02 Jun Speak Your Vues

ZIONISM 

Dear Editor: Shavuot & Zionism 2020 eBook Now Available for Free (NEW YORK) Herut North America, a leading American Zionist organization has developed an inspirational new Shavuot holiday anthology offering ideas about the Land Of Israel and Torah and is now being offered for free. The collection includes classic, hard-to-find essays and historical texts by early Zionist thinkers and is part of Herut’s ongoing effort to present to today’s readers the thoughts of the Zionist heroes who fought to create Israel and in the process changed Jewish history. Herut North America’s free eBook “Shavuot: Reconnecting to the Land Through Torah” is now available at https://herut.net/shavuot/ “With there being very few live, in-person community events to celebrate Shavuot in America, this year Herut decided to produce this free eBook to help people observe this important festival in a uniquely Zionist way” said Karma Feinstein Cohen, the Executive Director of World Herut. “Our fervent hope is that through this unique compilation, readers will be moved to learn more about the tapestry that is Zionism, the Tanach (Jewish Bible), and Jewish unity.” “Zionist education is Herut’s main mission, and has been since our inception, and one reason for the publishing of this Shavout anthology was to allow readers to learn about how Israel’s founding generation saw the Land Of Israel’s centrality in our Chagim,” said Moshe Phillips, the National Director of Herut North America. “After the amazing response to Herut’s previous 2020 eBooks, The Unapologetic Zionist’s Haggadah Anthology and Yom HaShoah: Marking the Enormity of the Holocaust in 2020, we believe the words of Zionist thinkers of the 1930s and 1940s are needed now more than ever.” 

MP 

Editor’s Note:I guess I will read it next Shavuos. 

MAYOR DE NAZI 

Dear Editor, I was appalled to see in the letters section of the May 20-26 Jewish Vues your reference to Mayor DeBlasio as a Nazi. This is completely unacceptable and beyond the pale. While I hold no brief for the mayor and acknowledge some of his words and actions to be antisemitic, they clearly do not rise to anywhere near a level deserving of the epithet that you used. Such grossly absurd mischaracterizations only serve to detract from the many fine features and articles in your worthy publication. 

YR 

Editor’s Note: I wonder if you still feel this way. The Mayor never ceases to amaze me at how low he can go. Sherrifs closing stores in BP but looters can rob stores! 

MUSIC 

Dear Editor: Avraham Fried & Chazzan Helfgott I watched last night Lag B’Omer online the United Hatzalah Raise-a -thon where they so far raised over 8 million dollars BE”H! My daughter called me that Avraham Fried is giving a concert, and I was glued to the screen after that. I’ve been a concert goer all my life until I discovered my Rav in Monsey. I used to dance in the aisles with my colorful lights by Ohel, HASC, Miami, Avraham Fried, MBD, & Yaakov Schweky concerts on Chol Hamoed and Chanukah etc. I grew up listening to MBD and his father Chazzan Duvid Werdyger Z”L sing Skulener niggunim. I would also listen to Pirchei, Kol Salonika, London Boys Choir, Diaspora, Avraham Fried, Shlomo Carelbach, The Rabbis Sons, Dveykus, JEP, Journeys, Yaakov Schweky, Miami, Baruch Levine, Simcha Leiner, Shloime Dachs, Shlomo Simcha, Shloime Gertner, Shloime Daskal, Srully wulliger, yitzie Bald [NY Boys Choir],and of course my favorite star soloist, David Buzaglo. MBD once told me that he would take out a colorful light during a concert to remember my dancing and making it very lebedig by concerts in my honor. Avraham Fried told me that he wanted to make a cd just from all my phone messages complimenting his albums. Shloime Dachs gets the credit for offering me and my wife two free tickets to an Ohel concert which he is closely connected to. We sat up front, and throughout the night, I tried getting the attention of the videographer. I was finally matzliach during two songs which I made all kind of hand swimming motions during Avraham Fried singing “Nisht Gedeigert Yidden, and MBD singing Kol Dodi Hineh Zeh Ba. My nickname is Dancing Lights! Last night, I was overcome with all kind of emotions and memories missing the concerts helping to make it lively amongst the crowd. I would hand out to the kids these colorful sparkling lights that I would buy at toy stores and amusement parks. When the day camp would go on an overnight, we sang and danced on the bus to the different Jewish music cds. I remember at a MBD concert, Avraham Fried said to Mordechai; “B”H, you were created with a gorgeous voice, but why in my lifetime? It got a good laugh! I once yelled out from the balcony when MBD asked whose car is blocking the driveway parking lot for the VIPS? After Mordechai announced that they were towing the person’s car. I said; MBD. It was your car!” I’ll never forget when Sheya Mendlowitz brought out all the surprise guest stars from back stage at a HASC concert at Lincoln Center; Shlomo Carelbach, Joe Amar, Yoel Sharaby, Benzion Schenker etc. recall when Abie Rotenberg [Aish 3] sang on the piano, Candles, & It’s a small Piece of Heave. Finally, there wasn’t a dry eye last night when Avraham Fried called out his good friend, Chazzan Itcha Meir Helfgott who recovered miraculously from covid 19 to sing together Retzeh Hashem L’tefilasecha. The Chazzan afterwards sang a solo Acheinu Kol Beis Yisroel. It reminded me of the Siyum hashas when he sang Kel Maleh Rachamim for the 6 million Kedoshim HY”D. Avrohom sang solo my favorite -YADATI!I remember back in either CTV or Camp Ohr Shraga how we would listen to over and over Avraham Fried’s first big hit song Kel Hadoas composed by Rabbi Baruch Chait. We couldn’t wait until the final time around the song when Avremel gave that famous krechtzs U’meniach B’kedusha. I think Sheya’s best produced album was MBD Double album with the cool song Daaga Minayin. I once wrote to the JO that without MBD we would be into [R”L] MTV! He helped us listen to kool songs with a Yiddesher Taam. My favorite album from MBD is his Neshama album with my favorite song being Neshama arranged by Moshe Mona Rosenblum who also B”H recovered from Covid 19. Baruch Rofeh Cholim. The music was ahead of its time with a 56 piece Israel philharmonic orchestra back in 1973 after the Yom Kippur war. Moshe Mona Rosenblum joins a group of talented arrangers and producers; Moshe Laufer, Yisroel Lamm, Naftali Schnitzler [Yaadati], Yochi Briskman, Donnie Gross, Sheya Mendlowitz, and Composers; Yossi Green, Yerachmiel Begun, Yitzie Waldner, Abie Rotenberg, Shlomo Yehuda Rechnitz, R’ Baruch Chait. R’ Shmuel Brezel- [Regesh Abish Brodt]. [R’ Eli Teitelbaum Z”L Camp Sdei Chemed choir.] 

RMS 

Editor’s Note: Ah! Music is so needed in this day and age and there is nothing like music nostalgia!

RARE BRACHA 

Dear Editor: Is there any way we can get the Jewish vues in the stores in Lakewood? Also, I’d like to make a correction if I may, on page 59 by the riddle, it says which 4 brachos are made once a year. But the truth is, there are 5! The Bracha said on haftora on Yom Kippur. Which is not said by mincha. 

YCM 

Editor’s Note: If you get some people in Lakewood to advertise we will bring it to Lakewood. Thanks for that Bracha!

NIGHTLY LEARNING 

Dear Editor: Nightly learning By boys, for boys!!! A nightly 15 minute learning program, with Hilchos Shomer Halashon, Mishnayos, Trivia, prizes and more!!! Call 978-990-5117, access code 7059909. Starting this Sunday! Leiluy nishmas .משה לייב בן אברהם חיים נתן 

Editor’s Note: Love this idea! Hope it takes off! 

FLOYD KILLED 

Dear Editor: How is it possible that many yidden have almost no sympathetic feelings to George Floyd? How did the video of George Floyd’s death not bother you? It was very clearly a cop straight up murdering someone lying on the floor handcuffed. The fact that it took hours for the officer to be charged shows that there is something wrong. And amazingly his colleagues haven’t yet been charged for assisting him or something, why doesn’t it bother you as a human being that a murderer/s are going to get away very leniently after murdering a man on the street? Floyd didn’t commit a violent crime, he simply Payed a cashier with a forged dollar bill, we don’t even know if he knew it was forged! I’m not talking about anti-looters, I’m talking about those who don’t even feel a shred of sympathy for Floyd. The vibes I’m getting from a small portion of yidden are extremely disturbing. 

DMB 

Editor’s Note: I don’t think anyone is not upset by the person being killed. What people are upset is that why if a person is killed in Minnesota do I have to suffer here in NY by having my store looted and being in curfew!

NATIONAL GUARD 

Dear Editor: Everyone should please write a short e-mail to President Trump imploring him to please send in the National Guard without further delay, before things get way more out of hand than already. The mayors and governors have failed Americans, with many of them tying the police’s hands behind their backs in order to appease the rioters. 

JDB 

Editor’s Note: Trump offererd it. The Governor offered it but our crazy Mayor is smarter. Lets keep all law abiding citizens in Jail (curfew) but looters go free. Protesters and looters have no curfew! Go Mayor! Great Job!

SHIDDUCHIM 

Dear Editor: Ok, so I have never been someone to write on internet forums, the thought of communicating anonymously never really appealed to me. But I am desperate, unfortunately there is no denying it I am officially a statistic 26 and not married. I am not sure what I’m looking for, understanding, advice, just someone who will listen? I was never one of those girls who was worried about getting married (not that I didn’t want to get married) I just trusted hashem, trusted he would look after me. its not that i didn’t do my part, calling shadchanim going out with boys that didn’t sound exactly like what Im looking for, going out on second and third dates even when I didn’t want to. I did my part, hishtadlus, davaning kabals, self improvement etc. but I feel like it got me nowhere. Thankfully I have used this time in my life wisely – I have traveled made new friends, worked on myself, advanced in my job and am currently getting my masters. objectively I have a good full life. but the thing is I have always WANTED to get married I mean I love the idea of being a wife and a mother and that has been my dream since 10th grade. I might be smart, successful and g8 at my job and advancing in my career but that has never been my DREAM, my dream is being a wife and a mom. and I know that I wont be truly happy without achieving that dream. but I no longer have the absolute belief that it will happen there are women who never get married and that is a fact! I have no letter from hashem promising me that it will happen and therefore, i’m terrified, lost and helpless I have no idea what to do. For years i Had emuna it will be ok, But what if it never happens, how or will i be able to live with it? 

MKL 

Editor’s Note: If anyone had an answer for you they would be amazing. We need to help all the singles out there especially now with Covid and Curfews!!

POLICING 

Dear Editor: What would be the most effective method to suppress the thugs and bandits participating in the mobs rioting and looting in Minneapolis and other cities? 

JK 

Editor’s Note: Start by giving NYPD full rights to shoot or raise weapons as needed not like our Mayor who every time an officer raises a weapon needs to have his weapon and badge taken. You have the biggest PD in the world and they are neutered!

FEAR MONGERING 

Dear Editor: There should be a law that if a mayor promotes anti-law he should be impeached. How could the Mayor say he was proud of his daughter getting arrested? That’s like the cop who killed Floyd saying he is proud of it! We seem to be living in the times of Sedom. 

RDL 

Editor’s Note: As Bob Grant used to say, “It is sick and getting sicker out there.” 

HENRY FORD 

Dear Editor: President Trump’s recent remark about Henry Ford’s “good bloodlines” has aroused curiosity and controversy. Trump actually is not the first president to subscribe to the discredited notion that there is such a thing as “good” blood and “bad” blood. But you have to go back nearly a century to find another American head of state who openly embraced such notions. During his visit to a Ford Motor Company plant in Michigan on May 21, Mr. Trump was supposed to read from a prepared text, in which he would state simply, “The company founded by a man named Henry Ford teamed up with the company founded by Thomas Edison — that’s General Electric.” But with Ford executive chairman William C. Ford Jr., the great-grandson of Henry Ford, standing nearby, Trump turned to him and ad-libbed: “The company founded by a man named Henry Ford–good bloodlines, good bloodlines, if you believe in that stuff. You got good blood. They teamed up with the company founded by Thomas Edison–that’s General Electric. It’s good stuff. That’s good stuff.” One wishes the president of the United States would have more than a passing familiarity with American history. Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect Mr. Trump to know that Henry Ford was America’s worst promulgator of antisemitism in the 1920s—for which Adolf Hitler praised him, by name, in the pages of Mein Kampf. Or that Ford accepted Nazi Germany’s highest award for foreigners, the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, in 1938. Still, Trump’s advisers and speechwriters have an obligation to keep him fully informed. The more disturbing question, however, pertains to President Trump’s references to “good blood.” Granted, he inserted the caveat, “if you believe in that stuff.” But the very fact that he brought it up, unprovoked—and the fact that he has made similar remarks in the past—suggests that he, for one, does “believe in that stuff.” In 2016, Mr. Trump told British business leaders that they have “good bloodlines” and “amazing DNA.” At a rally in Mississippi that year, he said, “I have great genes and all that stuff, which I’m a believer in.” In a 2014 documentary, he said, “I’m proud to have that German blood, there’s no question about it. Great stuff.” Some of his statements regarding genes and blood concern his uncle, the late Dr. John Trump. As a presidential candidate in 2015, he asserted at one rally that he has “good genes, very good genes, okay, very smart” as supposedly proven by the fact that his uncle was a professor at MIT. Earlier this year, President Trump said he believes he has “a natural ability” in the field of medicine because his uncle “was a great super genius.” The idea that a person’s abilities and behavior are determined chiefly by their “blood” or genes was widespread in the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It went hand in glove with the notion that whites from northern Europe were a superior race that was under siege by inferior races from Africa, Asia, and southern and eastern Europe. Such attitudes extended even to the White House. Theodore Roosevelt wrote in 1897— just a few years before he became president—that it was important to “keep for the white race the best portion of the new world’s surface.” He insisted it was the responsibility of “Anglo-Saxon women” to bear children “numerous enough so that the race shall increase and not decrease.” Woodrow Wilson wrote a book in 1902 in which he warned that “men of the lowest class” from Italy and “of the meaner sort” from Hungary and Poland, were “men out of the ranks where there was neither skill nor energy nor any initiative of quick intelligence; and they came in the numbers which increased from year to year, as if the countries of the south of Europe were disburdening themselves of the more sordid and hapless elements of their population.” There is “a fundamental, eternal, inescapable difference” between the races, President Warren Harding declared in a speech in 1921. “Racial amalgamation there cannot be.” Vice president—and soon to be president—Calvin Coolidge wrote in Good Housekeeping magazine in 1921: “There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any sentimental reasons. Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend. The Nordics propagate themselves successfully. With other races, the outcome shows deterioration on both sides.” Based on that premise, the U.S. government adopted restrictive immigration laws, based on national origins, in the early 1920s. “We have closed the doors just in time to prevent our Nordic population being overrun by the lower races,” Senator David A. Reed, one of the authors of the restrictive legislation, asserted in a New York Times op-ed. “The racial composition of America at the present time thus is made permanent.” Franklin D. Roosevelt shared these sentiments. In the 1920s, he wrote articles warning that “the mingling of Asiatic blood with European or American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate results.” He asserted that America should welcome European immigrants who possessed “blood of the right sort.” In 1939, as president, he privately boasted to a Senate ally that “we know there is no Jewish blood in our veins.” FDR’s harsh policy of suppressing Jewish refugee immigration far below what the quota laws allowed, in the 1930s and 1940s, reflected his vision of a United States that was overwhelmingly white, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. In his view, modest numbers of foreigners should be admitted only if they were, as he put it, “spread thin” around the country and thoroughly assimilated. With the advent of modern science and more enlightened views concerning race and culture, century-old attitudes about one race being better than others generally have been discarded, except among a small fringe of extremists. All that talk about the value of “good bloodlines,” which did not disturb many people eighty or a hundred years ago, by now should be a thing of the past. The fact that the president of the United States is expressing such views in the year 2020 is a reminder that some bad ideas do not easily go out of style. 

RM 

Editor’s Note:Ve’Atem … Mamleches Kohanim