I don't always read the FJJ, the Flatbush Jewish Journal, but it must have been Seyata De'Shmaya that I perused last week's issue.
I lived in Flatbush for many years and I found the shaven and "Flatbush bearded" community, a hotbed of anti-Israel sentiment.
BTW, this is the only place on earth where you can still see clean shaven guys with bekeshes,. What's up with that?
I digress.
These guys are by-in-large children of Holocaust survivors who became very successful financially and comfortable in their million dollar homes, but learned nothing from their own history, so Israel is the furthest thing on their minds.
Yes, they will come to Israel once in a while to visit their daughters attending seminaries that have $30,000 tuitions, but this is for shidduch reasons. Their married children they send for two or three years to Mir Yerushalyim to start them off, but the children know they will come back to the USA back to the materialistic world of the Goldene Medina.
I have met many of them when they come for Shabbos and I can tell you first hand that the majority of them are spoiled who lack nothing, B"H. I am frightened for them if their fortunes should G-d forbid change. The kids I meet, both the guys and their wives have absolutely no connection to Israel and when they speak I can hear their anti-Israel biases that they inevitably picked up in their affluent Flatbush homes. Their parents learned in the best yeshivos in the USA that never offered them any love for the Land and in fact discouraged any connection to not only the State of Israel but offered them no understanding of the importance and the holiness of Eretz Yisrael. Except for the dying Young Israels, no shuls in Flatbush make a mi-shebeirach for the State or even for the chayalim.
It is this environment that the FJJ flourishes and it is this type of community that produces the Rabbi Boyans of the world!
The State of Israel, yes the Zionist State of Israel is the home of close to 7 million Jews, bli eyin hara. For this reason alone a Jewish Newspaper in a Jewish Community should have the decency to acknowledge a holiday that is being celebrated by millions of Israeli Jews. We are not asking for 20 page spreads, we are asking for an Honorable Mention.
I have read many of R' Boylans letters to the editors previously, but this one piqued my interests because it reflects the deep divide between the "yeshivish" world and reality!
To excuse the FJJ's disgusting omittance of three meaningful consecutive events that were taking place in Eretz Yisrael with the supposedly "Daas Torah" dictum hits a new low for even the FJJ. I showed Rabbi Boyan's letter to three different Holocaust survivors here in Beit Shemesh to see and read their reactions just to make sure that I am on target. They were outraged!
Below and after the break is Rabbi Boylan's letter to the editor and my remarks in red.
