Stop Treating Us Like An ATM
Dear Editor:
There is a growing sense among Queens residents that we are being abandoned by the very leaders who are supposed to represent us. Sadly, recent developments have only deepened that feeling.
The city’s composting mandate, while perhaps well-intentioned, has been nothing short of a disaster for everyday families. Instead of partnering with communities, the city rushed to ticket homeowners—many of whom barely had enough time or information to adapt. In neighborhoods like Kew Gardens Hills and Forest Hills, residents found themselves fined for violations they barely understood. Composting should have been an opportunity for environmental stewardship—not another cash grab for city agencies.
And then there’s congestion pricing—perhaps the clearest sign yet that working families are being treated as nothing more than an endless source of revenue. Promoted as a way to ease traffic and help the environment, the congestion tolls have, in reality, become just another tax on those who have no alternative but to drive. Queens residents who commute for work, attend medical appointments, or care for family members are now forced to pay simply to drive within Manhattan. Public transit remains unreliable, overcrowded, and, in many areas, unsafe—yet we’re told to simply “leave the car at home.”
Thankfully, President Trump and his administration have been willing to call out this injustice for what it is. Governor Hochul is the driving force behind this anti-car charade, and the President’s action to revoke the federal approval that allowed congestion pricing to move forward is commendable. His administration understands what many here in Queens have been feeling for months: we are being taxed, fined, and tolled without fair consideration of our daily realities.
Queens built this city. Our parents and grandparents helped make New York the incredible place it is. We are proud to do our part for a better future—but not at the cost of being treated like an afterthought.
Queens is not a forgotten borough. Queens is not a bottomless ATM for City Hall. And Queens residents will not stay silent while our neighborhoods and our livelihoods are sacrificed for political expediency.
We deserve better—and we demand it.
Shabsie Saphirstein
Kew Gardens Hills
Sanity In The Face Of Insanity: The Ben-Gvir Visit
Dear Editor:
A democratic government is comprised of members who espouse a diverse range of views. In turn, a free society can offer a forum for said members to share those views. The people have the right to choose who speaks for them—or to them. Unfortunately, certain of our lovely neighbors cannot tolerate when a minister from another country comes for a visit. Nor can they stand when people dissent to chants of death and destruction to Israel.
The First Amendment right to free speech exists for the purpose of being able to counter speech we dissent from with our own ideas—but stops at threats of physical violence.
President George Washington foresaw all of this when he told his American Jewish friend, Haym Salomon, that this country will not tolerate intolerance. Yes, people can disagree, but if you block differing viewpoints from being shared, you are choking free speech. “Diversity” and “inclusion”? Not in our backyard, says the US branch of Hamas!
Pro-Palestinian protestors in Crown Heights and elsewhere have sought to shut down free speech, debate, and the exchange of ideas all over the visit of Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir to the US. Iran’s leaders weren’t given such a “warm” welcome when they went to the United Nations!
Minister Ben-Gvir has the right to speak, and people should be allowed to hear him speak. I certainly do not agree with everything he says, but the public square is simply not public if we allow Palestinian protestors to speak but not Israeli politicians. The US hosts many politicians; these state visits do not necessarily constitute the views of this country. Further, American groups can exercise their right to free speech by inviting foreign dignitaries to speak. When this is not tolerated, but physically blocking Jewish students from going to classes is, then America is contradicting the very Constitution it was founded upon. This is something George Washington would frown upon. Hopefully, sanity will prevail, and Ben-Gvir will be given a forum to share his views.
Chaim Yehuda Meyer
Caveat Emptor
Dear Editor:
Over Pesach, I read with fascination an article in a different publication about the kashrus standards of Pesach programs. In the article, Rabbi Fishbane, Kashrus Administrator of the CRC, detailed many of the kashrus issues rampant in Pesach programs throughout the country. When he was asked how it is that well-known, brand-name Rabbis attend these programs with subpar kashrus standards, Rabbi Fishbane revealed that most of the Rabbis he has spoken to either bring their own food and/or stay for only one or two days. My question is twofold: In an age where chumros are ubiquitous, how is it possible that people, who by all other metrics appear to be yirai shamayim, shell out tens of thousands of dollars for a week-long program and do not even ask about the standards of kashrus at the program they are attending? Secondly, are these people being duped into believing the kashrus at their Pesach program is up to their rest-of-the-year standard, merely because they saw pictures of well-known Rabbis and entertainers on the ads for the Pesach program they attend? If so, does this create a michshol l’rabim that is being tolerated due to the millions of dollars at stake? I am intentionally not naming any names of people or programs because it is not my wish to cast aspersions or cause harm; it is merely to make the non-kashrus experts in the general public aware of widespread issues that most kashrus experts have known about for years.
Jason Stark
Dry Bones
Dear Editor:
I’ve been traveling to Israel since the 1970s, when I was introduced to Dry Bones, probably in the Jerusalem Post. The two comics that stand out for me were one where two Israelis are discussing Yasser Arafat, ym’sh, and his “beard” (if anybody remembers, he had a scraggly excuse for a beard). They were wondering whether he had a faulty shaver, or only appeared in public on the third day after he shaved.
Another one was three Israelis discussing how far their paychecks went. The first one said that his paycheck lasted until the twelfth of the month before he had to start dipping into his overdraft, and the second one said that his lasted until the fifteenth of the month. The third said that his paycheck lasted until the twenty-fifth of the month. Upon the startled and amazed looks of his listeners, he clarified that he got paid on the fifteenth of the month.
Shlomo Miodownik
Due Process
Dear Editor:
Due Process, as laid out in the Fifth Amendment to our Constitution, is very different for a citizen of the U.S. vis-à-vis an illegal. Last week, we were all privileged to receive a discourse about the “rule of law” from Mr. Hecht. Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is an illegal from El Salvador. He was arrested on suspicion of human trafficking after being pulled over for speeding. He had eight people in his car, and all had paperwork with the same address on it. Mr. Garcia was brought before an immigration judge, an illegal’s due process, who ruled he is a member of MS13, a terrorist organization, and he was sent back to his home country of El Salvador. Why would anyone, judge or no judge, in the US “demand” his return here, to the United States, when he is from there and came here illegally in the first place? It is crystal clear that Democrats and their appendage in the judiciary no longer want our country to have sovereign borders and permit the Executive Branch to follow immigration laws.
Of course, as is a Democrat’s MO, he projects that which the Democrat Party is guilty of, saying the Republicans are doing it. Mr. Hecht did not have any “rule of law” problems with the FISA (domestic spying of the Trump campaign) abuses back in 2015. Guilty are Susan Rice, James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page. Hillary Clinton had top-secret classified documents on a private server in her home in violation of the Espionage Act. Aforementioned James Comey refused to have Hillary Clinton referred for prosecution.
Fast forward to the Biden administration. The President himself violated a Supreme Court order that he did not have the authority to cancel student loan debt, and he did it anyway. President Biden intentionally ignored our immigration laws for four years, allowing twelve million plus illegals into our country. Sick abuses of power against J6 trespassers by AG Merrick Garland, Former United States Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, FBI Director Chris Wray, and US Attorney Matthew Graves. You had the abhorrent early-morning FBI raids on Roger Stone’s Florida residence and the raid on President Trump’s Mar-A-Lago residence, both courtesy of Chris Wray. Mr. Hecht, we don’t need any lectures from you.
Shalom Markowitz
Satan’s Merry-Go-Round
Dear Editor:
There is no end to the supply of hostages that Hamas can kidnap any time they’re ready to, any time Israel drops full vigilance for a second.
This is why, so painfully tragically, a truce deal for the return of hostages is simply and stupidly a ride on Satan’s merry-go-round. The only morally rational way forward is full-blown military action until Hamas and Iran are eviscerated.
The last truce deal between Israel and Hamas was in full effect on October 6, 2023. Hamas chose their ripe time to pulverize that truce on the dual Jewish Sabbath and last day of Sukkos that fell on October 7, 2023.
A truce deal with Hamas means nothing more than giving Hamas the opportunity to find their next ripe time to kidnap hundreds more hostages, slaughter more Israelis, and threaten the lives of young Israeli soldiers in the next truce-shattering war.
There is no way, form, or concept forward for another pseudo-truce with Hamas.
One would have to be a profound fool or deluded leftist to shake hands with the very same fetid devil again!!
Howard Neiman, Ph.D.