Dear Editor:
In Sergey Kadinsky’s “Memories of Shuls Past,” there were a number of errors regarding Utopia Jewish Center. The most glaring was that the Orthodox Minyan in the synagogue began much earlier than 2001. The Orthodox Minyan actually was initiated first as the Annex of the Young Israel of Hillcrest, and then as Utopia Torah Congregation in the late 1980s/early 1990s. It was established by a few families that were formerly full-time members at the Young Israel of Hillcrest who lived closer to this side of the neighborhood. (The synagogue even had a little league team in the early ’90s.)
It was only in 2001 that the Minyan moved from the ballroom of the synagogue to the Main Sanctuary.
All the best,
Steve Morris
Dear Editor:
Former Vice President of the Rosedale Jewish Center and current QJL letter-writer David S. Pecoraro wrote a letter last week insisting that Republican George Santos should resign from Congress because he fabricated most of his resume. His point is a fairly compelling one, until one considers that Congress and most of our government is composed of liars. As a pathological liar, Representative Santos should seamlessly fit right into the mix.
To a larger point, did Vice President Pecoraro insist that Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal resign when his lies about being a Vietnam veteran were uncovered? Did Vice President Pecoraro call for Elizabeth Warren’s resignation after she leveraged a decades-long lie about being a Native American to procure a professorship at Harvard and land a seat in the US Senate?
Let’s not pretend lying in government is confined to Congress. Our esteemed President Joe Biden has made a career out of lying for over 50 years. He lied about having three undergraduate degrees (he has one) and graduating at the top of his law school class (76th out of 85 students with an F in one class for plagiarizing a law review article). Biden claimed the driver who killed his wife and daughter in a 1972 car accident was a drunk driver, which was not true. He concocted a story about being arrested while visiting Nelson Mandela in prison, which never occurred. He fabricated marches with civil rights leaders that never happened. All of these lies were public knowledge long before he became our lying President of the United States. Yet, the same Vice President Pecoraro, who is now calling for George Santos’ resignation, endorsed Joe Biden for President in 2020.
A few months ago, Mr. Pecoraro endorsed Kathy Hochul for Governor of New York, despite her lies about taking out-of-control crime seriously. Perhaps Vice President Pecoraro still enjoys Secret Service protection as a perk from his time served as Vice President of the Rosedale Jewish Center, but for the rest of us common folk in New York, violent crime is a serious issue.
My point in raising these issues is not to support George Santos or, chas v’shalom, malign Mr. Pecoraro. It is simply to point out that when one takes public positions based on moral stances such as honesty and integrity, they should apply it to both sides of the political aisle. When you forget to put your pom-poms away for the team you root for, hypocrisy inevitably rears its ugly head.
Jason Stark
Dear Editor:
Goldy is doing a great job writing her column and shouldn’t change anything. She’s right: You can’t please everyone all the time, but she’s doing a fine job pleasing many people most of the time with her column. Yes, people will disagree with your opinion, but they are allowed to.
Goldy, don’t change a thing or let Debbie’s letter get to you. it’s her opinion and she doesn’t speak for me or for my family. We love what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. Don’t change.
Leah Shemtov
Dear Editor:
You know what my reaction is to Debbie’s letter: “Don’t wait for the applause.” Fine, you don’t like how “dark” Goldy’s column has gone. If you call dark, being truthful, then you really do need a dose of reality. Even if Goldy doesn’t address the topics she does, they will still happen. We may as well be ready. But go ahead, you can be the ostrich that buries its head in the sand when they don’t like what’s going on around them.
Goldy’s column is something I always look forward to reading, and my family and I do end up discussing some topics she writes about around the Shabbos table. Don’t be the bad apple that spoils it for the rest of us. Don’t read her column, but don’t ask someone to change because you can’t face reality.
Send your children to my house. They can read the column here and we can discuss dating and any other current topic in current events that they want to learn more about.
Yaakov Friedman
Dear Editor:
I think Debbie should change her name to Karen. So, she doesn’t like what Goldy is writing about. No one is forcing her to read it, but she wants Goldy to just write about things that will make readers laugh?! C’mon grow up. Goldy’s column is one of the best things in this paper!! Just don’t read her column. I’m sure Goldy won’t miss you.
I hope that Debbie’s (aka Karen’s) children have more seichel than their mother and know what’s happening out there. If they were raised sheltered, playing checkers and coloring, I’d hate to see them learn lessons the hard way.
Golda Silverstein
Dear Editor:
In his article “2022 Surprises,” Warren Hecht mentions that Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s wife isn’t Jewish. Not only is that true, but his children were baptized. Criticizing Israel for not being sufficiently supportive of Ukraine and using the Holocaust in his plea for more funding from Israel is indeed ironic coming from Zelenskyy, a man whose extended family are Holocaust survivors and felt absolutely no obligation to participate in the rebuilding of the Jewish people.
Hecht claims that First Gentleman Doug Emhoff’s first wife was Jewish. This is wrong. Her name is Kirsten; she has Swedish ancestry. He has two non-Jewish children with her. So, he intermarried twice. Such a poor role model is an absurd choice to lead a group combating anti-Semitism.
It is sad and ironic that these men flaunt their Jewish heritage when convenient, after abandoning their people.
Sincerely,
Arlene Ross
Dear Editor:
Liar, liar pants on fire! I believe we have come to accept the fact that many of our politicians (e.g., Donald Trump) are outright fibbers. However, there is lying and there is LYING! To say that you attended Baruch College (Why not make it Harvard?) and worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup when in fact you didn’t, is not the smartest thing in the world. Yet many voters can overlook these “embellishments” in your resume. It’s when you claim, as did George Santos, that your grandparents escaped the Holocaust that you have crossed the line. Furthermore, what goy would claim that he’s “Jew-ish”? (Give me the number of his spin doctor.)
You wouldn’t want your doctor to lie about what medical school he did or didn’t attend. That’s why he’s got all the plaques on his wall, which you should peruse carefully. You also wouldn’t want your financial advisor (e.g., Bernie Madoff or Sam Bankman-Fried) to be a liar. However, if you know what cryptocurrency is, you should be able to figure out whether the guy in charge is honest or a crook.
The bottom line is politicians have to lie because, if they don’t, they won’t get the vote. Imagine if President Biden said we are entering a deep recession, and the prices of oil and basic goods are going to go through the roof. What would happen if he admitted to having messed up in Afghanistan or along the Mexican border? In all of these cases, he would be enjoying an early retirement in Delaware.
Therefore, take what your local politician says with a grain of salt; and if you are going to lie, remember that it will catch up with you!
Debbie Horowitz
Dear Editor:
The Democrats’ last act while in power was to release a private citizen’s tax returns to the public. So, President Trump pays taxes and claims losses on his properties; now what? The Special Counsel won’t find a real crime to charge and then it’s just more taxpayer money that was thrown out, all for a political witch hunt that never should have happened in the first place.
Mr. Hecht, of course it will tear the country apart. An opposing party has never criminally gone after the other party’s previous president criminally. Even if they committed grand larceny by stealing White House furniture (Bill Clinton), which as a criminal defense attorney, you know that is a crime. I have never been to a presidential library. I’d imagine that records and other memorabilia from the four or eight years occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue are kept there. So, if a president walks out of the White House with papers, the likely place they’d end up is in his library.
But now that the table has been set and the Republicans are in charge, we will hopefully get to see Nancy Pelosi testifying about January 6. We should be able to see all her texts and emails with the Capitol Police regarding securing the building prior to the rally. We should also see her tax returns and all the ill-gotten money she’s made through insider trading, as she’s the very person who was in charge of bringing certain bills up for a vote. We should all see Hunter Biden’s tax returns. Just to make sure he claimed all that China and Ukraine money for tax purposes, of course.
The George Santos saga is very disturbing, but not surprising. It clearly demonstrates the Democratic playbook that intersectionality and lying is the way to go. Everyone lies. It’s human nature. The pasuk in Parshas Mishpatim (Sh’mos 23:7) says “Midvar sheker tirchak” – one should distance himself from lying. Look at all the Jew-ish Democrats whose religion and allegiance is the Democratic Party; do whatever it takes to maintain power and have no connection to Judaism other than that their mothers were Jewish and had a bris milah: Richard Blumenthal, Senator from Connecticut. He falsely has claimed that he served in Vietnam.
Congressmen Jamie Raskin, Jerry Nadler, and Adam Schiff all lied about Trump on multiple occasions for political gain without any reservations about the negative commandment in the Torah. They have no ethics or morals, because they don’t care about the Torah.
Then you have the president and his press secretary, who have completely lost any ability to tell the truth. Every word out of their mouths is a lie. It’s so disrespectful to the electorate that our intelligence is insulted on a constant basis. Even when the Democratic media machine asks either of them a softball question, we do not get a straight answer. So, while what George Santos did is abhorrent, disgusting, and I don’t condone it, but it apparently works.
Shalom Markowitz
Dear Editor:
The president and Congress should not be proud of the $1.7 trillion 12 annual appropriations Omnibus Spending Bill. Today’s generation of Congress members should emulate the late Idaho Republican Senator James A. McClure. For 19 years, he read every word of every bill before voting on it. For many years, he signed his own mail.
Who had the time to read the fine print before being asked to vote up or down? Taking an Evelyn Wood speed reading class would not have helped them absorb the 4,155 pages contained in this legislation. Only lobbyists and key Congressional staff members who wrote the fine print on behalf of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, understood the details. There are 3,200 member items worth $5 billion (too many are pork barrel projects), special tax code provisions, regulatory relief for favored businesses or unions along with other legislative treats to “Pay for Play” contributors, lobbyists, and special interest groups in the bill. Millions of Americans take the time to read the fine print before taking out a loan or mortgage. Members of Congress should have done the same.
Sincerely,
Larry Penner
Great Neck, New York
