Letters
Say no to the Times
Your coverage of Israel in the Standard is fair and unbiased in contrast to the N.Y. Times.
I this week canceled my 50-year subscription to The New York Times. I was a loyal subscriber for 50 years, but I can no longer support a publication that has allowed persistent anti-Israel bias and antisemitism to compromise its coverage. Over the years, I have watched with great consternation as a newspaper that was once a bedrock of journalistic integrity has increasingly demonized Israel, while dedicating comparatively minimal coverage to genuine human rights crises and actual genocides, such as the ongoing atrocities in Darfur.
The final straw for me is the recent opinion piece by Nicholas Kristof, “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians.” This column, which weaponizes unverified Hamas propaganda thinly disguised as journalism, is entirely beyond the pale. Most egregious is Kristof’s inclusion of the inflammatory accusation that Israeli prison guards utilize dogs to sexually assault Palestinian prisoners. Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of canine biology and behavior knows that such a claim is both anatomically and behaviorally impossible.
By allowing such a highly implausible and unsubstantiated claim into print, the editorial staff at The New York Times has demonstrated that it is either profoundly incompetent or, more likely, complicit in pursuing a specific political agenda. It is deeply tragic to see what was once considered “The Paper of Record” devolve into a biased mouthpiece that lacks true journalistic standards.
As a Founding Dean Emeritus of a N.Y.-based university, I will no longer be recommending the N.Y. Times and recommend the Jewish Standard.
Dr. Steven Huberman
Teaneck
Democrats have double standards
In an essay printed in the New York Times, Rep. Josh Gottheimer accuses fellow Democrats of double standards since they claim to be against racism but are silent about rampant Jew-hatred spouted by well-known pro-Democrat supporters such as Hassan Piker.
Unfortunately, the problem of double standards in the Democratic Party is not limited to left-wing social media influencers. For example, during the Senate debates about the need for Congressional approval of the war against Iran, Senate Democrats mainly complained against President Trump. However, some Democratic senators including Jeff Merkley, Chris Van Hollen, and Berniie Sanders also claimed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu manipulated President Trump into starting this war with the implication that Israel and Jews generally must also be blamed for any bad results.
This charge is a spin-off of an old antisemitic canard that Jews control the world and are responsible for all wars. Although these claims about Netanyahu were strongly denied by Trump, there was no significant pushback from other Democrats despite being unproven and highly inflammatory in the current tense situation of increasing violence against Jews. This certainly reinforces Rep. Gottheimer’s alert about the need for all responsible Democrats in or out of public office to quickly and forcefully respond to antisemitic garbage especially when spewed by the highest level of the Democratic Party just as members of the Republican Party have a similar duty to fight antisemitism within Republican ranks.
Larry Dvores
Livingston
Moral courage? Really?
In his May 7 column, “Trump’s Finest Hour,” Rabbi Boteach characterized Donald Trump’s actions in Iran as exhibiting “moral courage.” The use of those words in connection to Donald Trump is a whopping slander of anything moral or courageous.
Surely, President Trump’s action can be characterized as justified and valued and necessary. But even indulging the most ethically cross-eyed assessment — or the most gobsmacking pandering to Donald Trump’s boundless self-worship — it remains a vulgar indecency to classify his actions as “moral.” The thick canopy of incivility that encapsulates Donald Trump’s life is embroidered with depravity, corruption, and immorality. Any linkage of morality with Donald Trump is an obscenity almost equal to Trump’s own peerless standards of profanity.
Ascribing “courage” to Donald Trump — a man whose heroism is measured by the longevity of his self-gratification or the expansiveness of his unscrupulous greed — soils the meaning of the word for those who merit the honor of its application.
Twinning the term “moral” with “courage” and applying it to Donald Trump is cringeworthy. If the mindless illiteracy of Donald Trump was to be applied, it would subject the author to the charge of “treason” against the English language.
Jack Nelson
Fort Lee
Bearing witness to brutality
In November 2019 the Newark Museum sponsored a Civil Rights tour. From the Rosa Parks Museum to Bryan Stevenson’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice to crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, there is little more sobering in the history of the United States (of course we always have to remember the indigenous of this country).
Always, my thanks to Merle Lomrantz, who was then the Director of Travel at the Newark Museum, for organizing this opportunity to all of us, who learned so much more than our history books had taught us about slavery and later what became the lynchings of Reconstruction and finally, the “riots” of the 1960’s and the Civil Rights Movement.
Beth Sholom, Mazel Tov for having provided this opportunity to those who traveled on the trip to the Deep South.
Yes, as Rabbi Polisson notes, the importance of “coming together to fight for equality and justice”; “the power of ordinary relationships.” Perhaps we need to pay a bit more attention to Asis Abu Sarah and Maiz Anon.
Ronne Bassman-Agins
Fort Lee