Letters to the editor

Issue of February 19, 2010/ 6 Adar 5770

Martin Grossman is not ‘our’ cop killer

To the Editor:

In seeking a stay of Martin Grossman’s execution (Editorial; Feb. 12, 2010), the Agudah, the OU, the RCA and other self-proclaimed communal spokespersons have produced exactly the consequence suggested in your editorial: they have turned a cop killer into our cop killer.

Grossman, a convicted burglar, bludgeoned, then shot, a helpless park enforcement officer in the head to prevent her from reporting him for a parole violation.

A unanimous jury recommended the death penalty and an independent judge sentenced him; a decision that has stood despite 25 years of procedural maneuvering by Grossman and the ACLU, including an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Barry Scheck’s “Innocence Project” and doubts about the death penalty are irrelevant to this case where neither the facts nor the persons involved are in dispute.

That Grossman felt remorse for his deed does not in any way exonerate him; indeed, under Jewish law, a murderer was encouraged to express remorse before being executed, but it did not diminish his sentence.

The notion that Grossman “killed... but is not a killer” is a bit of sophistry that somehow didn’t make it into the Ten Commandments. And I’m sure we’re all convinced that Rabbi Avi Shafran’s intervention was motivated by “humanitarian” rather than “family” (i.e., tribalistic) considerations.

No doubt, if a Muslim shot a charedi rabbi in the head but subsequently felt remorse and became a “proud practitioner of his faith,” Rabbi Shafran would jump to his defense.

And let’s be clear: there is no notion of “pidyon shvuyim” (redeeming a prisoner) when a Jewish murderer is properly tried and sentenced; standing loyally beside such an exemplary Jew is moral solipsism lifted perhaps from Al Sharpton’s or Al Jazeera’s street politics playbook but definitely not from the Shulkhan Arukh.

As Leon Wieseltier has noted, prosecution is not persecution, until it is proven otherwise. It is Chilul Hashem for so-called communal “leaders” to take public stands directed by the broken moral compass of Jewish triumphalism and tribalism, rather than by our Torah values of personal responsibility and commitment to justice.

Yaacov M. Gross

Lawrence

Why Agudah double standard?

To the Editor:

The [unsuccessful] effort to stay the execution of convicted murderer Martin Grossman in Florida raised much discussion and controversy within the Jewish community, including over the extent to which Jewish community organizations should show compassion towards crime victims, the extent to which certain negative aggravating factors of the crime are now being downplayed, and why the mitigating factors which Grossman’s would-be saviors insist might exist have not yet been proffered after over twenty-five years.

One matter of note is the proactive participation of the Agudath Israel of America in the effort to spare Grossman’s life.  In August 1999, Agudath Israel supported the “execution” of Gidone (Gary) Busch, who was shot to death by several trigger-happy officers of the New York Police Department in the Boro Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. At a news conference on August 31, 1999, an Agudath Israel vice-president, in his capacity as such, stood and spoke in support of the NYPD at a news conference, effectively giving Agudath Israel’s hechsher to Busch’s killing, and contributing to an atmosphere which facilitated the questionable handling, preservation and presentment of evidence by the NYPD in the inquiries and litigation that followed.

To be sure, Agudath Israel of America is an organization whose good works I personally appreciate, applaud, and occasionally support financially. Nevertheless, in this particular matter, Agudath Israel’s apparent double standard is most perplexing.

Kenneth H. Ryesky, Esq.

East Northport

The writer was a pallbearer at Busch’s funeral. In a photograph in the New York Times (September 3, 1999; page B6) which depicts the casket of Gidone Busch being carried down the steps of the funeral home after the service, Ryesky notes that he is “the middle man on the right side, carrying the casket.”