The Jewish Press has published an op-ed that for the first time has attacks self appointed vigilantes who are nothing more than a group of immoral, violent people purporting to represent Torah values.
First of all the Jewish Press deserves credit for its courage in publishing this kind of letter. To the best of my knowledge no other Orthodox publication has taken this step.
A group of Jewish bloggers with a wide array and readership have gotten together and composed a letter of support. I don’t know what our combined numbers are with respect to readership. But it wouldn’t surprise me if the majority of all Jews who read any blog at all, read at least one of our blogs regularly. The numbers must be huge!
This is just one area where blogs like this have the ability to accomplish something big – something that will benefit everyone. Something that will help protect the innocent and punish the guilty.
The following letter should be copied and pasted into an e-mail - and then mailed to the Jewish Press.
Here is their e-mail address:
letters@jewishpress.com
The goal is to flood them with this kind of e-mail. You can use your own wording but the essence of the letter should be that of the one below.
We can really make a difference here. Maybe we can once and for all turn the intimidaters into the intimidated and rid the Torah world of people like this forever!
Here is the text of the letter:
To the Editorial Board of the Jewish Press:
We would like to express our horror at the intimidation and harassment of Dr. Benzion Twerski for his efforts to protect our children from molestation, and we salute you for your courage in publishing the Op-Ed column condemning the harassment of Dr. Twerski. We feel that exposing the actions of the kannoim is the first step in reversing their campaign of terror against members of our community.
We are fed up with the fact that the extremists in our community are allowed to threaten peaceful citizens with threats and we would like to see our police officers arrest and prosecute those who do so to the fullest extent of the law.
If there are any acts of intimidation or threats of violence to Dov Hikind's next appointee to the Child Safety committee; we will join and support a massive email drive to our elected officials – on the local, state and federal levels – to step in and protect those who are helping protect our children.
We respectfully ask you to run an editorial next week condemning this disgraceful act, acknowledging the number of these emails that were sent to you and calling on our leaders and rabbonim to publicly distance themselves from acts of intimidation and violence each and every time they occur with the same fervor reserved for other actions that contradict our holy Torah – and to declare the acts of violence as the sins they are.
Respectfully submitted,
Harry Maryles (Emes Ve-Emunah)
