Response to Rabbi Moshe Rosenberg’s Op-Ed in This Week’s Issue
Dear Editor:
Rabbi Moshe Rosenberg and I have always enjoyed a mutually respectful relationship. We would often partner with each other in inter-shul events such as Yom HaShoah and Yom Yerushalayim. This despite our hashkafos (religious outlooks) being quite different.
A few years ago, during a crisis facing Israel, we organized a rally for Israel in front of the Vleigh Place library. We had a very respectable showing, which included the local political representatives, a non-Orthodox rabbi, and students from Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim. Rabbi Rosenberg, however, refused to attend, and discouraged his congregants from attending, as well.
Rabbi Rosenberg’s reasoning? Around that time, there was a bombing of a mosque in Australia. Our rally should have included sympathy for Muslims, as well. We should not be so reclusive in focusing on Jews only.
I guess, according to Rabbi Rosenberg, if we would only show more love for the Muslims they would show more love for us in return. We would not be subject to the relentless protests and attacks on Jews in this country and throughout the globe. I happen not to subscribe to that way of thinking.
Rabbi Rosenberg creates a strawman and then attacks it. I was quite clear that I was not an all-out supporter of Rabbi Kahane. As I wrote, “Personally during his lifetime I did not subscribe to his teachings about Jewish resistance to anti- Semitism… I believe that violence begets violence and does more harm than good.”
I do believe Kahane was indeed prescient in many ways. His prediction about the harmful turn that the African National Congress would take against Israel was right on the money. He was right, as well, that the Palestinians would bring us nothing but problems in the West Bank. I did not say I agree with his policy of transfer, but he was certainly a lot less racist than those Arab Knesset members who openly sided with our enemies.
Finally, Rabbi Rosenberg and Warren Hecht’s contention that positions espoused by Rabbi Kahane give justification to anti-Semites condemning us as racists, is utter nonsense. The enemies of Israel will find fault with the Jews no matter what we say or do. Accusing the IDF of treating Gaza like Amalek, an episode in the Bible that Muslims and Christians supposedly accept, shows how they will contort anything to their favor. Remember, they are accusing Israel of genocide and apartheid, of which they themselves are guilty. They accuse Israel of colonialism as well, all without a shred of evidence. Do you recall how the United Nations passed a resolution equating Zionism with racism? Maybe we should take Zionism out of our lexicon. They don’t need our words for them to justify their hatred; they do very well without them.
Jews would be a lot better off if they were not so neurotic about telling the truth as it is. Save the political correctness for some other cause.
Sincerely,
Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld
An Education In Self-Awareness And The Dangers Of Hypocrisy
Dear Editor:
One of the features of the QJL that my family and I used to look forward to reading was “Snippets of Strange.” We were disappointed when your paper stopped carrying this entertaining piece that featured oddly curious vignettes. Fortunately, you’ve made up for the loss to some degree by continuing to publish Warren Hecht’s column. Over the last few weeks, he has certainly not disappointed us.
True to form, last week, he once again, albeit unintentionally, provided everyone with an important lesson in self-awareness. Allow me to explain. It’s common knowledge that if someone harms another, he is liable for damages. If, however, he harmed the other in exactly the same manner, but in self-defense, he is not liable. Why is that? Because context matters. Every child knows this. But Warren Hecht seems to not know this. A grown man who seems to have intelligence, works as a lawyer, yet completely misses the significance of context.
Sure, the 85-page Trump case must be so interesting and so compelling from a legal standpoint. But what about context? Must one return to fifth grade to re-learn its significance? How does the fact that both New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg vowed to target Trump as the focus of their campaigns escape notice of Mr. Hecht’s keen legal mind? Might that be relevant enough to note in your article? Seemingly not in Mr. Hecht’s little world. Similarly, what seems to escape the notice of Mr. Hecht is the fact that all four of the charges that Trump is now facing were suddenly brought in concert with each other about one year before the presidential election, even though the alleged crimes were committed years and even decades ago. Context, Mr. Hecht, context!
And then we are treated with the kicker, bearing a sublime lesson in the importance of self-awareness. Mr. Hecht ends his jaundiced, partisan analysis by regaling us with the lyrics from Simon and Garfunkel’s classic “The Boxer”: “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.” Who’s “the man,” Mr. Hecht? Might it be you?
E. Azulai
Dear Editor:
With age comes chochmah – but so do sometimes worse things, like dementia. Who can blame the elderly for forgetting things when they have to remember user names, passwords, PIN numbers, and cell-phone numbers (How are you supposed to remember your cell-phone number if you never call yourself?) among other minutiae? Sometimes I can’t remember what day Rosh Chodesh is, but I can recall that Ernie Banks of the Chicago Cubs was nicknamed “Mr. Cub” (WSJ crossword puzzle, February 13).
In Nach Yomi, we learn that Hashem informs Joshua that he’s grown old. He was 103 when it says “Ba ba’yamim.” He died at 110. Back then, 103 was probably what 81 is today, and special counselor Hur has informed President Biden that he’s elderly and losing it.
The question remains now that Mr. Biden has achieved the trifecta: senator, vice president, and president; why would he want four more years? True, there are a lot of perks to the job. You don’t have to drive to work, you don’t have a demanding boss, all meals are provided, and you probably have your own personal tailor. But, still, you have tzaros 24 hours a day with your finger not far from the button. You have to constantly worry about people liking you. Just watch a couple of episodes of The West Wing. The bottom line is that these presidents can’t give up the one thing the office provides:”kavod.” We all know the danger of that word.
Therefore, my humble suggestion to President Biden is to take up painting (as George W. Bush and Churchill did) and move down to Boca Raton (no state tax) and enjoy life without everyone sticking his nose into your business and noting your frailties. (But then, also remember that Caleb was 85 when he got Hebron, and he was in good shape.) Also, if you decide to retire, you can always sell gold sneakers for $398 - $1! Less than Trump’s sneakers.
Debbie Horowitz
Dear Editor:
In his column last week, Warren Hecht writes that Attorney General Letitia James “did her job in enforcing the law” against Donald Trump. Is Mr. Hecht of the opinion that it was also part of James’ job to campaign on a platform of “Getting Trump?” That seems wildly unethical to me. As an officer of the court himself, does the selective prosecution of Mr. Trump for a “crime” that is fairly commonplace in the real estate industry disturb Mr. Hecht? As an appellate attorney, I was surprised that Mr. Hecht did not mention the most obvious grounds for Trump’s appeal, namely the trial judge’s absurdly low $18 million valuation for Mar-a-Lago. Also surprising was Mr. Hecht’s omission of the potential for Trump’s appellate team to invoke the Eighth Amendment against “excessive fines” and “cruel and unusual punishment” in addressing the ridiculous $450-million fine for a 100-percent victimless crime.
Mr. Hecht describes Fani Willis’ testimony in the Georgia hearing as “not a good look.” This is a severe understatement. She is a liar. Her “Special (in more ways than one!) Prosecutor Nathan Wade is also a liar. Ms. Willis lied about when her relationship with Wade began and got caught when Trump’s team subpoenaed her phone records. The timing of her relationship with Wade is extremely relevant because she was receiving kickbacks through Mr. Wade. Her defense to receiving kickbacks in the form of benefits from Mr. Wade was that she paid him back in cash. Yet she could not produce any evidence of a receipt, a bank withdrawal, or any other source for where such a large amount of cash materialized in her home. Wade lied in his answers to interrogatories that were submitted to the court in his divorce case. He, too, got caught and amended his responses to non-responses on grounds that it would incriminate him. Hopefully, the irony of these two exposed liars charging Trump with lying should be enough to have this meritless case tossed. Even Mr. Hecht concedes that Willis and Wade should be thrown off this case. Why he doesn’t believe they should be disbarred, brought up on ethical charges, and jailed for their many instances of perjury remains a mystery.
Mr. Hecht correctly identifies the hush money case as the weakest case of all the cases pending against Trump. His characterization of District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s conversion of a run-of-the-mill hush money payment into a federal election law case as “creative framing” is understating it quite a bit. Contorting the law into a pretzel seems to be a more accurate assessment of what this is. But most importantly, Mr. Hecht misunderstands the ramifications of the inevitable conviction of Trump in this sham case. He believes it will have minimal negative impact on Trump. I disagree. Once the conviction has been secured, every Democratic campaign attack ad on Trump will lead with “Convicted Felon Donald Trump.” The fact that the entire process has been a sham is a moot point with respect to the election. Poll after poll has shown that independent voters, who are crucial to Trump victory, will not vote for Trump if he is convicted of anything. The saddest irony of all this is that while Trump is charged with election interference, the lawfare waged against him by these partisan “law enforcement” thugs are the worst examples of election interference this country has ever endured.
Jonathan Goldgrab
Dear Editor:
Last week, the Vice President of the former Rosedale Jewish Center, David Pecoraro, repeated his contention that Joe Biden is a mentch, citing Biden’s visiting the graves of his first wife, infant daughter, and son Beau as proof of his decency. It’s worth taking a deeper dive at Biden’s behavior since the tragic deaths of these family members.
In December of 1972, the wife of then-newly-elected Senator Joe Biden and the couple’s baby daughter were killed – and their two sons badly injured – when the Biden family car was broadsided by a truck at an intersection in Delaware. The truck driver, Curtis Dunn, was never charged in the crash. In fact, the police report named Nella Biden, Joe’s wife at the time, as the responsible party for the crash. Nevertheless, over the years, Biden has maligned the driver of the other vehicle by falsely stating that he “drank his lunch.” Despite there being no evidence of this claim, and the now deceased driver’s family begging Biden to stop smearing his name, Biden has repeated this lie dozens of times.
Joe’s son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015. Despite this fact, Biden has repeatedly claimed that his son died in the Iraq War. If this wasn’t disturbing enough, Biden has repeated this lie numerous times while visiting or on calls with families of military members who have died in combat. Imagine being a gold star family member and in your moment of grief having the President of the United States tell you this bold-faced lie!
Biden is a despicable person who will literally say and do anything for political gain. He is spineless, has no core principles and zero moral compass. He authored a crime bill in the 1990s that toughened sentences on drug dealers, only to disown it decades later when he needed the black vote before an election. He was for the Defense of Marriage Act in 2012 that only recognized marriage as being between a man and a woman until the political winds blew in the other direction and in 2022, he signed the Orwellian-named “Respect for Marriage Act” recognizing same sex “marriages.” Biden was against the federal funding of abortions for decades until his epiphany in 2019 when he announced he was for it. And now Biden, who initially backed Israel in the aftermath of October 7, is more than happy to throw them under the bus to ensure he captures the Muslim vote in Michigan.
Sorry, Mr. Pecoraro, but Biden is no mentch at all. He is the epitome of a DC swamp creature, only worse because he is willing to extort family tragedy for political gain.
Jason Stark
Dear Editor:
Warren Hecht writes that he finds the politically motivated lawfare being waged on Donald Trump “fascinating,” but views the inevitable Trump nomination as “tragic.” As usual, Mr. Hecht has it backwards. I know Mr. Hecht is an attorney, but an objective person who values equal treatment under the law would find these ridiculous criminal cases being pursued for political purposes “tragic” and the nomination of the victim of these blatant acts of lawfare “fascinating.”
Doniel Behar
Dear Editor:
Americans are bitterly divided on almost every political issue. There were always political disagreements between us, but lately it seems we cannot agree on almost anything. Yet a recent ABC poll showed that 86% of Americans think Joe Biden is too old and decrepit to be President. In 2024, in Biden’s Divided States of America, getting 86% of Americans to agree that cancer is bad would be a stretch.
Yet, somehow the news of Biden’s incapacity still has not made its way to Rosedale, New York, as David Pecoraro implies in his letter last week that one needs “medical training” to assess that Biden is a few fries AND the burger short of a Happy Meal. No, Mr. Pecoraro, if 86% of Americans realize Biden’s activities at this point should be reduced to eating his pudding while watching reruns of Matlock and that he’s in such poor shape he would probably be risking his life by joining the Deerfield Beach Senior Citizen pickleball game, perhaps it’s time to cut out the “Look at Trump, he’s old, too,” false equivalency narrative you and the paid hacks at MSNBC are unsuccessfully promoting.
Avi Goldberg
Dear Editor:
President Biden’s periodic references to recent conversations with long-deceased political leaders around the world reminds me of the 1999 movie The Sixth Sense. In it, a child named Cole is able to see and talk to the dead. The author and producer of the movie, M. Night Shyamalan, would never have imagined years later that our President would be able to do the same. Biden confused current French President Emmanuel Macron with the late Francois Mitterrand (who died in 1998), and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel with the late Helmut Kohl (who passed away in 1997). At a White House Conference of Food, Nutrition and Health, he asked where Congressmember Jackie Walorski was, who had died earlier in the year. Perhaps Shyamalan could produce a sequel with Biden in the starring role.
Sincerely,
Larry Penner
Dear Editor:
I agree with Rabbi Schonfeld that we must vote Republican. All the New York City representatives have now gone to the progressive Left because the Democratic Party is all about power. The party comes first, including Meng, Meeks, Nadler, and Goldman – and the latter two are Jews! If an issue is going to cost votes, they quickly shift positions. The Democrat Party motto is “No Principles.”
Mr. Ribner, lying is a requirement in Washington. If any politician told the truth, no one would get re-elected. Joe Biden cheated in law school. He plagiarized a speech in 1988 that cost him a chance at the Democratic nomination back then. He has been lying his entire life. He didn’t graduate at the top of his class. His son didn’t die in combat. He is a serial liar, and he is corrupt as the day is long. His administration has taken the gaslighting to a whole new level these last three years.
Mr. Pecoraro, let me share a little secret with you: The world has blown apart since Joe Biden was sworn in. Beginning with a botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, every country’s leader saw how weak the US is with Joe Biden as president. China, Russia, and Iran are our enemies, and since Joe Biden is on the take, he is letting them run the world. Joe Biden is not a mentch. He is a nasty old man. He is not competent and is not mentally fit to finish this term, let alone a second one. Biden has caused horrible inflation that has caused many people to go into credit card debt to pay their bills. Maybe you’re lucky enough to have someone shop for you, but those of us who do go to the grocery store see with our own two eyes that food prices are astronomical from where they were in 2018-2019.
Which brings us to Mr. Hecht. First of all, there is no case to begin with in Georgia. Do you know how many Democrats challenged the 2016 election? At least seven in Congress. Hillary Clinton calls President Trump illegitimate to this very day. It is not illegal to challenge an election. Second, there was no trial in the Stalinist Judge Engoron’s court and I will not read a decision by a partisan hack. In a pre-trial summary judgment, President Trump was found guilty. I thought in our justice system everyone has the right to a fair trial. It is also clear that neither the judge nor the Attorney General have a fundamental understanding of the real estate business. They clearly undervalued President Trump’s properties. There was no fraud committed as testified to in open court by the representatives of the banks that loaned the Trump Organization money. The whole case is preposterous. This judge, sitting on his high horse, thinks he’s all mighty powerful: making the President come up with the entire amount of the decision in order to file an appeal! The chutzpah! Since you’re an appellate attorney, you should be familiar with the Eighth Amendment, because this decision will be overturned on appeal.
The three-judge panel in Washington, DC, also came out with an unprecedented ruling against the former President. That he had a limited amount of time to file an appeal and he was not allowed to appeal their decision to the full DC circuit. He was only allowed to appeal to the US Supreme Court. The leftists keep screaming “no one is above the law.” Yet the rules are being rewritten just for the former President. The standard procedures afforded to everyone else are being bypassed by Stalinists aimed at putting the former President in prison!
I hope and pray that whoever is the next Republican President goes after Joe Biden the exact same way. The left wants to rewrite the rules. Now we play by them!
Shalom Markowitz
