Freida Sima Series
I began reading “The Immigration of Freida Sima” (front page essay, Nov. 20) out of curiosity and could not put it down. A fascinating and wonderful true story. I wept aloud.
I’m looking forward to the next installment. Judy Tydor Baumel-Schwartz is a great writer and storyteller and I thank her for sharing her grandmother’s story with us.
I could almost relate to it, since both my parents immigrated here as young children. My father’s mother had died while giving birth to him a few years earlier. My mother, who was the oldest of eight children, had to leave school in the 5th grade to go to work to help the family survive.
I am so glad I subscribe to The Jewish Press. Even though I am not Orthodox, I read just about every page. Thank you and keep up the good work.
George Epstein
Los Angeles, CA
EU Hypocrisy
Your Nov. 20 editorial (“Those European Union Labeling Rules”) correctly noted the hypocrisy inherent in the EU’s labeling of products made in Judea-Samaria while failing to label products made in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, Chinese-occupied Tibet, or the British-occupied Falkland Islands, among other examples.
The double standard reminds us that the labels the EU will use against Israel are based not any logic or principle but simply on old-fashioned hostility toward Israel and fear of the Arabs.
It should also remind us that even if Israel were to give up all of Judea and Samaria (40 percent of which is already under Palestinian Authority control), the labeling would not stop. Next, the EU would label products made in “occupied” Jerusalem; and if Israel gave up Jerusalem, the next demand would be for the 1947 borders, and the labeling would be applied to Israeli cities in the “occupied” Galilee.
Benyamin Korn
Chairman
Philadelphia Religious Zionists
Philadelphia, PA
Taking Sides On Evolution
Kudos to reader Josh Greenberger for his forceful elocution of the Torah position on evolution and age of the universe. What must be asked is why this subject keeps propping up. Our gedolim have stated, in no uncertain terms, that Hashem created the world in six days ex nihilo 5776 years ago, yet significant numbers of Orthodox Jews have difficulty with this basic truth.
What must be understood is that there are two camps within Orthodoxy on this issue. One side argues that the Torah is inviolate; those who hold that position don’t care if certain Torah statements are at odds with the academic atheists who control the universities. The other side puts its faith in academia and believes that one must distort the Torah to conform to the scientific community.
My advice to those in the “science” camp? As the Bard might have said, “Get thee to a rosh yeshiva.”
Dr. Yaakov Stern
(Via E-Mail)
Hachnassas Orchim In Midwood
Back in 2012 you were kind enough to publish a letter of mine extolling the exemplary middos of the Bomzer family of Midwood, Brooklyn.
My husband Phil and I had the privilege and honor of spending this past Simchas Torah at the Bomzer home and once again we were treated like royalty. They wined and dined us and catered to our every need.
The home exudes a heimishe tone and the spirit of Yiddishkeit permeates everything. When we are there we are always reminded of time spent with our parents, a”h: every berachah and tefillah is said with the utmost kavanah.
We sing the praises of the entire Bomzer family: The parents, June and Avy; son Sruly, his beautiful wife Yedidah, and their gorgeous son “Hudi”; and June and Avy’s single and eligible tzaddik of a son Eli, who personifies the traits of chesed and hachnassas orchim.
Whenever we are with the Bomzers (kein yirbu), two thoughts cross my mind: How grateful we are to know such a family and how fortunate some girl will be to become Eli’s eishes chayil.
We are thankful to Hashem to have friends like the Bomzers, who remind us always of what true frumkeit is all about.
Miriam Maltz Schiffman
Springfield, NJ
Who’s Being Unfriendly? Re the Sept. 18 Life Chronicles:
While I am sympathetic to the doctor who dislikes his neighbor’s activities, I think he is wrong in his complaints on all grounds.
The doctor writes about a neighbor who, he says, “is a “very modern, self-hating Jewish woman, clearly resentful of the young Jewish population that has bought up all the homes in the area.”
The letter doesn’t say much more about the woman or the neighborhood, but let’s start with the word “resentful.” The woman was presumably born Jewish, but very happy as a non- practicing Jew.
Her block, her neighborhood where she lived for decades if not her entire life, had dozens such people, her friends and neighbors. The local school had hundreds of such kids, many of them friends with her children. Much or all of that is gone. Why shouldn’t she be resentful?
On a Saturday morning she used to walk or drive to the local bakery for a fresh roll or a breakfast croissant. That bakery either no longer exists, or is now kosher and shomer Shabbos, closed on Saturdays. If she wasn’t working, she and her girlfriends would occasionally get together on a quiet afternoon for a leisurely late lunch in the local diner. The shrimp salad was delicious. There’s no more shrimp salad, maybe no more diner, perhaps no longer any friends living nearby.
Those original residents probably have the same complaint about the local drugstore and dry cleaner having gone shomer Shabbos; Saturdays are the most convenient day for non-observant Jews to do their shopping. For all we know the temple she attended, perhaps only on the High Holidays or for Yizkor, has been shuttered due to the lack of congregants.
Let’s get to the heart of the doctor’s complaint. His neighbor “delights in sunbathing almost unclothed.” Well, this neighbor could, if she wished to, walk up and down the doctor’s block, politely greeting each of his patients in her “almost unclothed” state. She could also walk up and down the block of the local shul like that greeting congregants as they come and go on Shabbos morning. Why not thank her for being kind and considerate for not doing so?
Personally, I think the neighbor is in the right, especially if she relaxed that way before the doctor and other Orthodox Jews moved into her neighborhood.
A question for the doctor: You complain that your wife “has covered our windows with heavy draperies.” So? Why is your sunlight more important than your non-observant neighbor’s? You did, you acknowledge, install “lighting fixtures to counteract the gloom.” You can, as columnist Rachel Bluth suggested, also plant tall shrubbery. Your neighbor probably has no other way of getting an even overall suntan without schlepping to the beach club.
Frankly, I resent Ms. Bluth’s comment that “There’s no accounting for why people choose to be unfriendly and un-neighborly.” But why would one think this woman is either? Perhaps she’s been walking down her block in a miniskirt and low-cut top for years, greeting every neighbor and being greeted in return. Now the Orthodox newcomers to her neighborhood refuse to say hello to her, cross the street to avoid her, glare at her (when she is dressed appropriately), and seem to gossip about her when she pulls her car out of the driveway on Saturday mornings. Who’s being “unfriendly and un-neighborly”?
Is this woman a “bitter and lonely person”? I don’t know any better than the doctor does. But I would suggest that if she is bitter and lonely, she has every reason to be. Her world has been stolen out from under her. Ask the people of the East Flatbush/Remsen community what it felt like as their neighborhood changed and they became an ever-shrinking minority. Their stores went out of business; their friends started moving away; their shuls couldn’t get a minyan and eventually closed. Why would you not think it the same for this “bitter and lonely” woman?
Harold A. Marks
(Via E-Mail)