Opinion

Dear Editor:

Those of us who are part of the HAFTR family and the Five Towns community are dismayed at the decision of Mr. Hecht and the editorial staff of the Queens Jewish Link for writing and publishing such a “foul” opinion piece that was filled with such negativity and unbecoming of a Jewish weekly publication. We have been educating Jewish youth in the Five Towns for over 50 years. Your choice of maligning our Makom Torah is shameful. We at HAFTR are proud to recognize and celebrate our students’ achievements without judgement. In our yeshiva, we teach acceptance and tolerance for all. We pride ourselves on the fact that we don’t judge or look down on others for their personal relationship with Hashem. We acknowledge that there are many ways to serve Hashem. It was both shocking and disappointing that no one reached out to my office prior to publication.

Dear Editor:

Chad Gadya shows us how best to protect klal Yisrael from antisemitism.

Dear Editor:

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Rabbi Schonfeld for his many articles against Liberalism. Rabbi Schonfeld has the courage to speak his mind. This type of courage is in short supply.

Dear Editor:

I’d like to take this opportunity to respond to the column “Biden Did Good” by Izzo Zwiren. The author’s thesis is Biden showed some backbone by standing up to the far-left wing of his party by stating that Israel has a right to defend itself after being attacked suddenly by Hamas. The columnist also makes a point of praising Biden for expressing support for Israel’s response in public and giving him credit for pressuring Israel to seek a truce with Hamas. He believes had Israel not given in to Biden’s private urging, Netanyahu would have a “worse PR crisis” on his hands. In addition, Mr. Zwiren believes this truce will lead to “a relative peace in the next few years.”

What To Expect: A Post Election Timeline

Dear Editor:

An Election Day recap might normally seem an easy feat, but chances are that such a roundup will not be available for some time. Early voting amounted to nothing more than a bust in Queens, where just 35,361 residents participated over the week-long charade. This figure is under 20% of the votes cast leading up to Election Day citywide. The pandemic made requests for absentee ballots a simplified process. City Council candidates grabbed this opportunity to reach out to more voters and offered to arrange services to obtain, fill out, and deliver these votes. Queens saw 66,000 such requests, the most citywide, and the Board of Elections had already received back over 25,000 of these ballots by Election Day.

Hate Scrawled in our Local Park

Dear Editor:

It was a beautiful May morning and I decided to take a stroll in Flushing Meadows Park. As I entered the path that snakes around the lake, I was accosted by a sign on a lamppost with a painted message that said, “Support BDS End Apartheid Crimes Now.” As I continued walking, I counted 10 lampposts with this painted message.