Letter to the Editor

To the Editor:
The article “Charity Watchdog Downgrades Leading Nonprofits” [Jewish Star, Sept. 28] reflects the realities of the heightened scrutiny to which all charitable organizations are now subjected. The past few years have seen the requisites with which the non-profits must comply significantly ramped up, and what sufficed a year ago will not necessarily constitute compliance today.
All non-profit organizations have been impacted, and the Jewish community especially has felt and will continue to feel this impact because we have thousands of non-profit organizations, which carry out our longstanding and deeply-rooted tzedaka practices.

The article’s comments regarding the Agudath Israel of America may be somewhat misleading. Every information technology innovation, be it the printing press, the fountain pen, the typewriter, the radio or the internet, has, for better or worse, affected individual and group interactions and behaviors. The Agudath Israel and its rabbinical leadership are rightly concerned about the negative risk of such changes, both known and unknown, as they pertain to the internet. Accordingly, the Agudah has proceeded in a measured and deliberate manner in its use of the internet.

Contrary to the article, the Agudath Israel does in fact maintain a website. Specifically, its Chayim Aruchim project (http://chayimaruchim.com) addresses the ever growing problems of the health care system’s tendencies to withhold medical treatment from the elderly and/or the very ill. In addressing these problems, the Agudah does use the financial and technical efficiencies of the internet to disseminate information and documents to a broad spectrum of Jews, without regard to Agudah affiliation, in order to enable them to protect themselves and their loved ones in what all too frequently are truly life-or-death situations.

A “business as usual” attitude ill serves our social service organizations in the current climate of increased governmental attention to the non-profit sector. The Jewish Star has performed a public service by placing these issues before its readership.

Kenneth H. Ryesky, Esq.
East Northport