17 Aug SPEAK YOUR VUES WITH THE VUES MASTER
Please note that the author of Speak Your Vues is in no way affiliated with the publisher of
this paper. The author of this column is an independent third party contributor. The views and
opinions expressed by this author may not reflect the views and opinions of the publishers. If
one has any issues with any of the views, please write a letter to the Vues Master.
VISITING DAY
Dear Vues Master:
Am I the only parent that can’t stand visiting
day? Don’t get me wrong, I love my
son, but why do I need to shlep three & a
half hours to see him when he is coming
home in a week?
RS
Vues Master’s Note:Don’t you realize the
entire visiting day is about TIPS! TIPS!
& MORE TIPS!!
SUMMER ENDING
Dear Vues Master:
Do you know when the stores upstate are
closing this summer? Many of the camps
are closing this week. Elul is this Shabbos
but Labor day is not for a couple of
weeks. Rosh Hashana is at the end of
September. I think people should enjoy
the summer & not run back to the city.
Relax & enjoy the beautiful weather we
had this summer.
ML
Vues Master’s Note: No one is forcing
anyone to come back. As a matter of fact
parking has been a bit easier here in the
City.
THE PRICE OF GAS
Dear Vues Master:
Have you noticed that gas is starting to
go down in price? It’s interesting how
now that the summer is almost over, gas
is going down. I actually paid $3.99 this
week, for the first time in four months. It
still has a long way to go but for someone
who spends over $100 a week on gas,I’m
very happy.
KB
Vues Master’s Note: It is close to Election
Day and the Democrats hope you
forget the pain of the pump. As soon as
November rolls around, we will be inundated
with gas hikes and the excuse will
be that we need to save the environment!
SHOOTING IN ERETZ
YISRAEL
Dear Vues Master:
Menachem Pallas, a Lubavitcher chassid
from Crown Heights who was visiting
Israel, was shot in the shoulder this past
Motzei Shabbos in the terror attack near
the Kosel. Baruch Hashem, he was only
lightly injured, but this is really getting out
of hand already. When is the IDF going to
destroy this terrorist families home? This
is unacceptable. We must retaliate.
CH
Vues Master’s Note: Retaliation just exacerbates
the situation. Either the Arabs
get wiped out of the Country or we just
live with it. They will always do damage!
The world just does not care for Jewish
Blood. It’s a shame that there is no Kahane
or JDL anymore!
KLAL YISRAEL
MOURNING
Dear Vues Master:
The Baltimore Jewish community remains in shock, after the devastating murder of Aryeh Wolf z”l. Aryeh, 25, was shot last Wednesday while installing solar panels in a dangerous neighborhood of Washington DC. The African-American shooter fled the scene without taking any of the victim’s belongings, ruling out robbery as the motive. How is it possible that the suspect, whose image can be seen clearly on surveillance footage, is still on the loose and highly dangerous? Where is the police? Why is it taking so long to catch this murderer?
CF
Vues Master’s Note: We are in Golus and can’t forget it!
FAMED TRUMAN
BIOGRAPHER GOT IT ALL WRONG ON
ZIONISM
Dear Vues Master:
Historian David McCullough won a Pulitzer Prize for Truman, his biography of President Harry S. Truman. McCullough also won a second Pulitzer and two National Book Awards for his other books. He was even awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Yet despite his many awards and accolades, McCullough, who passed away on August 7, got it all wrong when it came to a crucial episode in the history of President Truman’s policies regarding the creation of the State of Israel. The story concerns Rabbi Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, the dynamic co-leader of the American Zionist movement in the 1940s, along with Rabbi Stephen S. Wise. Rabbi Silver mobilized Zionist activists nationwide –Christians as well as Jews– to take part in a massive campaign of rallies, lobbying, petitions and other protests urging President Truman to support the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Truman deeply resented the pressure, and since Silver was its primary instigator, the president disliked him—intensely. In one handwritten note to an aide in 1946, Truman blamed “terror and Silver” as “the causes of some, if not all, of our troubles.” (By “terror,” he was referring to the Jewish underground militias that were attacking British targets in Palestine.) It should be noted that President Truman spoke just as harshly about broad swaths of the American Jewish community, not just Silver. For example, in the midst of a July 30, 1946 cabinet discussion about American Jewish dissatisfaction over his Palestine policy, Truman exploded, “Jesus Christ couldn’t please them when he was here on earth, so how could anyone expect that I would have any luck?” McCullough himself characterized Truman as “short-tempered.” Nonetheless, according to McCullough’s biography of Truman (pp.598-599), it was Silver’s intemperate demeanor that helped provoke the president’s anger at the American Zionist movement: “Particularly offensive to Truman was the attitude of Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver…At one point during a meeting in Truman’s office, Silver had hammered on Truman’s desk and shouted at him.” This anecdote shows up in many books and articles about the period. It is often cited as evidence that the obnoxious, belligerent Silver–as the face of obnoxious, belligerent American Jews in general–endangered the entire Zionist enterprise through his outrageous attempt to intimidate the president of the United States. The story is presented as an indictment not only of Silver the man, but of the very idea of forthright Jewish political behavior. The claim that Silver pounded on the president’s desk and yelled at him always struck me as implausible. Rabbi Silver was a passionate man, but he knew how to comport himself in meetings with the president of the United States and other government officials. Sure enough, my investigation of the source for the alleged incident quickly raised more questions than it answered. McCullough’s sole source was the aforementioned “terror and Silver” memo, which does not mention any fist-pounding or yelling. So I checked Truman’s daily calendar to see when the alleged incident might have taken place. Silver visited the White House just twice during Truman’s presidency, on September 29, 1945, and July 2, 1946. But he did not go by himself. Silver was accompanied by Stephen Wise on the first visit, and by Wise, as well as Zionist officials Nahum Goldmann and Louis Lipsky, on the second. Meaning that if Silver had indeed “hammered” on the president’s desk and screamed at him on either occasion, there would have been eyewitnesses. It happens that Wise, Goldmann and Lipsky were bitter rivals of Silver. Surely they would have mentioned an incident that would have vindicated their view of him. Yet their autobiographies, published letters, and private correspondence say nothing on the subject. Goldmann, in his memoir, did assert of Silver that “there was something of the terrorist in his manner and bearing.” But he did not mention any fist-pounding to illustrate Silver’s supposedly terroristic nature. Nor, by the way, did President Truman mention it in his own published memoir. Several other books which relate the alleged fist-pounding cite a different third-hand source: an obscure book (a history of a Kansas synagogue) that quoted Elinor Borenstine, the daughter of Truman’s Jewish friend and business partner, Eddie Jacobson. So I telephoned Mrs. Borenstine for clarification. It turned out that she had been relying on a 1968 essay by her father, in which he reported that Truman once complained to him about “how disrespectful and how mean certain Jewish leaders had been to him.” Jacobson wrote nothing about any fist-pounding or shouting. In fact, he did not mention Silver by
name. Interestingly, however,
there is another anecdote from that period, based on a stronger source, that involves some “hammering” of fists—but it was Truman who was doing the hammering. Syndicated columnist Drew Pearson, a widely respected investigative journalist, reported on March 10, 1948 that Truman had lost his temper during a recent conversation about Palestine with “a New York publisher.” (He was referring to Ted Thackrey of the New York Post.) Pearson wrote: “Pounding his desk, [Truman] used words that can’t be repeated about ‘the (blank) New York Jews’. ‘They’re disloyal to their country. Disloyal!’, he cried.” President Truman denied the story, but Pearson stood his ground. Is it possible that Truman, in his complaints to Eddie Jacobson or others about “disrespectful” Jewish behavior, was actually projecting something of his own intemperate ways? Whatever the answer, one thing is clear: David McCullough got it all wrong. His biography, Truman, was a best-seller. It won rave reviews. It was even made into an HBO movie. But McCullough’s careless accusation against an American Zionist leader, made without any documentation, reminds us that even Pulitzer Prize winners can sometimes make mistakes—serious ones.
Rafael Medoff
Vues Master’s Note: I guess you hammered it home!
GOOGLE JOKES
Dear Vues Master:
A man calls Pizza Hut to order a pizza…
CALLER: Is this Pizza Hut?
GOOGLE: No sir, it’s Google Pizza.
CALLER: I must have dialed a wrong number, sorry.
GOOGLE: No sir, Google bought Pizza Hut last month.
CALLER: OK. I would like to order a pizza.
GOOGLE: Do you want your usual, sir?
CALLER: My usual? Do you know me?
GOOGLE: According to our caller ID data sheet, the last 12 times you called you ordered an extra-large pizza with extra cheese, falafel, mushrooms and onions on a thick crust.
CALLER: Super! That’s what I’ll have.
GOOGLE: May I suggest that this time you order a pizza with ricotta, arugula, sun-dried tomatoes and olives on a whole wheat gluten-free thin crust?
CALLER: What? I don’t want a vegetarian pizza!
GOOGLE: Your cholesterol is not good, sir.
CALLER: How do you know that?
GOOGLE: Well, we cross-referenced your home phone number with your medical records. We have the result of your blood tests for the last 7 years.
CALLER: Okay, but I do not want your rotten vegetarian pizza! I
already take medication for my cholesterol.
GOOGLE: Excuse me sir, but you have not taken your medication regularly. According to our database, you purchased only a box of 30 cholesterol tablets once at Walgreens Pharmacy, 4 months ago.
CALLER: I bought more from another Pharmacy.
GOOGLE: That doesn’t show on your credit card statement.
CALLER: I paid in cash.
GOOGLE: But you did not withdraw enough cash according to your bank statement.
CALLER: I have other sources of cash.
GOOGLE: That doesn’t show on your latest tax returns unless you bought them using an undeclared income source, which is against the law!
CALLER: WHAT THE !!!
GOOGLE: I’m sorry sir, we use such information only with the sole intention of helping you.
CALLER: Enough already! I’m sick to death of Google, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and all the others. I’m going to an island without
the internet, TV, where there is no phone service and no one to watch me or spy on me.
GOOGLE: I understand sir, but you need to renew your passport first. It expired 6 weeks ago…
Vues Master’s Note: Google has been reduced to the AlphaBet.
ISRAELI HOUSING SHORTAGES
Dear Vues Master:
“In regards to solutions to the Israeli housing shortages, the foremost action that needs to be taken is an increase in the supply of housing, via new construction. “At the end of the day, we need to see a lot of new housing construction in order to balance the harsh price increase,” said Professor Dani Ben-Shachar, director of the Alrov Institute for Real Estate Research and faculty member at the Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University. If only there was an unused wide area of land under Israel’s control that could be placed in new construction. Oh, wait…
RUP
Vues Master’s Note: Sounds the same as in Lakewood and all Jewish Communities!