Reader Generosity
Once again we would like to thank The Jewish Press and its many readers for helping to make a success of our Erev Pesach Falafel Campaign for poor Israeli families.
Thanks to the generosity of Jewish Press readers, this year we were able to send 43 families – that’s more than 400 people – to our local falafel store for a falafel, French fries, and a drink.
The Jewish Press is truly unique in the amazing range of places its readers live: We received checks from California, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and many other states, as well as from Israel and Canada.
Tzvia Ehrlich-Klein
Jerusalem
Egyptian Realities
Unfortunately, taking encouragement from the Egyptian military’s efforts to retain its power and also its substantial collective grip on Egypt’s economy is wishful thinking and represents a failure to appreciate the dynamic of the Egyptian version of the Arab Spring (“Political Moves by Egyptian Military Could Be Beneficial to Israel,” front page news story, June 15).
We delude ourselves into thinking the ebb and flow of Egyptian politics is significant over the long run. While even a transitory peace is not something to be dismissed, an enduring peace will come only from a rapprochement with a democratically elected Egyptian government. Israel may not have a choice in the matter, but it should never lose sight of the fact that identifying with a dictatorship creates problems of its own, as witness the downfall of Hosni Mubarak.
Adam Goldstein
(Via E-Mail)
Hynes Makes The Case
Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes makes a good, matter of fact case for his Kol Tzedek program and in answering critics who charge he pandered to haredi community leaders (“Kol Tzedek: A Proven Tool in Prosecuting Abuse Cases,” op-ed, June 15).
We can only hope that over time families in haredi communities will come to realize they cannot in effect acquiesce in the molestation of their children.
Moreover, anything that smacks of special treatment for members of our community, whatever the reasons or motivations, cannot be a good thing for us in the eyes of the general public.
Rachel Simon
(Via E-Mail)
Historical Parallel
Re Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld’s excellent June 22 op-ed article, “Learning from the 1930s”:
Had Winston Churchill been listened to, and Hitler stopped at Munich, 50 million lives would have been saved.
It was especially interesting and terrifying that, as Dr. Gerstenfeld reminds us, the British Cabinet considered Czechoslovakia to be the aggressor against Germany. Today, of course, Israel is considered the aggressor against the “poor Palestinians.”
Reuven (Raymond) Solomon
(Via E-Mail)
Purity And The Internet
In his June 15 op-ed article “Purity and Uprightness in the Jewish Camp,” Alan Krinsky seems to confuse two very different concerns. The purity under attack by undesirable material on the Internet and elsewhere is not the same as ritual or ideological purity. It is not associated with any “camp.” It is a matter of common decency – derech eretz – and the dignity of the tzelem Elokim.
As such, the danger to purity posed by the Internet is a matter of common concern to all Jews – to all decent human beings, for that matter. This threat plays a major role in the deterioration of American life that Rachel Bluth wrote of in her Magazine piece in the same issue, “America, Once Beautiful, for Thee I Weep.”
If the Jewish community succeeds in finding an antidote to this plague, it could benefit not only the Jewish people but all humankind.
Esther Cameron
(Via E-Mail)
Obama And Pollard
President Obama repeatedly proclaims his unswerving support for Israel and requests that the Jewish state risk its existence on his Iranian policies.
Yet when presented with repeated Israeli entreaties to pardon an infirm Jonathan Pollard (after 26 and a half years of incarceration) and thereby display a modicum of his alleged fealty to Israel, President Obama refuses.
Therefore, Israel must cease naïvely trusting a man so manifestly impervious to Jewish humanitarian pleas.
Chaim ben Zvi
Queens, NY