Honoring a Hater?
So Councilman Kalman Yeger has been removed from the immigration committee of the New York City Council for tweeting, “Palestine does not exist.”
Meanwhile, due to a City Council resolution, we have a street in Brooklyn named “Muhammad Ali Jinnah” Way. On October 12, 1945, Jinnah stated that “every man and woman of the Muslim world will die before Jewry seizes Jerusalem.”
How can New York City reward a person who uttered such a murderous rallying cry against all Jewry?
Anonymous
Singles: Give It a Try
Singles never know when they will meet the right one. It might be at a singles event, at the supermarket, or in shul.
Last week you asked four rabbis about the appropriateness of going to singles events. The real question is: How can older singles meet their husbands and wives while maintaining their strict standards? I think it really depends on the person. But once a girl turns 26, I think she should find guys on her own.
Any place a single goes is one more place he or she can meet someone.
Raquel Bujo
AIPAC Doesn’t Represent Us
I didn’t attend the AIPAC conference the past two years because my daughter and I were cruelly insulted by AIPAC staff members when we were identified as supporters of Sovereignty for Judea and Samaria during our attendance there three years ago.
We were asked to leave the premises, and they also told an interviewer that we shouldn’t be interviewed because we didn’t represent AIPAC’s point of view. We had to have people rush to speak in our defense. AIPAC – then and now – supports a “two-state solution” which we believe would lead to the dissolution of the Jewish state. They couldn’t tolerate anyone supporting the “settlers” and communities of Judea and Samaria.
Ironically, as Dror Eydar pointed out last week in his article about Democrats and AIPAC, the host of ultra-liberal Democrats who boycotted the AIPAC conference didn’t understand what they were doing. AIPAC believes in the “two-state solution” and actually supports people like Bernie Sanders.
When Sanders spoke about the “two-state solution,” he thought AIPAC was opposed to it. How sad that he was so wrong. And how sad it is that the many thousands of Jews who flock to the annual conference fail to understand that, while AIPAC has many good positions, it fails when it comes to the one that matters most.
Helen Freedman
Co-Executive Director, AFSI
New York, NY
Compromise on the Mueller Report
Attorney General William Barr wants to release a redacted version of the Mueller Report. He wants to leave out sensitive and grand jury data. The Democrats want the whole thing released. I suggest a compromise:
At the Senior Home I work at, everyone votes in the lobby area. But if a guest cannot come out of his room, two workers from the Board of Elections meet him there, and that is where he votes. Why two workers? Because both a Democrat and a Republican have to be present to ensure fairness.
So that’s the compromise I recommend. Barr shouldn’t be able to decide alone what gets released and what gets held back. He was appointed by President Trump. He’s a Trump loyalist. Let him and a Democrat agreed to by both sides look at the report together and develop a consensus on what should be released.
Alan Magill
I Remember When Democrats Represented the Average Man
I believe I speak for many Democrats when I say I don’t like the overall direction of the national Democratic Party. I would like the party to be more like it was in the 1960s when it focused primarily on the bread-and-butter and kitchen-table issues that affect all Americans except the wealthiest top 10 percent.
I want the party to stand for enhancing the social safety-net programs such as Social Security, as well as advocate for other social programs, including a Canadian-style national health insurance program.
I believe the party focuses far too much on fighting President Trump and the Republicans on “identity politics” and “cultural-war” issues and has lost touch with lower and middle-income Americans and their financial struggles to survive and pay their bills.
Stewart B. Epstein
Rochester, NY
Do You Know This Man?
I’m trying to locate any next of kin or the gravesite of a Mr. Joshua/Yehoshua Orkowitz/Orkovitz/Arkowitz/Yurkowitz, who lived on the Lower East Side either on East Broadway, Grand Street, or Delancey Street between Essex Street and the FDR Drive, approximately between the years of 1965-1980.
At that time, I worked for the city in the Lower East Side (Seward Park Extension). When Mr. Orkowitz was taken to the hospital for medical treatments, he left an envelope of money with me. Ever since then, I have been trying to locate any next of kin so I can return the money or locate his gravesite with his and his father’s name so I can donate the money to tzedaka.
If anyone knows anything about or has any remembrance of a Yehoshua Orkowitz, please contact my daughter at 347-721-4343.
Sara W.
Democratic No-Shows
Your editorial lists eight declared Democratic candidates for president who avoided AIPAC’s annual conference in Washington: Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Beto O’Rourke, Peter Buttigieg, Julian Castro, Cory Booker, and Amy Klobuchar.
For these candidates, I will be a “no-show” when it comes time to vote. And I will bring up your editorial for discussion at the next meeting of our Freda Mohr Senior Center Current Events Discussion Group.
George Epstein
Los Angeles, CA
Subversive Democrats
The United States has suffered from subversive Americans before, but none of them were as slimy as the leaders of the Democratic Party. From Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders to Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi – they just can’t seem to come to grips with the fact that lying Hillary lost the elections.
As for the two Jewish political hacks: Bernie Sanders, whether he likes it or not, is Jewish. Being anti-Israel and going to church doesn’t make a person immune to the perils advocated by the “religion of peace.” And forked-tongue Chuck Schumer, who has aligned himself with people who are hell-bent on destroying our homeland, is a shameless individual who advocated strict immigration laws until Trump supported them.
Joseph Ceder
Far Rockaway, NY
Missing the Point
Last week, Evie Falda – in response to my op-ed, “Dare We Feel Safe in America?” – listed examples of right-wing violence. But what does the killing of Muslims in New Zealand have to do with anti-Semitism, which was the central point of my article? (Not to mention that I can, of course, also cite many more examples of hate crimes committed by Muslims.)
I would also suggest that anti-Semitic rallies at college campuses – such as the recent rally at Brooklyn College, which was meant to support Muslims in New Zealand but turned instead into an Israel-bashing hate fest – not only provide a platform for leftist anti-Semites but also cause right-wing anti-Semitism to become bolder as well.
Mrs. Falda asserts that “the danger lies on the right from those willing to use violence against those they perceive as ‘the other’ – that is, those who are not white, male, and Christian.” This is typical leftist, identity-politics rhetoric according to which some social groups, like Muslims, must be protected above all others – even if they preach hatred of Jews. Meanwhile, Jews, arguably the most oppressed people, have been put into the category of “white male oppressors.”
It is this kind of thinking that fosters the spread of anti-Semitism that many Jewish Democrats refuse to acknowledge and confront.
Ettie Kryksman