Letters to the editor

Pidyon Shivuyim: Save Alan Gross

To the Editor:

I am contacting you to ask that you forward information to your readers about the current efforts to help get my friend Alan Gross back home. It is now over 3 years since Alan was arrested and placed in an 8’ x 10’ cell in Cuba. Alan went to Cuba to try to improve internet access for Cuba’s Jewish community. Alan’s wife, Judy, has created a petition to ask President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro to negotiate to release Alan. Alan’s attorneys are trying to get 100,000 signatures on the petition and much help is needed. The petition can be found by going to: www.bringalanhome.org The link to the petition is the second item under Latest News.

Anything you and your readers can do to help is deeply appreciated.

Lenny Levy

Gaithersburg, MD

Chabad Library

To the Editor:

On January 23, 2013 you published an article by Malke Eisenberg stating that a federal court had entertained a lawsuit against certain agencies of Russia and had ordered Russia to return certain books and manuscripts it had seized during the Bolshevik Revolution and World War II to the Chabad organization. Having read that article, I do not believe that either Ms. Eisenberg or the publisher of your newspaper can grasp the full significance of that litigation.

When we pledge allegiance to our flag, we proclaim that it represents a nation “with liberty and justice for all”. Unfortunately, there are times when our courts are closed to some who seek justice that will adversely affect the conduct of our nation’s foreign relations and thereby there are some who are denied justice they seek. This legal rule was recognized early in our nation’s history when Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the opinion of the Supreme Court in the case of The Schooner Exchange v. M’Faddon, 11 Cranch 116 (1812). In that case, M’Faddon and his co-plaintiff owned the Schooner Exchange until it was seized by the French on order of their emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte. The French equipped that ship with cannons and converted it to a French warship. When the ship later found its way back to the United States, M’Faddon and his cohort, knowing that foreign sovereigns are immune from suit, sued the ship instead of France to have the court declare them the owner.

When the case was decided by the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Marshall found that even though the ship was the nominal defendant, the nation of France was the real defendant. Marshall also stated several other reasons why these plaintiffs could not succeed, among them, a rule that prohibits our courts from adjudicating the validity of a taking of private property by a foreign sovereign within its own territory, a rule now known as the Act of State Doctrine.

These legal rules remained our law for 200 years.

In the case of Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, 376 U.S. 398, 84 S. Ct. 923, 11 L. Ed 2d 804 (1964), the Court announced why we need the Act of State Doctrine in this day and age when most nations have abolished that rule, stating that only the executive and legislative branches of our government are elected by the people and that only they (not the appointed judiciary) should control our foreign policy. Thus the Court proclaimed that he Act of State Doctrine need to exist because it is founded on “constitutional underpinnings” of Separation of Powers under our unique form of government.

Presumably, if the Constitution requires this denial of justice to all, that requirement cannot be abolished or amended by mere enactment of a statute; it requires a constitutional amendment to do so.

Malka Eisenberg states in her article that the federal courts have jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a statute passed by Congress and signed by the President in 1976.

There is much more involved in this case than the documents and books of former Rebeeim of the Chabad Lubavich Organization. All Americans should watch this lawsuit in the hopes that we may come closer to our proclaimed free nation with liberty and justice for all. Among other issues, it raises a serious constitutional issue.

Saul I. Weinstein

Woodmere

#6 School

To the Editor:

Converting the Number Six School into a glorified office building is not in the best interest of the community no matter how “heimische” this medical center claims to be. This proposed conversion will cause a drop in our property values and cause a loss of our community green space. Your article did not properly voice the opposition that the vast majority of this community has for this proposed sale. The referendum that will be held on March 20 will reject the sale of this property to Simone Development by a wide margin.

The article downplayed two of the most important problems of this proposed sale. The resultant traffic that will result from hundreds of cars entering a huge parking lot from only one entrance on Branch Boulevard will create traffic jams on Branch Boulevard as well as Peninsula Boulevard. There will also be increased traffic though the purely residential roads of Cedarhurst, Woodmere, and North Woodmere. With 60 doctor’s offices and an urgent care center operating from 8:00AM to 9:00PM, seven days a week, there will be at least 300 or more cars per hour exiting and entering this parking lot all day and for much of the night. Staff cars and trucks will be also entering before 8:00AM and exiting after 9:00 PM. With the size of this proposed facility, it will attract patients from the complete south shore of Long Island and Queens. We must remember that this is our residential area.

The plan to pave the ball fields with a parking lot is reminiscent of a song by Joni Mitchell. There is a special feeling that we get when we see the children of this community playing in our open green space. The ball fields that we will lose will never be replaced. Keeping the small playground by Peninsula Boulevard will be meaningless as it is unlikely that children will be playing in the fog of automobile exhaust from the huge parking lot that this facility will require.

As a community we must defeat this proposed sale. The added tax revenue generated by this Medical center does not outweigh the decrease in our quality of life and property values should this sale go through. The defeat of this sale on March 20 will give us a chance to find a buyer that truly has the best interests of the community in mind. We should not count out a buyer like the JCC, who actually cares about our community, if the property goes back on the market again.

Rather that hold open forums, Mt Sinai and Simone Development should back out of their purchase of the Number Six School. It is the “heimische” thing to do.

Isaac Seinuk