Letters to the editor 11-6-09

To the Editor:

I was quite surprised to see the vehemence of the reaction to Rabbi Reuven Spolter’s article criticizing those who send their kids to out of town residential campuses (The elephant in the room; In My View; Oct 16, 2009). I do understand much of what they feel in defense of the practice, but at the same time, Rabbi Spolter’s concerns are not to be shrugged off lightly.

If it is true that one quarter of our Orthodox youth are wooed away from Orthodoxy on the secular college campus, then I pose the following question: If you found a piece of meat that was “kosher by three-quarters”, would you eat it? I would assume not. I chose my metaphor with care. For too many parents in the Orthodox community, the only real concern is the availability of kosher food. The kashrus of the environment doesn’t quite seem to be a priority. Columbia, U of P and, perhaps, Brandeis, are exceptional in the quality of Jewish life on campus. I had occasion a few years back to speak at SUNY Binghamton. Clearly there is a fine kosher eating facility and a dedicated Chabad shaliach. But it is a spiritual “midbar” for a child with 13 years of yeshiva education. Although this is anecdotal evidence, I suspect that it is reflective of most college environments.

I agree that Yeshiva University is not for everyone, but of my two Queens College graduates, one is a Fordham Law grad and the other is finishing Columbia Dental School. They will tell you that the education was excellent, and I was able to rest comfortably with their living in a healthier environment, off-campus. Perhaps there are aspects of the college experience that they did miss, but I believe that Torah u’Madda or Torah im Derech Eretz assumes at least a minimal measure of sacrifice in order to place Torah first.

To the Editor:

In his review of Killing Kasztner: The Jew who Dealt with Nazis (Oct. 30, 2009), Michael Orbach uncritically accepts the film’s premise that Rudolf Kasztner was a hero who has been misjudged by history — a Jewish Wallenberg whose only fault was running out of passports.  The truth is different.

As head of the Jewish Agency Rescue Committee for Hungary, Kasztner limited his efforts to a small number of prominent Jews that he had personally selected, obtaining Nazi support for his plan by agreeing to conceal the existence of the concentration camps from Hungary’s Jewish masses. According to Eichmann himself, “because Kasztner rendered us a great service by helping keep the deportation camps peaceful, I would let his groups escape... That was the ‘gentleman’s agreement’ I had with Kasztner.”

But there’s more.  Kasztner refused to help the heroine Hannah Senesh as she awaited execution and then induced her fellow parachutists to surrender to the Gestapo and Hungarian gendarmerie. And just to add icing to this cake baked in hell, Kasztner voluntarily traveled to Nuremberg and intervened on behalf of S.S. Colonel Kurt Becher, Special Reich Commissioner for all concentration camps, sparing him prosecution, not to mention the gallows he so richly deserved.

Killing Kasztner is an attempt to whitewash one of the most perfidious episodes in Jewish history, which involved not only Kasztner, but also the Ben-Gurion government he represented.   Contrary to Orbach’s slavish review of this revisionist documentary, Kasztner got his reputation as a Nazi collaborator the old fashioned way — he earned it.