Letters to the Editor

Leniency for Sodomy Doesn’t Exist

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s unfortunate and patronizing apologia on Dr. Laura Schlessinger ( “Dr. Laura Misguided on Homosexuality,” June 16) looks very much like flattery in an attempt to ingratiate himself with people who are vehement in their single-issue activism.

Nowhere in the Torah or halacha does a leniency exist for committing sodomy. Furthermore, there is no constituency marching down Santa Monica Boulevard demanding that lying, cheating and eating pork become normative – indeed sanctified – behavior for a religious Jew.

Far more disturbing, however, is Boteach’s distinction between religious and moral law. Moral law in Boteach’s conception seems to be based on accepted societal norms of what represents proper behavior and compassion. If the people who consider the death penalty immoral became predominant, does it follow then that the Torah, according to Boteach, is less compassionate and therefore immoral?If it is true that Dr. Laura said that homosexuals are biological errors, she is wrong. Are infertile couples or people with inborn errors of metabolism considered biological errors? If every human being is created in the image of G-d, the answer is emphatically no. In the same vein, just as one ought not judge Schlessinger’s value as a person or as a media asset based on an opinion one disagrees with, one should not conclude that a gay person’s humanity and essence as a human being is invested in homosexuality.

Howard Winter , Beverly Hills

Dr. Laura Holds Public to Unfair Standard

Thank you for printing Rabbi Boteach’s well-reasoned demolition of Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s position on homosexuality. I have been waiting for a proper Orthodox response to her venom.

Rabbi Boteach could have also pointed out that since the mitzvot are for Jews and are not binding for gentiles, most of the people she deals with on her show do not deserve to be held up to a standard of behavior which is fundamentally Jewish.

Mark Leviton ,Granada Hills

The Great Pretenders

In April 1998, the cover of The Jewish Journal featured the person who called himself Binjamin Wilkomirski. Naomi Pfefferman (“Memories of a Holocaust Childhood,” April 24, 1998) compared his writing – his one and only book, called “Fragments” – to that of Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel. During an emotionally filled performance at a Beverly Boulevard synagogue, Wilkomirski was accompanied by a lady who called herself Laura Grabowski. Both claimed to be soul mates who, at long last, were reunited survivors of Dr. Mengele’s experiments in Auschwitz.

Though a number of people – like historian Raul Hilberg – had already cast doubts about Wilkomirski’s veracity, several months after these two appeared in Los Angeles, a Jewish Swiss writer proved that Wilkomirski had invented his identity. It took a little longer to demonstrate that Grabowski had also invented hers. Neither Wilkomirski (Bruno Doesseker) nor Grabowski (Lauren Wilson) were Jewish. Both were born as illegitimate children in the early 1940’s, adopted and raised as Christians in upper middle-class surroundings; he in Switzerland and she in Washington State.

During the past year there have been several major in-depth publications and documentaries providing decisive proof that both Wilkomirski and Grabowski were fakes. With all the evidence at hand and the forthcoming publication of a book detailing the results of a comprehensive investigation, The Journal never saw fit to mention the uncovering of these shameless persons who used and abused the Holocaust as part of their prop to reinvent themselves for profit and fame.

The Journal has not printed a single word about this unraveling hoax. It is as if The Journal were afraid to admit having been duped.

Leon Stabinsky
President, California Association of Holocaust Child Survivors

Loss of Loved One Should Be Shared

I wish to express my gratitude for Herb Gelfand’s letter of thanks (“Remember Melanie,” May 19). I was moved by the striking honesty with which he told of the joyous and painful paths his heart, mind and soul trod during his granddaughter’s life, and the journey of grief he has been on since her death. In essence, it was a gift to all of us who did not have the privilege of knowing Melanie, for within one page he managed to bring her into our lives and share with us the precious life-altering lesson he learned from her and her life.

It is often so very difficult to speak publicly of the pain we experience when loved ones have died. We also hesitate to mention things they did, said or believed, even years after their death, for fear that this makes listeners uncomfortable. I fervently believe that this unspoken communal taboo must be eradicated.Some of our richest journeys are our most painful ones. They add greater dimension and deeper hues to the canvases of our lives. We should never underestimate how others can be impacted by the insights and questions these experiences generate within us. Some of the people whose lives are a never-ending inspiration to us are no longer living. By speaking of them we may find they inspire others as well. I cannot imagine a greater tribute or a more wonderful way to continually make one’s memory a blessing.

Dawn DeRoy Muroff, Northridge

Kudos to KOREH L.A.

KOREH L.A. has been one of the most needed and appreciated programs in the City of Los Angeles. My school, Melrose Avenue Elementary School, has been the recipient of this program. Daily, there is a steady stream of dedicated, caring and enthusiastic volunteers working with at-risk students. Thanks to this program, many of our students are receiving one-on-one attention and assistance. This has led to the improvement in our reading scores during the last year. Thank you for this wonderful outreach mitzvah to each and every KOREH L.A. volunteer. Please continue this wonderful literacy program.

Regina Goldman
Principal, Melrose Avenue Elementary School

Another L.A. Ulpan Marriage Match

As a parent whose three children went on the L.A. Ulpan, may I add my heartiest congratulations of mazel tov on the L.A. Ulpan celebrating its 36th year and to its dedicated leaders Eddie Friedman, Danny Spitzer and Zvi Weiss, who are being honored.

I read with interest Beverly Gray’s recent article (“What They Did for Love,” June 2) where she cited a number of couples who had met their beshert on the Ulpan. I would like to add to that list a couple who not only met but were also married on the Ulpan. My daughter, Rena Semmelman, attended the L.A. Ulpan in 1966 at Shefeya, an agricultural school, where she met Yitzchak Malka, a student at the school. Rena made aliyah in 1968 and married Yitzchak in the summer of 1971 with the L.A. Ulpan of that year attending the wedding. Both served as counselors for the L.A. Ulpan in 1970 and 1971. Rena looks back on her Ulpan experience as having had a profound effect on her life.

Selma Semmelman , Los Angeles

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