Mamdani Leaves Students to the Wolves
Re: “Mamdani Veto, Antisemitism Czar Testimony Spark Jewish Outrage” (cover article, May 1): I was deeply disappointed to read of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s veto of a City Council bill that would have created “buffer zones” to protect educational facilities from protestors. (A similar bill protecting religious institutions passed with a veto-proof majority.) Why the uphill battle to override the Mayor’s veto? Supporters of the bill need 34 members to reach a two-thirds majority. Pro-Palestinian protests have set up anti-Zionist checkpoints and hurled slurs and worse at students who show up on campus to learn. Recently, some young people (who clearly weren’t educated) stormed a Scientology church in Manhattan as part of a viral “trend.” If abortion centers can be protected from protestors, why not schools?
Tellingly, Mamdani’s first veto was used to protect rioters who go beyond what constitutes peaceful protest and free speech and deny students the right to an education. The Mayor’s stance on “constitutional rights for burners, but not learners” is very concerning. Unions and the media called the school buffer zone bill controversial and urged the Mayor to veto it. Now, we as the Jewish community should not sit idly by. We should vote out of office any Council member who stands by the Mayor on this issue. Time after time, Mayor Mamdani has claimed to not want to get involved in foreign affairs, yet has used them as a weapon against students, worshipers, and hard-working New Yorkers. Protestors know that he doesn’t care about us. Let’s pray they don’t come for the shuls next.
Chaim Yehuda Meyer
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Shushing Is Not the Solution
The article concerning irrelevant, irreverent, disturbing speech in shul during prayer times by Ronald Goldman (“Shushhhhhhh!” May 1) certainly raises a very relevant issue. However, supporting the “shushers” is at best a token, Band-Aid solution. A more positive, long-term approach requiring more effort would be more effective.
A Chabad shul in Vancouver, British Columbia, has displayed a boldly written sign on its eastern wall above the ark reading “Talking is permitted before and after prayers.” A very creative, simple, non-confrontational way to focus the congregation.
The Baal Shem Tov commented that “where a person’s thoughts are, that is where he is entirely.” If you sincerely desire to reverse the mindsets of shul blabbermouths, the shul rabbis must teach each prayer word by word as transmitted from the Men of the Great Assembly, starting with the simple meaning and up to its esoteric essence. Kedusha requires effort and patience. “Shushing” is a short-term, ineffective solution.
Chaim Tzvi Tanny
Montreal, Canada
In the Merit of Giving
Regarding the pre-Pesach Falafel Fund in Israel, I would like to direct this letter to its organizer, Tzvia Ehrlich-Klein, who wrote about it in The Jewish Press.
Hi Tzvia,
I’ve been donating to the Falafel Fund for many years, and I wanted to share my story.
I first read about your fund in The Jewish Press years ago. At the time, we were doing very difficult infertility procedures to have our first child. I read about the plight of these moms with many kids before Pesach, and I realized how hard I worked before Pesach without kids. I told my husband I wanted to donate and he said, “Why do you feel for them when they have so many kids and we don’t have any?” and I said that I understand how difficult it must be for them. He agreed and we donated to your fund.
Three kids later, I wonder if part of the reason we were zocheh to have children was because every year we donated (and still do) to your Falafel Fund.
So thank you and tizki l’mitzvot.
DK
Via email
Jews’ Self-Sabotaging Support for Democrats
Your editorial in the April 24 issue of The Jewish Press decries the Democratic Party’s anti-Zionist stance (“The Senate Democrats’ Vote on Israel Last Week Was a Historic Betrayal”). Unstated was the inexplicable fact that Jews always vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party by a ratio of 70-80 percent or more.
Jews like to think they are smart and always like to boast about the number of Nobel Prizes they win and their great accomplishments in the fields of science, medicine, the arts, and music. These are accomplishments that have brought enormous benefit to the whole world, but Jews are rarely credited with their developments. Added to that is the unfortunate fact that political acumen is not one of the Jews’ strong suits. For over 100 years, like lemmings running off a cliff into the sea, Jews have consistently supported people and causes that have been disastrous for themselves.
Jews were in the forefront of the Russian Revolution in 1917, partly as a result of their harsh treatment by the Cossacks, and partly because of their innate sympathy for social causes. So, they supported the Bolshevik/Communist movements led by Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. But in doing so, they merely traded one form of tyranny for another. How has that turned out for the Jews?
During the large-scale immigration to America, they brought along their infatuation for socialist ideas, and joined the Democratic Party en masse. During the Roosevelt administrations starting in 1932, they idolized him almost as a latter-day Moses, even as he presided over a government that was very antisemitic, and which throughout all of WWII did absolutely nothing to help their European brethren who were being systematically exterminated during the Holocaust. They supported Jimmy Carter, who later called Israel an “apartheid state.” Then they overwhelmingly supported Obama, who vowed to “fundamentally transform” America from a free enterprise democracy into a totalitarian socialist state. And together, Obama and Biden gave hundreds of billions of dollars to Iran to help develop its nuclear and missile programs and fund its terrorist proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah. How is that working out for Israel?
The end result of all this Democratic support is today’s far-left, radical Democratic Party led by Bernie Sanders, Zohran Mamdani, Chuck Schumer, AOC, the “Squad,” and Hakeem Jeffries, who are spearheading an alarming increase in antisemitism and anti-Israel behavior. Conversely, American Jews overwhelmingly display their contempt for Donald Trump, who has been by far the most pro-Jewish, pro-Israel U.S. president in history, and many perversely call him Hitler, and side with those who call Israelis Nazis.
I am at a loss to explain this topsy-turvy, ongoing self-destructive and disastrous tendency of the Jewish people. Perhaps one of the “smart” Jews out there can enlighten me.
Max Wisotsky
Highland Park, N.J.