Who Cares About the Royal Family?
The attention given to Prince William’s visit to Israel is totally unwarranted.
The whole British monarchy is one gigantic joke. It claims its special “blueblood” status from descent from William the Conqueror, who himself was of illegitimate birth and a cutthroat.
The royals have zero power – they are not even allowed to vote – and are not allowed to travel without government permission. They live super-luxurious paid for by British taxpayers who are too stupid to get rid of them like the more intelligent Americans did.
David Kirschenbaum
Do Older Girls Want To Get Married?
I often read that there are so many unmarried older girls. It seems to me that girls are more accomplished (they have college degrees and good jobs and travel the world) than the boys.
Yet these girls are not anxious to get married; they turn down the few excellent boys that come their way. I know one boy who was turned down by girls who wanted to travel to other countries to make movies on their thousand-dollar cameras. The boy was slim and handsome and very nice with three college degrees and an excellent job. But nope, the girls were not ready to settle down.
What is going on with girls these days? It seems girls are very normal at ages 18 to 25. They are sweet and friendly and ready to marry. But when they hit their 30s, they seem to give up on marriage and just hang out traveling the world and work.
Only older girls who already have a kid or are divorced seem to be interested in getting married. Think I’m kidding? Okay, let’s run a test. I have a boy who is 40 but looks 28 and is slim, handsome, and educated, and has an excellent job (licensed professional). He’s never been married.
See if you can come up with any girls from 27 to 39 who are 5′ to 5′ 6″ (he likes the girls to be shorter than him), are not overweight, do not smoke nor drink, do watch movies on computer, are sweet and kind, are healthy, and have college degrees and a good job.
You would expect that hundreds of girls would reply since Jewish magazines and newspapers claim there are so many more unmarried older girls than guys. But let’s see if even one does.
Yonah Tuvia
Are Immigrant Children Sent To Gas Chambers?
You have reported on recent comparisons made in media outlets between the immigration crisis and the Holocaust. I sympathize with the separation of children from their mothers and agree that measures should be taken by both parties to ensure a resolution as quickly as possible.
However, what these media outlets are doing is morally wrong. As the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust victims and survivors from Buchenwald and Auschwitz, I am outraged.
The illegal immigrants and their families were not forcibly thrown out of their homes by the United States, placed in cramped cattle cars without food and water, and sent to gas chambers and ovens to be cremated. The children were not separated from their parents to be exterminated.
While the conditions in the detention centers are not ideal, I am sure they are far better than those offered to the children in the concentration camps in Europe during WWII when six million Jews were murdered for no reason other than being Jewish.
The Jews did not voluntarily run to these concentration camps. There were no classes, movies, doctors, or sufficient food or water. Have people not seen photos of survivors after they were liberated? Of the piles of dead corpses stacked on top of each other?
How could anyone compare the atrocities committed to the Jews then with current events? By doing so, not only are media outlets minimizing the Nazi atrocities, they are sending a message to the world that our country is guilty of annihilating innocent men, women, and children for no reason – just like the Nazis.
If only the men, women, and children of the Holocaust would have received the same treatment as current illegal immigrants and their children.
My father just turned 90 and my mother is 84. They are outraged. They have to live with the horrible memories of the atrocities of 1939-1945. Their parents were murdered in front of their eyes. Their brothers, sisters, cousins sent to gas chambers. The majority of our family in Poland was wiped off the face of the earth.
The journalists making these comparisons owe an apology to every Holocaust survivor as well as to every mother, father and child brutally murdered by the Nazis.
Dr. Renee Reifer Fishweicher
Fair Lawn, NJ
Excellent Op-Ed
The article “Shall We Continue to Weep and Fast? Or Shall We Fight the Times” by Molly Resnick in your last issue is excellent and meaningful for our times. The quotes from Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch are well-chosen but their source (Collected Writings of Rav S. R. Hirsch, Volume I, pp. 287-296, 321-326) should have been given.
Elliott Bondi, MD
Kew Gardens, NY
Dov Hikind Is An Amazing Man
I was crushed like so many countless others, when I heard that Assemblyman Dov Hikind was retiring after 36 glorious years.
When I first started my kidney donation project in 2005 – after I donated a kidney (as a result of an ad in The Jewish Press) – I had wanted to do more and I had a dream to take out a booth to promote kidney donation at the Jewish Marketplace Expo at the Javits Center which was held in December 2005.
I went to Dov for help. He was excited about it and encouraging. (That alone made me feel good!) He got someone to do my displays and flyers for my booth for free! He made it happen. It was a jump start to my kidney donation project. Dov then wrote about me in his political newsletter and then asked me to come on his radio program to talk about kidney donation and help spread the word. He was so passionate about it – as he is passionate about helping people in general.
When I needed space for media interviews, Dov gave permission to use his own personal office. Find another politician who would do that!
I feel such a tremendous loss knowing he is leaving us. I know whatever he decides to pursue in the future, he is going to continue doing things that will benefit Klal Yisrael, because he cares so much for people, for the world. Dov said in your Jewish Press article, “I will never stop working to make a difference in people’s lives.” Was so happy to hear!
I wish him and his wonderful wife lots of mazal, beracha and hatzlacha in everything they do. Thank you, Dov, from the bottom of my heart. You’re a treasure.
Chaya Lipschutz
Kidney Donor and Kidney & Liver Matchmaker
KidneyMitzvah.com
Brooklyn, NY
A Dangerous New Group
IfNotNow has heretofore specialized in picketing national Jewish organizations’ headquarters and meetings.
Now it has trained Jewish summer camp counselors to sneakily subject unsuspecting campers to its radical anti-Israel views. Activists have accosted Birthright participants at JFK airport as they prepare to board flights to Israel. IfNotNow has even evidently succeeded in embedding activists into arriving Birthright groups.
Such surreptitious subversions are absolutely intolerable. They need to be vigorously countered with enhanced vetting and much closer supervision. Zero tolerance should be shown violators.
American Jewish youth are now seriously at risk. We are seeing anti-Israel curricula from elementary to graduate school, harassment and intimidation on campuses, infiltration of youth groups and summer camps – there no boundaries any more. The enemies of Israel neither slumber nor sleep. It’s time for the Jewish community to wake up to such rising insidious dangers.
Richard D. Wilkins
Those Brooklyn Dodgers
Irwin Cohen’s latest Baseball Insider column reminded me of the winning Dodgers teams of 1950s, which included catcher Roy Campanella, first baseman Gil Hodges, shortstop Pee Wee Reese, third baseman Billy Cox, and Jackie Robinson, who played several positions.
The original Brooklyn “Dodgers” name was derived from Brooklyn residents who would dodge trolley cars. The golden era of baseball in New York City was the 1950s with a three-way rivalry between the Yankees, Giants, and Dodgers. All three teams claimed to have the best center fielder in baseball. On street corners all over town, citizens would argue whether Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, or Duke Snider was champ.
Ordinary Brooklyn natives could ride the bus, trolley, or subway to Ebbets Field to see their beloved Dodgers. Working- and middle-class men and woman of all ages, classes, and races commingled in the stands. Everyone could afford a seat.
Team owners would raise or reduce a player’s salary based on his performance the past season. Salaries were so low that virtually all Dodger players worked at another job off-season. Most Dodger players were actually neighbors who lived and worked in various communities in the County of Kings.
Residents of the era sat outside on the neighborhood stoop, shopped at the local butcher, baker, and fruit and vegetable stand. Television was a relatively new technology and the local movie theater was still king for entertainment. Brooklyn still had its very own daily newspaper, the Brooklyn Eagle, which ended publication in the 50’s.
This year marks the 61st anniversary of the old Brooklyn Dodgers playing their final season in Brooklyn. During the 1950s, Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley tried to find various locations for a new baseball stadium, which he needed if the enterprise were to remain financially viable.
New York master mega builder Robert Moses refused to allow him access to the current-day Barclay’s arena site. Imagine how different Brooklyn would have been if elected officials had stood up to Moses.
Larry Penner
Great Neck
The Cult Of Trump
In the last issue of the Jewish Press, Myron Hecker and R. Frankel directed a question towards me and other Israel supporters who have determined not to worship Donald Trump: Where is your hakarat hatov?
When the U.S. embassy was moved to Jerusalem, signs all over Jerusalem proclaimed, “Thank You, President Trump.” They did not say, “Thank You, United States of America!” Why? Because ever since announcing his candidacy, Trump has worked to develop a cult-like following. He actually bragged that he could gun people down in the middle of day and his supporters would remain loyal to him.
Is it any wonder that the embassy was formally opened by his daughter and son-in-law instead of a State Department official? Is anyone concerned that Trump has consistently attacked his own Attorney General Jeff Sessions simply because Mr. Sessions believed he could not conduct a completely unbiased investigation into Russian collusion with the Trump campaign given his own involvement in that campaign?
Is anyone worried that Trump has picked fights with U.S. allies like Britain and Canada, creating enough tension that when the UN condemned the U.S. for the embassy move, Britain voted “Yes,” and Canada abstained!
Is anyone disappointed that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Senator Jeff Flake, and Governor John Kasich – all Republicans and supporters of Israel – are retiring early from politics, and that Brett Stephens and George Will, two of the most pro-Israel journalists you will ever find, have left the Republican party because of the unwillingness of party leaders to stand up to Trump?
There also seems to be a lack of concern over how this extreme polarization is poisoning the civil discourse in the country. People are right to be upset when a White House employee is refused service at a restaurant. Yet, they say little when the President of the United States refers to the House Minority Leader as a “MS-13 lover” or derides Senator John McCain’s status as a war hero because “I like people who weren’t captured.”
Unfortunately, what I’m increasingly seeing in our community are people whose main interest is not the future of America but getting their man off-the hook – no matter what.
Gerald Tannenbaum
‘Bill Clinton’s Rabbi’
Letter writer Mark Epstein recently took the Orthodox Union to task for its lack of hakarat hatov to President Trump. Many of your readers may be unaware that one of the leaders of the Orthodox Union is Rabbi Menachem Genack, a Democratic Party activist and committed liberal.
Prior to the 2016 presidential election, Rabbi Genack debated Dov Hikind and vigorously defended the indefensible positions of Hillary Clinton. Indeed, Rabbi Genack’s OU bio “proudly” boasts that he has held “the unofficial title for two decades – ‘Bill Clinton’s rabbi.'”
It is shameful that the OU would allow itself to be branded by a liberal rabbi who places his leftist views ahead of his neutral obligations to Klal Yisrael.
Gerald Jacobs
Englewood, New Jersey