Rav Elyashiv Editorial
I was pleased that in your editorial last week on the death of Rav Elyashiv, zt”l, you once again saw fit not to take the one-size-fits-all approach usually found in other Orthodox publications when they write of departed gedolim.
The editorial was succinct, to the point and painted an individualized picture of the role this preeminent posek played in recent years.
Eli Atterman
Jerusalem
IOC And Munich (I)
The anti-Israel essence of the International Olympic Committee’s failure to commemorate the Munich massacre at the outset of the games last week was made abundantly clear by the claim that it would have been an out-of-place political statement.
As you noted (“The IOC and Israel’s Martyred Athletes,” editorial, July 27), this is outrageous. It was murder, plain and simple. The IOC’s perfidy is underscored by the fact that it was willing to ignore the clear assault on what the Olympics are supposed to represent
Roslynn Hubner
(Via E-Mail)
IOC And Munich (II)
IOC president Jacques Rogge is the spiritual heir to Avery Brundage. Brundage excluded Jewish runners in 1936 to please Hitler. In 1972 TV news reports on the massacre, Brundage blithely dismissed the mass murder of the Israeli athletes and coaches with a veritable “show must go on” exhortation.
Rogge finds memorializing the greatest crime ever in Olympic history to be political. A lesson for the civilized world on the human cost of terror does not register with him the way fallen comrades register with soldiers, police, fireman or other heroes. He fears a “walkout” by athletes fielded by misogynist, terror-supporting Islamist states.
The Olympics can never be a vehicle for brotherhood so long as thuggery dictates IOC policy.
Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld
President
Israel Independence Fund
The Levy Report
Re “Incorrect and Ill-Advised Assumptions: A Response to Critics of the Levy Report,” op-ed, July 27:
Why am I not surprised that the Israel Policy Forum opposes the Levy Report? Sad to say, that group, while nominally a Jewish organization, has taken the political position that anything that could possibly support Israel in the conflict with the Palestinians must be opposed lest the Israelis become too confident.
I would have thought that a document such as the Levy Report, which Ambassador Baker described so eloquently in his op-ed and which makes more than a reasonable case for Israel, should have been welcomed by those who really want a workable solution rather than schemes that feed Palestinian rejectionism.
Rabbi Eliezer Feinman
(Via E-Mail)
Temple Mount Apathy
I hope Rabbi Chaim Richman’s heads-up on the Temple Mount excites the interest of your readers (“Time to Safeguard the Temple Mount,” op-ed, July 27). The liberties the Palestinians are allowed to take with what is, after all, the Har Habayis, so integral to our traditions, is a continuing scandal. They are interlopers and are only encouraged when we fail to vindicate our rights.
How hollow are our references to our biblical entitlements when Israel ignores these trespassers?
Maurice Glazer
Jerusalem
Financial Priorities
Orthodoxy has a tuition crisis and an economic crisis. People are facing foreclosure and bankruptcy in a bad economy. The answer is an Asifa on the dangers of the Internet and the rental of MetLife Stadium with a $250,000 mechitzah.
Maybe if that money went instead to a Project Ezra type charity, our fellow Jews would be better off.
Pinchas Lichter
(Via E-Mail)
Airbrushing History
Rabbi Berel Wein’s July 20 op-ed article, “Airbrushing the Past Creates Problems in the Present,” was right on target in its criticism of zealots who intentionally distort history and present inaccurate information of past Jewish life, including the airbrushing of old photographs.
As an example, Rabbi Wein cited the famous photograph of the Chofetz Chaim speaking with his son. When a major Jewish publication did a story on the 50th yahrzeit of the Chofetz Chaim, the photograph was altered and the women in the picture disappeared. My father, HaRav Chaim Yitzchok Pupko, zt”l, who learned in Radin and was a ben bayis in the Chofetz Chaim’s home, was aggrieved at the time of that falsification.
Rabbi Wein’s comments are similar to the sentiments expressed by my father. Honesty, avoiding lashon hara and speaking truthfully were the essence of the Chofetz Chaim’s greatness.