Cufflinks In Harrisburg
Our shul in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is near several major highways and only about 20 minutes from Hershey. As such, we enjoyed davening together with many visitors who passed through our neck of the woods during Chol HaMoed Pesach.
During that time, though, someone left behind a nice pair of cufflinks.
Is there anyone among the readership of The Jewish Press who can help me find the person who stopped to daven in our shul over Chol HaMoed and forgot his cufflinks here? (Does this indicate he was wearing tefillin?)
I can be contacted at (717) 238-0763 or [email protected].
Rabbi Akiva Males
Kesher Israel Congregation
Harrisburg, PA
Counterdemonstration In Manhattan
Kol hakavod to the many who gathered on Sunday evening, April 12, in front of the famed Beacon Theater on Broadway to energetically support Israel with flags and signs and songs and chants in order to counter a nasty rally by anti-Israel forces protesting a performance by Israeli musician Idan Raichel.
Special thanks to JCC Watch, Americans for a Safe Israel, ZOA, and Jewish Rapid Response Coalition for organizing the turnout on short notice and no budget.
Glenn Richter
New York, NY
Rotten Times
Andrea Levin’s excellent April 10 front-page essay, “The Rage of The New York Times,” noted that the Times defends its lack of coverage of Palestinian hate-indoctrination because it is “so repetitious and lacks a fresh news hook interesting and valuable to readers.”
It seems the Times is as dishonest as it is biased. Virtually anyone who keeps up with the news is aware of the controversial “settlements” issue, which has been covered by every major news media endlessly. Yet the Times does not shy away from reporting on it.
The fact that Palestinians are indoctrinated with hatred is not nearly as well known. Reporting on this would be repetitious and lack freshness? Nothing could be further from the truth.
According to a recent Gallup poll, 70 percent of Americans view Israel favorably, while 17 percent favor the Palestinians. Sympathies in the general Middle East situation run 62 percent with Israel and only 16 percent with Palestinians. The Times seems to be out of touch with America.
On top of that, New York has about 1.5 million Jews (and an estimated Arab population of under a half million). You’d think a New York-based newspaper with recent declines in circulation and print ad revenue would at least know that supporting Israel is in its own best economic interest.
Apparently, the Times’s abhorrence of Israel is so all-consuming that it mindlessly spites itself just to spew its venom against a country that deserves nothing but praise for the humane way in which it deals with some of its worst enemies.
Josh Greenberger
Brooklyn, NY
Playing The Race Card Against Israel
Your April 3 editorial expressed appropriate concern about the fact that some members of the Congressional Black Caucus tried to play the race card in their opposition to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to Congress.
What is even more troubling is the likelihood that this affront was choreographed by President Obama and his aides. Remember: the public comments by caucus members were made moments after they emerged from a long meeting with President Obama in the White House.
Concluding their February 10 meeting with Obama, the Caucus members stepped outside and met with journalists. That was when Congressman Hank Johnson said the Netanyahu controversy actually was “about President Barack Obama being a black man disrespected by a foreign leader.” Rep. Cedric Richmond echoed the “disrespectful” charge. Congressman Gregory Meeks chimed in that Netanyahu’s decision “is an insult to the president of the United States.”
Was it just coincidence that these caucus members made their comments moments after a long meeting with a president who was just then in the thick of a White House campaign accusing Netanyahu of “insulting” him? Caucus chairman Rep. G.K. Butterfield apparently wants us to believe it was all just a coincidence; he told reporters the subject of Netanyahu’s speech “didn’t come up” during their 90-minute meeting with the president. But then he proceeded to lambast Israel’s prime minister for being “disrespectful.”
Frankly, we find Butterfield’s statement an insult – an insult to the intelligence of the American Jewish community. It’s painfully obvious that the White House choreographed the caucus members’ below-the-belt race-baiting against Israel’s leader. We join The Jewish Press in saluting Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and the other members of the Congressional Black Caucus who broke ranks with their colleagues and refused to boycott Netanyahu’s address.
Moshe Phillips, President
Benyamin Korn, Chairman
Religious Zionists of America
Philadelphia
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Rebbetzin To The World
Poignant And Riveting
Plaudits to Naomi Klass Mauer for the exceptionally poignant and riveting interview she conducted with Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis for The Jewish Press’s Olam Yehudi magazine (“Rebbetzin of the World,” April 3).
Ms. Mauer’s personal recollections helped paint a vivid picture of an era that saw so many Yiddishe neshamahs returning to their heritage thanks to the efforts of the Rebbetzin and others like her.
Fern Sidman
(Via E-Mail)
Remarkable Woman
Thank you so much for the beautiful interview with the inimitable Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis. I alternately smiled and teared up while reading about this remarkable woman whom I have long admired. It is truly amazing what one determined individual can accomplish!
May Rebbetzin Jungreis be blessed with many more healthy and productive years of nachas from her family and continued achievement on behalf of Klal Yisrael.
Naomi Gross
Ramat Beit Shemesh
Israel
Changing The Jewish World
Perhaps nobody alive today would be a more appropriate interviewer of the iconic Rebbetzin Jungreis than Naomi Klass Mauer, daughter of the founding publisher of The Jewish Press and herself the paper’s current associate publisher. It was The Jewish Press, after all, that first put Rebbetzin Jungreis on the map.
Re the dramatic story of the rebbetzin’s bold and historic address at Madison Square Garden in 1973: I can confirm that Rebbetzin Jungreis graciously arranged for other Jewish organizations to set up booths or tables there – a striking indication of her selfless dedication to bringing Jews back to Yiddishkeit even if it meant that other organizations might serve as the vehicles for their return and gain some adherents or members in the process.
I must confess I manned a table on behalf of Yavneh during the rebbetzin’s electrifying address because I had already been thoroughly exposed to her message (in the pages The Jewish Press, of course) and thought I could do more good at my post than in a seat.
Much more significantly, a first-person account of the Madison Square Garden event and how it came about appears in Yitta Halberstam Mandelbaum’s Holy Brother: Inspiring Stories and Enchanted Tales about Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. Citing the rebbetzin’s own words, the book notes that she originally suggested that the Young Israel movement sponsor such a rally at such a venue, but when Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach heard about this suggestion, he urged her to do it herself and he composed a new niggun with the words “the heilege rebbetzin is going to Madison Square Garden and change the Jewish world.”
And so it was destined to be!
Rabbi Aaron I. Reichel, Esq.
(Via E-Mail)