For What it’s Worth: Warren Hecht

In the letters to the editor in the March 11 Queens Jewish Link, there was the typical letter attacking me. I could spend an article explaining the fallacy of that response, but if I spent time responding to the letters that either take my comments out of context, misconstrue my comments, or make inaccurate factual assertions, I would be spending every column solely responding to letters.

Last year we invited two single guys to join us at the Purim seudah (meal). One of them backed out because he was worried about COVID. He was one of the smart ones who realized early on that this is serious. The second person canceled at the last-minute, stating that his relatives were having a meal and he wanted to join them. I will never know whether that was the real reason or if he already might have had COVID, since he died shortly thereafter from the coronavirus. Tragically, he is part of a large group. On Purim 2020 there were 760 reported cases and 23 deaths in the United States. A year later there are 28,554,887 cases and 511,998 deaths. Queens County has the fifth highest number of deaths by county in the country. Right above Queens County is Kings County. The president held a ceremony acknowledging the milestone of 500,000 deaths. I must get used to Biden doing the cross at these events. It is not traditionally done by presidents and it is not something Jewish people do. Nevertheless, in a country where the trend is to be anti-religious, there is something refreshing to seeing its leader use religious symbolism.

Last week I wrote about how it has become the new American pastime to claim victimization to avoid responsibility of one’s actions and to avoid any criticism.

Rudy Giuliani is being sued for defamation by Smartmatic Voting Company and Dominion Voting Systems for over one billion dollars because of his claims that their machines were used as part of the fraud to steal the election away from Trump.

Last year we invited two single guys to join us at the Purim seudah (meal). One of them backed out because he was worried about COVID. He was one of the smart ones who realized early on that this is serious. The second person canceled at the last-minute, stating that his relatives were having a meal and he wanted to join them. I will never know whether that was the real reason or if he already might have had COVID, since he died shortly thereafter from the coronavirus. Tragically, he is part of a large group. On Purim 2020 there were 760 reported cases and 23 deaths in the United States. A year later there are 28,554,887 cases and 511,998 deaths. Queens County has the fifth highest number of deaths by county in the country. Right above Queens County is Kings County. The president held a ceremony acknowledging the milestone of 500,000 deaths. I must get used to Biden doing the cross at these events. It is not traditionally done by presidents and it is not something Jewish people do. Nevertheless, in a country where the trend is to be anti-religious, there is something refreshing to seeing its leader use religious symbolism.

I understand the position that the House Managers were in after the vote to stop the hearing because it is unconstitutional to try a president who is now an ex-president. The motion lost 45-55, but it showed that the Managers were not going to get the two-thirds majority to convict. I’ve been in similar situations, having to go ahead on an appeal that I knew no matter what I would do, that it was a loser. It is not a great feeling.