Dear Editor:

We’d like to add our voices to the many who’ve praised the life of Rabbi Manfred Gans. We met him 40 years ago in the early years of Otsar, were impressed then, and continued to be deeply moved from afar by his maasim tovim and rabbanus in all those subsequent years. Yehi zichro baruch.

Dear Editor:

 August 25 will mark the second anniversary of the passing of Arizona Senator and Republican Presidential candidate John McCain. He was always a breath of fresh air. What you see is what you got with the “Straight Talk Express.” He could work across the aisle with Democratic Senate colleagues, including Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman and others on a regular bipartisan basis. This also included Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy on comprehensive immigration reform, and Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold on campaign finance reform. His history in the Senate harkens back to an age of collegiality no longer seen today. McCain, like New York’s late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, was an intellectual giant, standing head and shoulders above today’s newer generation of Senators.

Dear Editor:

 I applaud Izzo Zwiren for his excellent article in last week’s issue of the Queens Jewish Link, titled “Are Jews White?” Izzo makes clear the neurosis that Jews have in dealing with anti-Semitism. It is always with an “excuse me” attitude for pointing to that form of pernicious racism that has plagued us since our very foundation. An example cited by Izzo is the case of New England Patriot Julian Edelman, who was brave enough to react harshly to the outright anti-Semitic remarks by NFL player DeSean Jackson, which included brandishing words (falsely) ascribed to Adolf Hitler ym”sh. Yet Edelman found it necessary to excuse his reaction by offering to take Jackson to the Holocaust Museum in exchange for his going to the Museum of African American History and Culture.

As you know the 11th of Tamuz marks the 5th Hebrew Yahrzeit for my father, Marshall Harlan Epstein, Meir Zvi ben Natan zichrono livracha. It is hard to imagine that five years have passed since my father’s petirah. Sometimes It is hard for me to bear.  I miss my father every single day, even if I don’t say it out loud. He is always in my thoughts and prayers. Every morning, when I pray., I never forget to say tehillim. That is when I think of him, because the power of tehillim can be strong. It pains me and I’m sure others when there is not much we can do to help our loved ones in situations of dire need, and prayer can be the best way to ask Hashem for help to heal our loved ones.