Yeshivah Week
Dear Editor:
It’s “Yeshivah Week,” the annual vacation that involves going to Aruba, Panama, or Florida (so yesteryear). Half of the places people go to I couldn’t even locate on a map. Yet, here I am, your trusty letter writer, composing this letter from sunny Arctic, New York. Not that I’m jealous (a terrible midah). At least in the comfort of my house, I can check my pipes every five minutes.
Actually, the history of Yeshivah Week goes back millennia to my youth. In those days, trips involved going to the library or maybe Radio City Music Hall. After all, if you were living in the greatest city in the world, why go to Miami? One year, however, when I was in Stern Colletge, my parents sent me to Grossinger’s. (It was kosher that year.) The trip was preceded by another trip to Macy’s Herald Square to get me outfitted for the two-day vacation. However, instead of meeting my “bashert,” I spent two whole days in bed with a virus.
When I had kids, we could never go on an extended trip during Yeshivah Week, because it didn’t coincide with December 25-January 1. Therefore, the only trips I recall were one to a New York Knicks game (awesome) and the other to some hotel in the country, maybe beautiful Mt. Airy Lodge (not so awesome). We schlepped food and clothes there, and since I didn’t drive, the trip was endless. We watched as others consumed delicious food and expertly skied down slopes. The bunny hill was built for us and our snow tubes.
However, all joking aside, as I freeze myself here in New York, I wish all of you a healthy and happy chofesh.
Debbie Horowitz
Dear Editor:
President Biden justifies his campaign for a second term based upon a possible return of former President Trump to the White House, and that it represents the greatest threat to democracy. At the same time, Biden’s political allies have initiated legal challenges in 31 states to deny Trump ballot access to both the 2024 Republican Primary and General Election ballot.
Doesn’t denial of citizens access to vote for the candidate of their choice for President represent a threat to the basic right of democracy? It should be the right of any eligible voter to cast his or her ballot for any Presidential candidate on the ballot. This includes Biden and Trump (assuming he wins the Republican primary, which looks more and more likely) along with Green, Libertarian, or other independent third-party candidates.
Why doesn’t President Biden condemn the actions of those who would deny millions of Americans the right to vote for Trump? Did he forget that in 2020 he ran as the candidate who would unite and not divide our nation? Will he use his upcoming annual State of the Union address to speak up and address this issue? It is Biden’s, not Trump’s actions that appear to be a threat to democracy.
Sincerely,
Larry Penner
Great Neck, New York
Lawfare Waged
Against Trump
Dear Editor:
In this space a few weeks ago, I wrote how the leftist mainstream media, in citing Gaza fatality numbers given to them by Hamas had legitimized them as accurate. I pointed out the absurdity of the mainstream media believing that Hamas killed, maimed, tortured, and looted, while simultaneously maintaining the position that there’s no reason to suspect Hamas was feeding them inflated death totals.
This type of cognitive dissonance is pervasive in society, mainstream media, and even in this wonderful newspaper. Let me explain:
A few months back, columnist Warren Hecht concluded his analysis of the Trump indictment in Georgia with the following message: “Georgia has shown the way to sanity and the rule of law. Let’s hope the rest of the country, especially the red states, get the message. It’s time to speak truth to power and not let Trump get a free ride.”
For those of us not suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, we saw clearly what all the criminal charges levied against Trump were: a weaponization and perversion of the justice system designed to kneecap Trump and ensure he is not elected president again.
The lawfare these prosecutors are practicing was obvious to any objective observer, from the moment the charges were announced.
In New York, Trump is being prosecuted for inflating his assets to receive favorable terms on a bank loan. The loan was an agreement between two sophisticated parties. The loan occurred many years ago. The loan was paid back in full, with interest. The bank never complained that it was defrauded. Nevertheless, Attorney General Letitia James, who campaigned by promising to “Get Trump,” decided there was enough to arrest and charge the former President of the United States. This all passed the Warren Hecht smell test.
In the January 6 case against Trump, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith waited 30 months to bring charges against Trump, to ensure his case would coincide with Trump’s presidential campaign. Then, after waiting 2.5 years, Jack Smith had the unmitigated gall to ask the Supreme Court to fast track their ruling on whether Trump had immunity from prosecution. This, too, was all above board for Warren Hecht: Let’s just move this case along, nothing to see here, folks.
Now, we come to the Georgia case, considered by many to be the most serious case against Trump, given all the co-defendants, the serious charges including racketeering, and the unfriendly venue for Trump. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis hired special prosecutor Nathan Wade to prosecute the Trump case. What made Wade “special” certainly wasn’t his super-thin legal resume, as he never tried a felony case before, given the task of prosecuting the former President of the United States! According to court documents related to Wade’s divorce, he was having an affair with DA Willis.
But that’s just the beginning of this sordid affair. Willis was paying Wade nearly double the rate she was paying other special prosecutors, while directly benefiting from the $650,000 her office paid Wade, by gallivanting across the globe on exotic vacations with him. But wait, there’s more! With Willis directly benefiting from this scheme, she remains financially incentivized to keep the case going interminably.
Meanwhile, her boyfriend, Special Prosecutor Wade, was billing Fulton County astronomical sums including the submission of a whopper of an invoice for 24 consecutive hours of legal work in one day. Wade also billed Fulton County for pre-trial meetings with White House counsel, contradicting Joe Biden’s numerous denials that he has had anything to do with the lawfare being waged against his political opponent.
Given the amount of column space dedicated to Trump’s legal affairs, it’s odd that Warren Hecht hasn’t addressed any of these issues in a column. But to the larger point, we are now supposed to believe that the DA who is in cahoots with Biden’s White House counsel, hired her boyfriend with no felony trial experience and is financially benefiting from prosecuting Trump, somehow still has the ethical standards and objectivity to follow the facts and evaluate the evidence presented in protecting the rights of the accused. Please! Hamas’ casualty numbers are looking a lot more credible by comparison.
Adar is less than two weeks away. The Jews’ V’Nahafoch Hu reversal against Haman in the Purim story was epic. Here’s hoping for a modern-day sequel that begins with the corrupt Fani Willis getting hit with a slew of criminal charges, including racketeering, and concluding with her ending up where she belongs – in jail!
Jason Stark
Response to Jonathan Goldgrab
Dear Editor:
In Mr. Goldgrab’s follow-up to my letter last week on the timeline of the failed Biden vaccine mandate, he omits one crucial event in what became an ever-thickening government plot against US citizens.
Biden presided over the greatest humiliation of our country on foreign soil with the botched Afghanistan withdrawal in August 2021. His poll numbers plummeted immediately. He looked weak, incompetent, and in desperate need of a political victory.
Enter the September 2021 Covid vaccine workplace mandate. Here was a chance for the President to look strong and in charge on an important issue. Given the political mess he was in at the time, there was no chance that a DC creature such as Biden was going to let pesky facts like the vaccines not working or that Covid deaths were disproportionately affecting the elderly get in the way of a political win. This is a great example of how government actors think. They will do whatever is in their own best interest. Nowhere in the decision-making process did Biden ever consider the interest of the public, such as whether the Covid workplace vaccine mandate was legal, necessary, or even safe.
Ronald Reagan famously stated that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” These words were never truer than when applied to Biden’s failed workplace vaccine mandate.
Doniel Behar
Dear Editor:
This country is moving towards fascism. Democratic hacks in Colorado and Maine have taken upon themselves to remove Trump from the ballot. They claim that Trump was trying to disenfranchise voters by challenging the election of 2020. Actually, it is the radical Democrats who are disenfranchising millions of voters by denying them the right to vote for the candidate of their choice.
The Democrats have also perverted our once great legal system. The Democratic prosecutors have convicted many January 6 protesters of “interfering with an official proceeding.” This enabled the prosecutors to obtain abnormally large sentences for minor crimes. This charge of “interfering with an official proceeding” was passed by Congress in the Enron case to prevent defendants from shredding incriminating documents. It was never meant to be used to prosecute demonstrators. In fact, the Democratic prosecutors have refused to charge Rep. Jamaal Bowman with this crime even though he deliberately interfered with a Congressional hearing by pulling a fire alarm.
When Tlaib disrupted Congress and illegally led a bunch of pro-Hamas demonstrators into the Capitol building, the Democrats refused to censure her. Selective application of laws for political purposes is tearing apart this country.
SCOTUS has agreed to review the application of this “interfering with an official proceeding” law and hopefully they will put an end to this farce. I would like to point out that Warren Hecht is a criminal defense lawyer. He should be arguing against this prosecutorial overreach and selective prosecution, but he is okay with it as long as it is used against MAGA Republicans. Many individuals like Warren Hecht are happy with judicial corruption because they feel that it will only be used against Conservatives. Think again.
If the radical Democrats gain more power (chas v’shalom) they will come after everyone. We must wake up and vote the Democrats out.
Martin Berkowitz
