‘Take Me Out to…’ Sodom?
The New York Yankees plan to hold a “gay pride” day on June 25. This despite the fact that homosexual activity (i.e., sodomy) is deemed a grave sin by the Bible and is responsible for disease and death among millions of people.
I urge all readers to phone the Yankees at 718-293-6000 and threaten to boycott Yankee games and Yankee merchandise if the June “pride day” is held. People can also protest by writing to Yankee Stadium at 1 E. 161st Street, Bronx, NY 10451.
I should also add that a separate pride night is planned for at the BlueClaws’ stadium in Lakewood, NJ on June 8. No locale should hold such an event, particularly a center of Torah. Call Deputy Mayor Menashe Miller to protest: 732-905-5991.
Rabbi Yehuda Levin
Haven’t Men Already Done Enough Damage?
Rabbi Dov Fischer’s op-ed last week, “Don’t Like The Torah? Hire a PR Firm,” reveals what a warped understanding some Jews have of the religion they purport to follow.
A few months ago, a national TV news program did a report on a non-kosher Chinese restaurant patronized by Reform Jews. Upon being shown a soup with pork in it, a Reform “rabbi” explained that as long as you don’t see the pork, it’s okay to eat it. He even gave it a name: “Safe Treif.”
I’ve heard of “dark comedy”; this is more appropriately called “twisted comedy.” It makes me wonder why these kind of Jews even want female rabbis. Are there portions of the Torah their male rabbis haven’t yet perverted for which they need the help of the other gender?
Josh Greenberger
That New York Times Cartoon (I)
The timing is quite amazing. In last week’s paper, Prof. Jerold Auerbach discussed 120 years of bias at The New York Times, and now the Times essentially proved Auerbach correct by publishing an anti-Semitic cartoon. Nothing has changed.
Bert Zackim
That New York Times Cartoon (II)
Elliot Resnick’s interview with Prof. Jerold Auerbach last week on “120 Years of Bias at the New York Times” seemed amazingly timed considering the disgracefully anti-Semitic cartoon the Times published this weekend in its international edition.
The cartoon – depicting a blind President Trump wearing a yarmulke being led by a guide dog with the face of Prime Minister Netanyahu and a Jewish star around its neck – resembled the Nazi’s best propaganda of the 1930s.
Although the editors issued a lame apology, the damage has been done.
When The New York Times publishes a cartoon like this, is it any wonder that a shooting takes place at a synagogue in Poway, California? Is it any wonder that a synagogue is torched in Moscow; that Europe is ablaze with anti-Semitism; that a young student at NYU has to file a federal civil-rights complaint against the administration for fostering extreme anti-Semitism.
What about the tolerance for the hate-spewing congressional trio of AOC, Omar, and Tlaib as seen in the unwillingness of the Democrats to condemn them?
If we allow the hate mongers to succeed, we will have learned nothing from history. Sometimes Jews have to fight.
Helen Freedman
Co-Executive Director, AFSI
New York, NY
Apikursus? (I)
In last week’s Jewish Press, Rabbi Marc Angel argues that R. Yehuda ben Teima isn’t Chazal. But R. Yehuda ben Teima was a holy tanna. Of course he was Chazal!
Please consider publishing a retraction.
Dovid Pine
Apikursus? (II)
I didn’t expect to see the legitimacy of the holy tanna R. Yehuda ben Teima questioned in The Jewish Press (see Rabbi Marc Angel’s response in last week’s “Is It Proper?” feature). It’s scandalous.
Yehuda Brog
The Jewish Press responds: Numerous authorities – such as Rav Shmuel HaNagid in his introduction to the Talmud (printed in standard editions of Shas), Ibn Ezra, and Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch – write explicitly that not every aggadic statement in the Gemara represents the view of all of Chazal. Some represent the view only of the person who said it.
One can debate the relevance of this position to the case at hand, but it lay behind our decision to publish Rabbi Angel’s response. In general, we attempt in the “Is It Proper?” feature to present the views of rabbis spanning the spectrum of traditional Orthodox Judaism.
Un-American Congresswomen
It is not surprising that Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar hate Jews. Many Muslims hate non-Muslims as evidenced by the thousands of attacks by Muslims against “infidels” over the centuries, including the 9/11 attacks in the United states that killed 3,000 Americans – which Omar trivialized.
That is why we should continue to restrict immigration into the U.S. from countries that harbor potential enemies.
The United States was founded on Christian principles by persecuted Christians who emigrated from Europe. Most Americans believe in helping others in need, loving their neighbors, and respecting other religions. The two ugly-mouthed congresswomen are disloyal to our country’s founding principles and are un-American.
Donald Moskowitz
Londonderry, NH
Shuls Must Protect Themselves
The majority of our New York synagogues are not secure. Several synagogues have full-time security guards, metal detectors, and video cameras. Most others, though, unfortunately have little or no security.
This must change. Time is running out, and we must take action – hishtadlus – before more lives are lost through senseless acts of terror.
During the Tree of Life massacre in Pittsburgh last year, the shooter yelled, “All Jews must die.” After the attack, President Trump tweeted that the attack could have been avoided “if they had protection.” I ask: How many synagogues improved their security after the Etz Chaim synagogue massacre?
Countless massacres have occurred in Israel, Europe, and, more recently, in the United States. How long will it take for synagogue leaders to properly address the issue of safety and security? Enough is enough. Failure to take action is to accept tragedy for the Jewish people.
Kosher supermarkets in the five boroughs of New York City must also learn from these tragedies and improve their security. Recall that in 2015 four people were murdered at the Hypercacher supermarket in Paris.
Taking steps like hiring armed guards may be expensive, but does the value of a human life have a price? We need bitachon in Hashem, but we must also do our hashtadlus.
Michael J. Weinstein
50 Million Aborted Babies, 6 Million Murdered Jews
The Anti-Defamation League argues that comparing abortion to the Holocaust is “totally out of bounds.”
It voiced this opinion after Sen. Greg Albritton and Rep. Terri Collins introduced bills in Alabama’s Senate and House of Representatives that would ban abortion except when necessary “to prevent a serious health risk to the unborn child’s mother.”
The bills state: “[M]ore than 50 million babies have been aborted in the United States since the Roe decision in 1973, more than three times the number who were killed in German death camps, Chinese purges, Stalin’s gulags, Cambodian killing fields, and the Rwandan genocide combined.”
The left-wing Anti-Defamation League needed to find some flaw in the bill to discredit it in the eyes of the public. (The fact that millions of innocent babies are butchered in our country every year is apparently not its concern.) So ADL spokesman Jake Hyman complained that the bill “belittles the memory of the six million Jews and millions of others who were murdered at the hands of the Nazis and misappropriates a profoundly tragic historical event for political purposes.”
The ADL also sent a letter to the Alabama House Health Committee asking its chair to oppose the bill “because it contains language that is offensive to the Jewish Community and it infringes on Alabamians’ religious freedom.”
The Anti-Defamation League does not represent the Jewish community. When, after all, is the last time this organization asked the common “Moshe’le” on the street what he thinks about a certain issue before it issued a statement in the name of the Jewish people?
Avraham Sharaby
Speak Clearly, Speak Boldly
So Netanyahu won the recent election in Israel and the world is now waiting for President Trump to unveil his peace plan. It’s interesting that this election took place close to Pesach as there are some lessons in leadership that Israel’s leaders can derive from it.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe notes that Moshe complained twice to G-d about not being able to properly speak before Pharaoh; the Rebbe asks why since Hashem already answered him after the first time. He answers that initially Moshe thought he would be able to communicate at least a little bit, but then later realized that he was “closed-up of lips” – that he couldn’t speak at all. Addressing Moshe’s fear, Hashem assured him that He would be able to speak since he was on a mission as a shliach of G-d.
His task was not to convince Pharaoh with cogent arguments, but to plainly state G-d’s words as he heard them. Yes, Aharon would translate and explain these words, but the power that would eventually break Pharaoh lay more in Moshe’s short statements than in Aharon’s oratory.
Thus, in our current era, an Israeli spokesman must state unequivocally, just once, without any vacillation, in Hebrew, “G-d gave the Holy Land to our forefathers and their descendants, the Jewish people, along biblically-delineated boundaries, forever. No force on earth – even President Trump – can change this fact.”
Once this statement is firmly in place, our contemporary Aharons can utilize their oratorical talents to explain to the world whatever they don’t understand.
Rabbi Yeheskel Lebovic