S.L.O.W.

A feature I believe started by Avraham Bronstein highlighting really dumb letters to the editor of Jewish weeklies (later expanded to include columns). Alas, I haven't seen anyone do a S.L.O.W. (stupid letter of the week) in quite a while, and they can be truly entertaining.

This letter, from last week's Jewish Press, wins hands down. Name omitted (by me) to protect the silly.

We're Not Worthy

I’m a student at a well-known yeshiva. Before you continue to call your publication "The Jewish Press," let me introduce something to you. It’s called Judaism.

Several weeks ago I saw a copy of your paper on the table in my house and was astonished that the front page had a photo of an Arab man without a shirt on. (It is a halacha that a man may not walk around without a shirt — except in a pool or other bathing facility — even in the privacy of his own house.) I let that pass as perhaps some kind of technical error.

More recently, however, I was again shocked at your choice of a photo for the front page — a lady kissing her husband. The Gemara discusses the topic of looking at women. One amora concludes that a man may not look at the pinkie of a woman. Perhaps that only refers to looking at a woman with non-kosher thoughts. However, everyone agrees that looking at a man and woman making physical contact in any way, shape or form is forbidden.

I see no difference between your paper and the garbage that is sold at newsstands in Manhattan. Your publication is about as "Jewish" as the pope.

[Ploni],

Brooklyn, NY

Editor's Note: The photograph of the "man and woman making physical contact" depicted — as the caption made clear - the proud granddaughter of Prof. Robert (Israel) Aumann giving her grandfather an affectionate kiss on the cheek after he’d been awarded the Nobel Prize. The Palestinian without a shirt was photographed as he took part in the looting and burning of a Gaza settlement after the Israeli pullout.