Letters to the editor 1-23-09

Issue of Jan. 23, 2009 / 27 Tevet 5769

A disappointing showing

To the Editor:

The front page article of The Jewish Star touting 10,000 people showing up at a rally for Israel, that is so important, is really a disgrace. (Ten thousand rally for Israel in Manhattan; Jan. 16, 2009).

There are several million Jews plus friends in the metropolitan area. If the Jewish leadership cannot get a million people out there, put the blame where it belongs.

Silence is golden in shul during tefilah, but not when a building is burning.

If this is the best the Jewish leadership can do, then we really need G-d to help us all.

Maurice I. Kessler

Even the nice kids are doing it

To the Editor:

A mother who gives a banana to a child in a supermarket and checks out without paying for it, or a father who shares a handful of grapes with his child and “forgets to mention it” to the cashier have something in common. They are thieves.

Today, in Brach’s market, I saw a woman take a box of cookies from the shelf, open it and give a cookie to her child and then put the box back on the shelf.

Ask any Five Towns merchant about “shrinkage” and you will be surprised by the answer. That’s another way of describing shoplifting and “some of the nicest kids” do it.

Is it any surprise, then, when children are caught slipping a candy bar into a pocket, or taking a pair of gloves without paying? And if confronted with the child’s act, you can bet the parent will say, “I don’t know where he or she learned to do that.”

Leon Schwarzbaum

North Woodmere