A Very Frustrated Queens Resident
Dear Editor:
Dr. Joseph Donath’s recent “Your Say” letter to the editor did not surprise me in the least. The current situation involving the Department of Sanitation, Department of Buildings, and other city agencies empowered to issue tickets has become a glaring example of unchecked bureaucracy.
These agencies seem more focused on revenue generation than genuine community support or fairness. Residents and business owners often face fines for minor infractions or confusing regulations, creating a climate of frustration and mistrust.
Rather than collaborating with the public to solve issues or educate the community, these agencies frequently prioritize punitive measures and monetary gain. This approach alienates the very people they are meant to serve and discourages civic pride and responsibility.
It’s time for city leadership to reexamine the policies and practices of these agencies to ensure they balance enforcement with fairness and transparency. Citizens deserve public institutions that act as allies in building a better city, not mere ticket-writing machines.
We must hold our elected officials accountable and demand that city agencies prioritize public service over financial incentives. Only then can we restore trust and ensure these institutions operate in the best interests of the community.
Unfortunately, at present, it seems we have over-taxation and zero representation.
Sincerely,
David S.
The Inauguration
Dear Editor:
I’m busy going through my closets, trying to figure out what to wear for President Trump’s inauguration. I do look good in blue, so maybe I should go with my blue suit, or black seems to be the color at all Brooklyn and Lakewood simchahs. Oh! Did I forget to mention that I wasn’t actually invited to the inauguration, but I still need to dress the part. After all, maybe I didn’t donate $100,000 to his campaign ($0 is more like it), but I did vote for him.
Quick trivia question! Which president died shortly after his inauguration? William Henry Harrison, the ninth US president, died after his long-winded speech. He delivered an 8,445-word speech that went on for nearly two hours. He was trying to show that he was intellectually gifted (Google). In miserable weather conditions, he doffed his coat, hat, and gloves and ultimately died one month later. I guess this is a lesson some rabbis and graduation speakers can learn about droning on and on. Chas v’shalom that this should happen to anyone!
Getting back to my clothing dilemma, I have chosen the blue suit, a fruit platter, and leftover Chanukah doughnuts. By the way, how do you spell Chanukah? When President Trump is finished, there will be a ten-question quiz on what he said. Good Luck!
Debbie Horowitz
Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t
Dear Editor:
I would not like to be in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s shoes. Is there a correct answer in the matter of a hostage deal? We, as Jews, are prisoners of our own enviably exquisite, beyond-beautiful values. We cherish every life. We feel each other’s pain. We are all connected.
Much of the world may not care one bit about the hostages taken on October 7, but nearly every Jew is sharing the torment of the hostages and their petrified, grieving families. We cannot begin to fathom the hell both the hostages and their families are experiencing. We have no way of even guessing what physical, sexual, and mental abuse our hostages are being put through at the hands of such unspeakably evil, satanic terrorists. Nor can we begin to imagine the depth of the pain, fear, and utter despair their families are living with for 464 days as of this writing. So yes, we want a deal that would return their loved ones.
Needless to say, there are significant concerns. Once again, this deal only releases some of the hostages. Of course, some free is undoubtedly better than none free. But it still leaves Hamas pulling the strings, and it still causes the IDF to proceed with caution in Gaza so as not to mistakenly harm our own hostages.
Also, what of the approximately 1,200 soldiers who have given their lives and the approximately 5,431 soldiers who have been injured since October 7, 2023? They sacrificed their lives and well-being for the hostages to be returned and for the State of Israel to wipe out Hamas, proving Israel’s strength and endurance, with the goal of Israel being safe and secure. This partial hostage deal still keeps Hamas strong, encourages future kidnapping, G-d forbid, and returns thousands of dangerous terrorists back to Hamas.
Recall that in 2008, for the return of one soldier, Gilad Shalit, Israel released 1,025 Hamas terrorists. This deal, too, was brokered by Qatar, Egypt, and the US. Among those released was Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the October 7 massacre. Now, we are releasing 3,000 prisoners, many of whom happily murdered Jews. So, what are we doing? Perhaps we should be saying to Hamas, “Give us all our hostages, and we will not return any terrorists, but we will not blow Gaza to bits.” Or say, “Give us our hostages, or we will turn off all of Gaza’s electricity, water supply, Internet, and banking ability, and we will stop all the food and oil Israel is so mercifully allowing to enter Gaza despite the fact that 85% of Gazans voted for and still support, aid, and abet Hamas.”
These are horrendous questions to ask. If it were, G-d forbid, my relative being afflicted and suffering in Gaza, I would indeed be screaming, “Make the deal. Do anything to bring our loved ones home.” And who am I to question those who do not want a partial hostage deal or those who want this war to continue until Hamas is wiped off the face of this earth? These families are asking that their pain have purpose, that the death or life-long mental or psychological injury of their loved one will make a difference to Israel, not just be for the return of hostage lives at the price of so many soldiers’ lives.
The pressure from all factions in Israel added to the pressure, criticism, and threats being exerted by so many countries of the world, calling on Israel to cooperate and be flexible, leaves Prime Minister between a rock and a hard place where he is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. May G-d grant him the wisdom to do the right thing.
Ruki Renov
Wrestling with Reality
Dear Editor:
I agree with Warren Hecht that President Carter should not be viciously attacked when recalling his Presidency and actions thereafter. It would, however, require a history re-write to omit the crime, inflation, poverty, and war that were hallmarks of Carter’s time in the White House.
When Joe Biden recalled Carter’s life, he stated his admiration that Carter “stood up to abuses of power.” Talk about irony of ironies! The man who weaponized the Department of Justice against his political enemies, enriched his family through endless corrupt foreign dealings, and then pardoned his son not just for crimes he was charged with but any and all crimes he could have possibly committed admires a President who, he claims, had integrity. Who knew?!
But Obama sharing a light moment with Trump and joking with him during Carter’s funeral definitely takes the cake. In October, Obama compared Trump’s planned actions in a potential second term to Hitler’s. And less than three months later, Obama is caught joking with Orange Hitler! Who knew Orange Hitler could be so funny?! Democratic politics is a lot like professional wrestling. It is a bunch of extremely flawed characters providing entertainment that is highly scripted, fake, and designed to evoke an emotional response from the audience. Nothing Democrats say should be taken seriously; it’s all just part of the show.
Doniel Behar
Dear Editor:
It was a bit of fun to read some of Warren Hecht’s columns during the past four or so years about supporting the Democratic Party, except for the fact that the gross incompetency of the Democrats is clearly costing the country dearly.
So instead of writing about government, maybe Mr. Hecht could choose to write about sports or the financial markets because, after all, his advice about stocks and Bitcoin could not be nearly as bad as his advice with politics.
Choni Herschel Kantor
Kew Gardens, New York
DEI Kills
Dear Editor:
The death toll from the LA fires has risen to 24. Many on the left are blaming it on climate change.
This, of course, is nonsense. The LA Fire Department is famously woke, with their three highest-paid employees – the Fire Chief, Assistant Chief, and Equity Chief – all bragging of their orientation, as if that were a firefighting credential. Statistically speaking, the odds that the top three candidates for the three highest spots in the fire department would be women is zero.
LA has no forest management and couldn’t be bothered to fill the reservoirs with water. They were also understaffed, in part due to firing employees who refused the Covid-19 shot.
At a press conference, the LA Fire Chief looked lost and had no answers for the media. When you are hired because you are a good lesbian instead of a good firefighter, these things tend to happen. When the LA coroner fills out the death certificate of these poor victims, he should list the cause of death as DEI – Death by Extreme Insanity.
Jonathan Goldgrab
The Response To Covid Shot vs. the Non-Response to Ozempic Shot
Dear Editor:
Mr. Benhaim wonders in last week’s issue of the QJL why there has been no Five Towns rabbinic advisement to the public re: Ozempic, like there was with the so-called “Covid vaccine.” I believe he is referring to a video that was widely distributed featuring many rabbinic figures in the Five Towns and surrounding areas urging everyone to get “vaccinated” immediately. The video, which is still available on YouTube, titled “Rabbis Encourage People to Vaccinate in a Video Message,” has not aged well, to say the least. The claims made in this video just don’t stand up to even minimal scrutiny. One figure in the video called the vaccines “safe and effective.” My neighbor, who was in his 50s and in perfect health until he had a stroke right after taking a second dose, would probably differ, as would the thousands of people who were vaccine-injured.
Another communal leader stated, “the number of deaths has drastically decreased since the vaccines were released.” This is patently false. There were multiple spikes in deaths after the vaccines were released because the vaccines did not work as advertised and everyone ended up getting Covid anyway.
Three figures in the video stated unequivocally that “Unvaccinated People Die.” This claim is absurdly overbroad, as the only people dying from Covid were the elderly and people carrying risk factors.
Lest you think that this is Monday morning quarterbacking the issue, and no one knew at the outset who was in the high-risk category, the video is from September 2021, a year and a half after Covid started. By then, it was very clear who was at risk and who was not. Pushing an experimental vaccine on healthy young people with no upside for them was always a ridiculous idea that defied all common sense.
Another leader in the video stated: “You need to take achrayus for your neighbor’s health as well as your own.” Preventing transmission of Covid was touted as the main justification for the Covid shot, and it proved to be a complete bust in that respect.
In summary, the 5T rabbinic leadership decided to hitch their wagon to the Big Government/Big Pharma horse and went all in with the “Trust the Science” crowd. This same “Trust the Science” crowd refused to acknowledge that Fauci created the virus in his Wuhan lab, that different people have different risk factors, that natural immunity in already infected people was real, and that almost all the victims were Vitamin-D deficient. The “Trust the Science” crowd now admits they made up the six-foot social distancing rule, and that non-N95 masks did absolutely nothing to prevent Covid. Our communal leaders were unwittingly trusting the same group that cannot readily acknowledge biological differences between a man and a woman with a one size fits all response to Covid.
Mr. Benhaim, if you want to know why there has been no rabbinic proclamation re: Ozempic, it likely has to do with our rabbinic leaders getting burned by placing their trust in the medical establishment. Over time, the misstatements, deceptions, and outright lies told to us by the medical establishment during covid were exposed for all to see. In contrast, our rabbinic leadership represents our holy Torah which is 100% true and of course, eternal. This is speculative on my part, but I assume that our rabbinic leadership now realizes that it’s past nisht to partner with the frauds that make up Big Government/Big Pharma and many in the medical community who unfortunately have followed their lead. One rosh yeshivah said in the video: “If 99% of the doctors say to take the shot, you take the shot; what’s the question here?” It turns out these experimental shots created lots of questions – and the answers, to put it mildly, were quite disturbing.
Jason Stark
Dear Editor:
Fortunately, the newly elected House of Representatives on January 8 passed the Laken Riley Act in a strong bipartisan (264 to 159) show of support. A few days later, the Senate followed suit (84 to 9) to open debate on the same bill, dramatically exceeding the required 60-vote majority, and with none other than Chuck Schumer himself on board!
The bill requires mandatory detention of anyone who entered the country illegally and subsequently committed any theft-related crime, burglary, larceny, robbery, even shoplifting. Entering the United States illegally is a crime in itself. Entering illegally and then committing other crimes is an outrage that we need not and should not tolerate.
Unfortunately, two of our community’s well-known Representatives in Congress, Gregory Meeks and Grace Meng, chose not to be among those interested in protecting Americans from the ravages of illegal alien crime, and they voted against this bill. Interestingly enough, our community’s political activists frequently urge us to support and vote for these very two members of Congress to show our gratitude for their efforts on behalf of the Jewish community. Personally, I think their support for the Jewish community has been spotty at best, and downright anti-Israel at worst. Now, with their votes against the Laken Riley Act, it’s time to more carefully consider the consequences of whom we choose to be our elected officials.
David Eisenberg
