Thumbs Up To Sara Lehmann
Sara Lehmann’s monthly “Right Angle” column is a welcome, common sense answer to misplaced Jewish liberalism.
The January 20 issue proved that Ms. Lehmann is also an excellent interviewer. Her questions to Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, were cogent, intelligent, and meaningful. They elicited from him precise answers to precise questions and highlighted what a genuinely good man and very capable leader he is.
Too often, interviewers forget that the reading public wants to know the interviewee’s positions, not theirs. Ms. Lehmann did a stellar job presenting Mr. Klein’s positions, concerns and opinions.
Myron Hecker
New City, NY
At Least Obama Tried On Healthcare
I recently heard a snippet of then-President-elect Donald Trump saying that “Obamacare is a disaster.”
The Affordable Health Care Act is too complicated to comment on here, but at least to me the greater disaster was that for years before the Affordable Health Care Act, no one was doing anything about the millions of Americans who did not have insurance.
So even if it turns out that Obamacare is replaced by a better plan, I think we would never have gotten to that improved plan were it not for then-President Obama’s efforts to deal with a serious problem in our nation.
Alan Howard
Brooklyn, NY
Middah K’negged Middah
Re your Jan. 20 editorial “The Trump-Lewis Imbroglio in Context”:
There is clearly a “middah k’negged middah” concept in play here. After all the years that Mr. Trump spread outright lies questioning the legitimacy of Mr. Obama’s presidency and his very qualifications to be president (with the wholly false claim that he was not born in the United States), it seems only fair that Mr. Trump’s own legitimacy as president should also be questioned.
After the endless string of lies and insults that Mr. Trump hurled at all the other candidates – most of whom were eminently more qualified than he to be president –during the Republican primaries and the general election campaign, it is somewhat gratifying to see him getting a taste of his own medicine.
Shmuel B. Cohen
(Via E-Mail)
The Need To Come Together
America has just endured an exceedingly divisive presidential election and nasty interregnum. Too many people, including significant segments of the Jewish community, seemingly have swallowed whole all the slime and slander.
The spectacle of so many spiritual and secular opinion leaders lending themselves to the anti-Trump hysteria is simply appalling. There have been calls for ongoing marches, boycotts, disruptions, and other acts of delegitimization – even outright sedition. Warnings have been issued against the slightest association with the new administration.
Trump, of course, is not even close to being the second coming of Hitler, as some of his more unhinged opponents have characterized him. Barely inaugurated, Trump and his associates deserve time to do something really objectionable before foes rise up in fury. “Loyal opposition” is the American way. There is now too much emphasis on “opposition” and not enough on “loyal.”
With frequent elections, moreover, there are no permanent winners or losers in American politics.
Now is the time for the country to come together to address our many problems, foreign and domestic.
Whether Trump will be “good” for the Jews remains uncertain.
What is certain, however, is that continued red-hot oppositional turmoil will be bad, not just for the Jews but for America itself.
Richard D. Wilkins
Syracuse, NY
More On Jerusalem Street Signs
Gedaliah Borvick’s Jan. 20 article on Jerusalem street signs provides everyone with still another reason to cherish every walk or ride alongside of every Jerusalem home constructed of Jerusalem stone.
But there is one additional major feature of Jerusalem street signs that should be noted – some include not just the name of the street sign but also the significance of the name, such as the sign on Harry Fischel Street that states, in Hebrew, “philanthropist, founded institute for Talmudic research in Jerusalem, 5625-5708.”
Evidently, such background information does not appear on every street sign, but you can verify the existence of this feature at least on this street by visiting Jerusalem or looking at the color photograph on the inside flap of the dust jacket of the recently published augmented biography of Harry Fischel, OBM.
Aaron Reichel
(Via E-Mail)
Editor’s Note: Rabbi Reichel edited the augmented biography of Harry Fischel.