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November 2012/Kislev 5773
Tell Our Advertisers “I Saw It in The Jewish Voice and Opinion”
Letters to the Editor Daring to Castigate the President
At the heart of Classical Judaism (the Talmud) is the obligation not to defame others. Yet your headline, “Obama Looks to Separate the US from Israel” [Oct 2012] is certainly a form of character assassination. How irreligious! Shameful. Orthodoxy has the right to lean far right. But not stooping to create lies. You sound more like the Fox Cable Network than a devout, religious newspaper. You may not like Obama. You may love Romney. You may oppose all liberals and progressives. But Obama, whose closest advisors are Jewish, who has led the world in imposing harsh sanctions on Iran, who has given Israel more money than any other President, and who receives major donations from highly respected Jews, is surely no enemy of Israel. Shouldn’t we, having known endless repression, treat our President with more dignity? He is the President of the US, and first and foremost, obliged to do what’s best for America and its allies. As a Jew, I want Israel protected. I want America protected. Rash remarks about Obama weaken your voice. Jewish organizations should not only respect Jewish values, but should provide a guiding light for others. Political mudslinging shouldn’t be your MO. Howard Quinn Riverdale, NY SLR responds: So let’s see: castigating the President because he is striving to achieve his goal of establishing “daylight” between the US and Israel (his words) and praising Mr. Romney for recognizing that it is dangerous for America’s and Israel’s enemies (they are essentially the same people) to see that “daylight,” is, in your book, defamatory, “irreligious,” and “shameful,” but suggesting that Fox News and The Jewish Voice and Opinion “stoop to tell lies,” essentially because we disagree with you, is not “character assassination.” It is precisely because Jews have known “endless repression” and now are free citizens that we think it is important to use our right to criticize and, if you will, speak truth to power. In our book, that does not constitute mud-slinging. *** Your support for Romney is truly a shanda. What about this candidate’s support for us who live here in the USA? Adam Weiss Jersey City, NJ SLR responds: We have every reason to believe Mitt Romney’s support for Americans is more reasonable than that of the sitting President who is engaged in class warfare and asking religious institutions to forsake their own values in favor of his (unless the institutions in question are operated by Muslims). *** Jews are again facing a potential Holocaust and we must clear our heads to face the danger. Regardless of one’s political affiliation or social and economic ideology, we must put all these ideologies aside and focus on Israel. Most of us are going to the polls this month and if we do not vote with clarity, then 7 million Jews will be exposed to a nuclear holocaust. Time is running out and we must stay focused. Obama is a rasha. He proves this through the treatment of
an Israeli Prime Minister who appeals to him for moral clarity, asking him for military action against the new Hitler in Iran. Roosevelt did not save the Jews 76 years ago. Do not be so naïve to think Obama will be different. Hopefully Jews will not be smitten by their traditional political affiliations. Asher Nayer West Orange, NJ *** We are a group of American citizens from the former Soviet Union and are deeply concerned with the speeches and ideas of President Obama in which he downplays the role of private initiative and ownership as the foundation of well-being of our country. We thank The Jewish Voice and Opinion for sharing and disseminating these views. For some Americans, socialist ideas may seem interesting, new, and attractive. For us, however, there is nothing new and attractive in them at all. We have heard these Marxist theories in the totalitarian countries of our previous residence—as part of the failed socialist ideology, economy, and political systems. In fact, the entire Bolshevik Revolution in Russia was orchestrated under these dangerous and utopian slogans. We fled from there to America with her freedom and private initiative. All greatness in America was built under capitalism; it is a source of her well-being and strength. As any economic system, capitalism requires development, but not replacement by the socialism that failed in Europe and around the world and is not needed in America. It is clear to us that Obama’s misguided ideas about the direction of the development of America are damaging the future of our beloved country, as well as that of Europe and Israel. We are confident that America does not need President Obama’s socialist experiments that history has proven to be a failure. The Coalition of Former Refugees for Freedom and Capitalism in America Nelly Braginsky (NY) Ihil Brodsky (IL) Anatoly Gershgorin (NY) Daniel Golubev, MD (NY) Semyon Itskovich (IL) Vladimir Kigel (NJ) Iosif Lakhman (MA) Ilya Levkov (NY) Mikhail Margolin (NJ) Polina and Lev Mendelevich (NY) Yuri Okunev, PhD (NY) Vladimir Opendik (NY) Vitaly Raevsky, PhD (MD) Julian Rapaport (NJ) Viktor Snitkovski, (MA) Leonid Stonov (IL) Pyotr Yefimov (MA) Ella Zarider (NY) ***