Letters to the editor

Posted

Anti-Anti?

To the Editor:

In his predictable criticism of the statistically insignificant number of Rabbis for Obama who are on the board of Jewish Voice for Peace (an anti-Israel group) and those who are members of Rabbis for Human Rights (a pro two-state solution group that, unlike Jeff, has actually gone into Palestinian areas in West Bank to do their work, but never mind), Jeff wonders aloud how many more on the list he can smear.

I have a better idea. How about we ask how many rabbis for Romney oppose Israeli democracy? It’s way more than sixteen, I assure you. How many have stood up for the refugees Israel’s racist interior minister, Eli Yishai has advocated expelling because, in Yishai’s words, Israel is a “white” country? (Are there any?) How many have supported, in opposition to most of the American and Israeli Jewish publics, annexation of the West Bank? How many have supported anti-democratic legislation to punish Israelis for what they say or to require loyalty oaths?

Two can play this game, and in the end, the tiny number of rabbis supporting Obama who identify with the JVP will make a much smaller difference than the many more rabbis for Romney who favor ending Israeli democracy.

Michael Brenner

Woodmere

Casting Stones

To the Editor:

Juda Engelmayer’s article (August 10) on the Westhampton Beach controversy was good. I agree, there is no valid reason to oppose an eruv which consists of almost invisible wires, on various bogus pretexts. However, by concluding with a comment about the Charedi attacking the less observant, and the Orthodox man on the street averting his eyes so as not to wish a non-Orthodox Jew a good Sabbath is Mr. Engelmayer’s shameful commitment of anti-semitic racism.

His article on June 29 about Jewish Unity was a bashfest against Charedis. He claims people were coerced to come to the internet Asifa. It is-quite the contrary. In the many shuls that I frequent, people were seeking to get tickets. What seeker of unity would disparage that which was an outstanding and productive Kiddush Hashem.

He gratuitously declares that the Orthodox have weak leadership and and failed policies of poor education, ha his article on “unity” he makes sure to mention that the Orthodox have child abuse and sexual deviancy as if this typified the Orthodox. The Orthodox have the most beautiful, respectful, happiest, virtuous and religious families of any group on this planet, much more so than Mr. Engelmayer’s Conservative Jews.

He mentions that they spit on women, as if that was a mainstream activity. Attributing the misbehavior of literally a few individuals to a hundred thousand is racism at its worst. He makes a point of mentioning a Charedi pushing a baby carnage into the street as a protest to stop some coed bus. It is wicked to cast the responsibility of such action, if it ever happened, on the entire community of Charedim. He goes so far as to equate them with suicide bombers. He concludes that the fanatics among us will divide us. It is the ilks of anti-semite, self hating Jews who weren’t strong enough to maintain their Torah heritage who divide us.

It is better to look down upon Jews who intentionally trample on the Torah than to heap filth on “those who chose to be more observant than oneself.” The fact is that groups such as’Satrnar ana non-hassidic communities invest a large amount of resources in helping not yet onbservant Jews. It is I personally who look down upon enemies within.

I just got a copy of the August 17 edition of The Jewish Star, and sure enough Mr. Engelmayer is with his “rocks thrown at modern Jewish people by haredim” again.

Someone like Engelmayer should never be given the opportunity to write for a Jewish newspaper. He blackens the name of your Jewish Star.

Joseph Friedman

Brooklyn