Letters
Offcials urged to remedy plight of immigrant kids
My family and I appreciate the hard work and dedication of Senator Booker, Representativer Gottheimer, and Senator Menendez to public service. Right now, I’m appalled by the humanitarian crisis at our border and the children being separated from their parents and detained without adequate basic necessities like drinking water, soap, and diapers.
As a parent, I’m disgusted. As an American, I’m ashamed. I urge my elected officials to use their position of power to raise their voice to help these most vulnerable people. Their voice matters, and the constituents of New Jersey are watching. It is essential to remedy this terrible situation as soon as possible.
Nessa Liben
Teaneck
Does Rabbi Boteach really love all Jews unconditionally?
Rabbi Boteach portrays himself as the greatest defender of Jews and Jewish interests in the United States (“The liberal crusade against Holocaust memory,” July 5). His love for Jews, however, is very selective, and excludes Jews who don’t adopt his extreme right-wing views. In fact, he is scornful of his fellow Jews who hold opinions that differ from his own. If you are a Jew who feels that detention centers bear some modest similarity to the infamous concentration camps in Poland and Germany, the rabbi is contemptuous of you, and of that belief. The arrested Philadelphia Jews who witnessed their love for would-be immigrants by displaying timeless Jewish values of compassion and respect are labeled misguided fools by the rabbi. Is the rabbi too young or too ignorant to remember the ill-fated ship the St. Louis?
We celebrate the yahrzeit of the Lubavitcher rebbe, a man who had room in his big heart for all Jews. Rabbi Boteach must, indeed, have a very small heart with room in it only for his brand of Jews.
I question, again, the wisdom of our Jewish Standard in giving Boteach such a prominent place in the paper. The Standard is a lover of all Jews. The rabbi is not.
Herb Steiner
Mahwah
Holocaust is not a brand name
You don’t honor the victims of the Holocaust by assigning them their place in history, as victims of the worst genocide, by giving their experience a brand name, as if it were Kleenex, Rabbi Boteach. (“The liberal crusade against Holocaust memory,” July 5.) You honor their suffering and their memory by using their experience to learn how not to allow it to happen again. We do that by paying attention, and by calling things what they are.
The dishonor is in having them pulverized and us learning nothing. For us to have allowed it and now to allow other people to be dehumanized. It’s only 70 years later. Survivors still are watching.
Lynn Makler
Metuchen
In support of Rabbi Boteach
I am taking issue with the July letter to you requesting that you discontinue printing Rabbi Boteach’s column. (“Please no more from Rabbi Boteach.”) Others in the past have done so also. I do agree with his statement that yours is an excellent paper, but not for the reason in that letter. It is excellent because different points of view are presented in it.
We still have freedom of speech in this country and hopefully will continue to have it. And that means speech that you may not agree with and even very strongly oppose. Please do continue to print the rabbi’s column. I, for one, will read what he has to say, whether I agree with it or not.
Susan Ebenstein
Hackensack
Harvard was unfair to Kashuv
It was interesting but not surprising to read the denigration of Kyle Kashuv by Rabbi Engelmayer, “The Kashuv controversy: Post haste can make waste” (June 28). I have yet to figure out what the headline means but my comments concern the body of type.
We learn from the rabbi that Kashuv is Jewish, he hid in a closet during the massacre, he posted a video of himself firing an AR-15 (the rifle used in the shooting) that so upset “many” that police questioned him. He “became a politically (C)onservative activist.” “Unlike most of his fellow classmates …his activism was geared to staunchly opposing restrictive gun control legislation.” The other side of the story. He hid in a closet during the shooting but so did the darling of the Left and MSM, David Hogg as did many others in the school. He posted the video of his visit to a shooting range with his father. He went to learn gun safety, how to properly handle weapons and in the process fired an AR-15. How many were “many” concerning the students complaining of the video? We will never know but he spoke with police officers and he was given a clean bill of health by them. Kashuv opposed some parts of gun control legislation but not all. After being accepted to Harvard, he notified them that he wanted to take a gap year off and work, amongst other things, for the “STOP School Violence Act”. He wanted to work for improving the safety of all in schools and other public areas against the threat of gun violence. He is for certain restrictions concerning gun control but not all.
Rabbi Engelmayer must then negatively paper Kyle Kashuv with meeting Melanie and President Trump at the White House and working for “a (C)onservative group with ties to the Trump family”.
Harvard later rescinded his admission to their school after protests from some schoolmates concerning videos he posted as a 16 year old. The videos contained offensive material including racial terms. Kashuv apologized for the material, stated that it does not reflect the person he is and that it was written several years before. One is inclined to question whether his Conservative activism played a larger role in getting him banned from Harvard. There were some who questioned why David Hogg was accepted to Harvard? When one compares the scholarship credentials of both, Kashuv has an SAT score 280 points higher and a weighted GPA of “A” compared to Hogg’s “B”. Then again Hogg is the darling of the Left and Kashuv is not.
The rabbi then devotes almost half of his opinion piece to prove that Jewish Law upholds his position. He continually questions the sincerity of Kashuv’s apologies and regrets and denies them as sincere. The rabbi writes, “It is proper to question Kashuv’s sincerity, but is it proper to give him the benefit of the doubt?” According to Rambam there should be a period of wait and see and it seems Engelmayer agrees. With regard to this quote I must ask, has Kashuv repeated his transgression since the incident over two years ago? If not, then why no forgiveness? Why won’t Harvard change their decision?
If we are to follow the direction of Rabbi Engelmayer concerning the path of Kyle Kashuv and his condemnation by Harvard and the rabbi, why has he not written an article of condemning those seeking the Democrat nomination for president? We had, it seems, all of them traveling to grovel at the feet of Rev. Al Sharpton to get his blessing. Kashuv’s indiscretions were bigoted posts on the internet. Sharpton’s? The incitement to riot, anti-Jewish incitement, incitement to murder and the fostering of civil unrest to name a few. More than enough to earn an article complete with references to Jewish Law.
Howard J. Cohn
New Milford
Palestinians should go live in Jordan
I would strongly agree with the opinion of the extreme leftist writer Aryeh Meir (“Annexation: The road to a binational State of Israel/Palestine,” July 5). He expressed his concerns about a binational state in the Land of Israel should the “West Bank” be annexed along with its Arab population. It has been more than obvious over the last 100 years that the Arabs in the Land of Israel cannot coexist peacefully with Jews, despite all the rights and privileges afforded to many of them as Israeli citizens. They have been a source of terrorism, murder, and sabotage. Jews also need not rule over other peoples, as we have enough challenges dealing with each other. It is plainly clear that even when Arabs are granted autonomy or sovereignty, they will still seek to push the Jews into the sea. The withdrawals from Lebanon and parts of Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) and, of course, Gaza show the folly of “land for peace.”
The League of Nations Mandate of Palestine comprised today’s Israel as well as Jordan. Britain cut off 75 percent of this territory to give to a political puppet and created the artificial state of Transjordan in 1921. Today, Jordan’s population is majority Palestinian Arab and the queen is a Palestinian Arab herself.
At the end of World War II, Greece and Turkey exchanged populations allowing for a homogeneous society in both nations. In 1945, millions of ethnic Germans were purged from the countries they had lived in for centuries and were sent back to Germany. India and Pakistan similarly exchanged millions in 1947. As recently as the 1980s, Bulgaria sent hundreds of thousands of Turks to Turkey. Borders are not permanent, and neither are the populations of territories.
Therefore, rather than partitioning each rock and hill in the Land of Israel creating yet another terrorist state, the clear approach is to have the Palestinian Arabs go live in a Palestinian majority nation, Jordan. The two-state solution has already happened. The creation of a Palestinian Arab state in the “west bank” would simply create a third. The behavior of the Arabs in Gaza obviously precludes allowing them more territory from which to murder Jewish women and children. Rendering Judea and Samaria Judenrein [free of Jews] as demanded by the Arabs would also be a violation of Jewish rights as well, although few seem to care about that. Perhaps the far left here and in Israel will realize that reality sometimes trumps ideology and accept it.
Scott David Lippe, M.D.
Fair Lawn
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