Generous Readers
Once again we would like to thank The Jewish Press and its readers for helping to make our Erev Pesach Falafel Campaign for so many fine, frum poor Israeli families such a success.
Thanks to the generosity of Jewish Press readers, we were able to send more than 45 families – that’s over 500 people – to our local falafel store for a falafel, French fries, and a drink.
The Jewish Press is truly unique in terms of the amazing range of places its readers are found: we received checks from a number of states including California, Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, as well as from Canada and Israel.
Checks we received after Pesach will go to the Shavuos Cheesecake Fund, where we give these same families the ingredients and the recipe for a delicious, healthy, no-bake cheesecake.
Tzvia Ehrlich-Klein
Jerusalem
Historical Reality
I found reader Frida Schapiro’s highly negative response (Letters, May 9) to Rabbi Berel Wein’s May 2 op-ed, “Why Many Orthodox Jews Can’t Face Up to History” to be incomprehensible.
Can she really believe that Jewish children should go through life without being informed about the Holocaust or the establishment of the modern state of Israel?
And where does she get the notion that Rabbi Wein was telling readers to look at history through a secular lens? He was simply making the cogent point that by not teaching the realities of Jewish history – including (a) the reality that life in pre-Holocaust Eastern Europe was hardly the idyllic Torah existence portrayed in books and biographies geared to haredi readers and (b) the reality that even our greatest rabbis are mere mortals capable of error.
I am not suggesting that everyone need sign onto any of the various explanations as to why specific historical events occurred or what part of God’s plan they fit into. But to be ignorant of their reality leaves a gaping void concerning two of the most important occurrences in Jewish history.
Baruch Rabiner
(Via E-Mail)
Solving Half-Shabbos
Re “Walking a Mile With Their Cell Phones” (op-ed, May 9):
The only solution to the problem of “Half-Shabbos” is for parents to take their children’s cell phones and lock them away before Shabbos. Also, the parents should have the passwords for their children’s computers in order to lock them as well.
Parents have to teach children to do the right thing. Children using these gadgets are violating Shabbos and, more important, they are committing Chillulei Hashem by violating Torah. Many of them are suffering from a very real form of addiction, and this can lead to other addictions such as, chas v‘shalom, drugs, smoking, and drinking.
Parents might also consider suggesting to their children that they spend Shabbos together with their friends or meet somewhere in the neighborhood at some point during the day.
David N. Rodgers
Hillcrest, NY
Invisible War
An item in the May 9 Week in Review section reported that a 20-year-old Israeli woman, Shelly Dadon, was murdered by Arab terrorists in northern Israel the previous week.
Try Googling “Shelly Dadon” and “New York Times,” or “Shelly Dadon” and “Washington Post.” Nothing comes up.
These days there are two types of women in the Middle East whose murders are not considered newsworthy: Israeli Jewish women murdered by Palestinian terrorists because they are Jews and Palestinian women murdered by Palestinian terrorists because they are suspected of deviating from some aspect of Islamic morality and thus are accused of “dishonoring” their families.
“Honor killings” of Palestinian women doubled in the past year, yet they still have not been mentioned in The New York Times. When will this Palestinian Arab war on women finally receive the attention it deserves?
Moshe Phillips, President
Benyamin Korn, Chairman Religious Zionists of America – Philadelphia Chapter