Clarification re: Secular studies in yeshivas today and in tradition

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Dr. Yitzchok Levine, whose work was excerpted in last week’s Kosher Bookworm column titled “Secular studies in yeshivas today and in tradition,” objected to some references in the column by its author, Alan Jay Gerber, and by the editor.

Levine pointed out that a version of his work appeared in the Jewish Press not as a “letter,” but rather as an op-ed column.

And he objected to the editor’s referring to Simcha Felder as a “Boro Park State senator.”

“Simcha Felder is not a ‘Boro Park state senator’,” Levine said in an email to the editor. “He represents district 17. This district includes much more than Boro Park.  Indeed, Felder’s office is located on Avenue J in Flatbush, and he is my state Senator. I do not live in Boro Park. To categorize him as a Boro Park senator is to lead people to believe that he primarily represents Chassidim. This is false.”

Felder’s district includes nearly all of Boro Park, as well as parts of Midwood (referred to as Flatbush), Madison and portions of Kensington and Ditmas Park.

Levine served as a professor in the department of mathematical sciences at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, before retiring in 2008. He then taught as an adjunct at Stevens until 2014. His column, Glimpses Into American Jewish History, appears the first week of each month in the Jewish Press.