Trump is a liar

There are many reasons why a virtuous person, above all a person of faith, would not associate himself with Donald J. Trump (“Meet Trump’s Israel adviser,” April 22).

I will cite just one. In 2011, Mr. Trump told Greta Van Susteren that he had sent people to Hawaii to look into President Obama’s birth certificate and that you would not believe what they discovered there. Here it is, five years later, and we still have not heard anything about what they discovered. We cannot but infer that Trump was lying either about sending the investigators or about their finding anything. My question for Mr. Greenblatt (who was a very good student of mine in 1990 at Yeshiva College) therefore is: Would you go into business with a known liar?

And if no, would you vote for such a person even for the post of dog catcher?

Manfred Weidhorn
Professor Emeritus, Yeshiva University
Fair Lawn

Thank you, Rabbi Simon

Cheryl Rosenberg of Ben Porat Yosef accurately describes the disappointment many of us feel at the silence of our much of our local leadership in response to Rabbi Pruzansky’s latest outrage (“Teaneck rabbi’s blog posts provoke controversy,” April 22).

One of the notable exceptions who was not mentioned in your article was Rabbi Ephraim Simon of Teaneck Chabad. Rabbi Simon posted a long and respectful comment on Rabbi Pruzansky’s blog (the comment was subsequently removed). Part of the comment reads as follows:

“The manner in which we express our Torah values must be guided by compassion, ESPECIALLY compassion to those who have already been hurt and victimized. I know what your point was, I’m not even addressing it. What I ask of you is this, is it worth making a political point if it comes at the expense of hurting an innocent victim, of tearing open old wounds and creating new ones?”

Thank you, Rabbi Simon.

David Zinberg
Teaneck

Defending Trump

It was with great sadness that I read the April 22 letter “Trump and Hitler : Obvious parallels. Sadness in the vitriolic choice of words and sadness in knowing that there are vast numbers of individuals who have swallowed and believed these “facts.” His words, calling Trump a “fascist demagogue” and his “campaign tactics Hitler-like or Nazi-like,” border on the obscene..

Mr. Trump has neither encouraged nor condoned violence at his rallies. In fact it has been reported that at the start of many of his rallies, statements have been made to his audience that they should not be violent. We have seen numerous groups anti-Trump in nature attempting to infiltrate his rallies to disrupt and instigate physical confrontations. One can count on one hand and have fingers left over, the number of physical confrontations between his supporters and those against him within the walls of his rallies.

What people have swallowed and repeat are the distortions and inaccurate quotes attributed to Mr. Trump. Two are found in reports where references to illegal immigrants are shortened to immigrants and where he states that he is for the temporary banning of Muslims entering the U S. until they can be properly vetted, and the words temporary and vetted are omitted. There are many more instances but these will suffice.

Trying to parallel the “current Trump campaign” with the rise of Hitler does not just trivialize the history of the Holocaust but uses it for baseless and inaccurate portrayals.

Howard J. Cohn
New Milford