Rabbi Yehuda Levin made some interesting points in his op-ed article (“Moore or Less? The Crucial Question for Alabama Voters,” Dec. 8) urging Alabamians to elect Roy Moore to the U.S. Senate. But in the end his arguments failed to move me.
As a Republican, I certainly am not in the habit of hoping for Democratic victories, but I must admit I was pleased that Moore lost to Democrat Doug Jones. There are certain basics that must transcend partisan politics, and Moore’s increasingly evident sordid past should have been a red line that even Republican voters would not cross.
Certainly Orthodox Jews, whether we live in Alabama or New York, should not, due to personal political preferences, close our eyes to unacceptable and immoral behavior.
Nechemiah Rudner
(Via E-Mail)
Roy Moore’s Loss (II)
When Alabama Republican Senator Richard Shelby said in the days leading up to last week’s special election, “I couldn’t vote for Roy Moore,” he became an American hero. (And I’m sure his stance helped sway undecided voters in his state to vote for Moore’s opponent.)
Rather than perpetuating the ugly partisan politics that plagues our nation, Sen. Shelby did a rare thing: He stood on principle. What a breath of fresh air!
Howard Allen
(Via E-Mail)
Tzitzis Out: A Halachic Question
I was somewhat surprised reading both the op-ed article by Elliot Resnick (“Tzitzis: In or Out?” Nov. 24) and the letters to the editor (Dec. 1) supporting his conclusion that wearing one’s tzitzis out lacks modesty, and that if one did not grow up wearing one’s tzitzis out he should not begin doing so.
Mr. Resnick seemed to address the subject simply on a sociological basis and used his own personal journey to justify his preference for tucking his tzitzis in. This is hardly the way an Orthodox Jew should approach a question in halacha.
I am not suggesting there are no bona fide opinions holding that tzitzis may be tucked in. My point is that when discussing a matter of halacha we can’t just say that since a lot of people do or don’t do something it must be wrong.
It reminds me of a question-and-answer session with Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, zt”l, that I attended while spending Shabbos in Yeshivat Gush Etzion almost 30 years ago. A questioner asked the rosh yeshiva: “What is the basis for married women not covering their hair?” Taking the question literally, the rosh yeshiva explained the various historical and sociological factors that caused a generation of women to abandon that mitzvah.
The questioner then clarified that he meant to ask, “What is the halachic basis for married women to not cover their hair?” To this Rav Lichtenstein said, “Oh, the halachic basis? There is none. [Not covering one’s hair] is completely prohibited. Period.”
To invoke the concept of modesty and say that wearing tzitzis out is a compromise of the ideal of walking in modesty is to tread on very shaky ground.
I think it is also worth discussing the positive side of wearing tzitzis out, aside from the halachic perspective. Where I live, in Waterbury, Conn., many of the high school students are at a point in their lives where they are struggling with their Judaism. In the mesivta here, wearing extra-long tzitzis out became a type of cool statement. To my mind, using one of Hashem’s commandments to be hip is a lot better than the alternatives.
Hillel Adler
(Via E-Mail)
Israel And Africa
Your Dec. 1 front page headline and related story, “Netanyahu: Israel and Africa Will Build a Better Future” reminded me of the much earlier program of Israeli aid to African and Asian countries, along with technical and scientific education for people from those countries.
This Israeli policy was pioneered by Abba Eban, Golda Meir, and David Ben-Gurion. The undertaking constituted a peaceful revolution, albeit one aborted by most of the beneficiary countries. This program included extensive scientific education at such institutions as The Weizmann Institute of Science. This was all undertaken at a time when Israel was a much weaker, poorer, and less populated country than it is now.
But the nations of the Third World rejected Israel after the Yom Kippur War, a sad turn of events that culminated in the disgraceful 1975 United Nations resolution equating Zionism with racism.
The political and diplomatic winds are now shifting, but time has been lost. In rejecting Israel the leaders of those countries rejected the welfare of their people. Let us pray that Netanyahu is right and that Africa and Israel will do great things together. After all, God promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that through their seed all the families of the world would be blessed. And Rashi says that when the patriarch Jacob arrived in Egypt, the famine ceased and the waters of the Nile were blessed and renewed.
Reuven Solomon
Forest Hills, NY
Special Tribute
I am writing this to pay tribute to a very special man on his yahrzeit. He shall go unnamed because he would have wanted it that way. He was humble and unassuming throughout his life – although at death’s door he exhibited the kind of strength and courage few of us have.
A lawyer, he was president of the Judenrat (Jewish Council) of a city in Poland during the Second World War. The Jewish Councils of Nazi-occupied Europe have taken on a bad name over the years, in some cases deservedly so. But many of the members of those councils did what they could, in extremely trying circumstances, to keep the Jews under their jurisdiction alive and away from the Nazis’ scrutiny for as long as possible.
That is precisely what this particular man did, working long and hard to ensure that his Jewish community had food and at least some basic creature comforts.
And then one day the Gestapo came to his home and demanded that he choose 100 Jews of his city for execution.
He refused, saying, “I cannot decide who shall live and who shall die.”
So the Nazis seized his three daughters and said, “If you do not deliver to us one hundred Jews, we will shoot these girls on the spot, as you watch.”
Again the man refused, tears forming in his eyes as he looked at his daughters.
“Only God can decide who lives and who dies. I have no authority.”
The German beasts immediately turned their guns on the man’s daughters, killing them one by one. He shuddered in unimaginable pain and grief as their lifeless bodies fell to the ground.
Having forced the man to witness the cold-blooded murder of his daughters, the Nazis shot him dead, too.
May God avenge their souls along with those of all our martyrs.
Grace Schwarzberg
Lawrence, NY
Editor’s Note: Mrs. Schwarzberg passed away a few days after writing this. She would have been 93 next week.