Our community has so many worthwhile causes and great charities. However, many don’t really fulfil the obligation of tzedakah. It’s important to build shuls and community centres and to help our students, who are facing difficult times at post-secondary institutes. In fact, it is obligatory. However, these do not qualify as tzedakah. Tzedakah is meant to remind each of us to look after and not to forget the needy among us – the disabled, the ill, the mentally ill, the widowed, orphaned, the elderly and the poor.
It is truly wonderful that we build and that we take care of so many diverse needs in our community and in Israel. But it’s morally unacceptable to ignore the plight of indigent Holocaust survivors. The Holocaust survivors will not be around much longer. We have a very short window to do right by them. I believe it is incumbent on each of us to make assisting the remaining Holocaust survivors our community’s number 1 priority. We must put pressure on federations to do more to assist needy Holocaust survivors around the world. One such organization already exists, the Survivor Mitzvah Project, whose mandate is to provide for the financial needs of indigent Holocaust survivors living in the former Soviet Union.
Kathy Schneider
Toronto
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Mother in Auschwitz at 14
My mother was only a young child of 14 years when she was taken and imprisoned in the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz and witnessed her parents, brothers and sisters being murdered as she smelled the stench of human flesh coming from the giant smokestacks (“One less witness,” April 04). As a young child here in Montreal, I was told the terrible stories of antisemitism in Europe when I asked my mother, “Why don’t I have grandparents and all my neighbourhood friends do have grandparents?” I was told that these friends were lucky to have all their relatives in Canada during the Holocaust. As I got older, my mom did tell me how many amazing relatives – grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins – that I would have had, from both my dad and my mom’s side, if European Jews had not been hated by the Nazis.
Harry Grunstein
Montreal
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CJN support (1)
Several years ago, I sent a donation for what I felt was a very worthy Jewish cause. Weeks later, I started receiving The CJN. What has impressed my wife and me over the years has been the quality of the articles and reporting found therein. It is refreshing to be able to read the pro-Israel side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I do hope that you may find your way out of the financial wilderness to continue to publish. You will always have our support.
David E. McCaldon
Burlington, Ont.
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CJN support (2)
I will be saddened if The CJN ceases publication. It will be a tremendous loss to the growing Jewish community in Canada. I am originally from the United Kingdom, and I felt the Jewish Chronicle was the lifeblood of the community there. I see from your recent item on the demographics of world Jewry that the U.K. Jewish population is decreasing. I realize the digital age is hitting us, especially those who are mature in years, but surely in Canada there are Jews who are altruistic enough to invest in a not-for-profit written Jewish media, especially in this time of worldwide increase in antisemitism.
Allan S. Krett
Toronto
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CJN support (3)
I am so very sorry to read that you are closing. What a shame! The CJN is the only newspaper we read. This is not only a loss for this generation, but also for the generations to come. The CJN is an integral part of the Canadian Jewish community. Please reconsider! I know this is a financial decision, but there are bigger issues here, such as what our children will read as they are growing up. And honestly, reading online is a poor, sad, sorry substitute for the real thing. Please consider our future generations! Don't stop print publishing!
Maxine Isaacs
Thornhill, Ont.