Letters
Agency discusses need for organ donations

The need for organ and tissue donations grows more crucial each day. Minority communities are especially affected. Aug. 1 was established as National Minority Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Day to bring attention to this health crisis.

NJ Organ and Tissue Sharing Network strives to share factual information about organ and tissue donation. Many of its educational efforts are targeted at minority communities. African Americans and Hispanics total more than 31 percent of New Jersey’s population, yet they make up close to 50 percent of the over 3,000 people in the state awaiting a life-saving transplant. The majority of those listed are in need of a kidney transplant.

Diabetes, for example, is a major health concern that can contribute to a need for kidney, as well as pancreas, transplants. On average, African Americans are twice as likely to have diabetes as white Americans of similar age, and just a slightly lower percentage applies to the Latino community. Research shows that 13 percent of African Americans suffer from this disease and a little over 10 percent of Latinos.

Hypertension, most prevalent among African Americans, affects one person in three of this population group. This condition can also cause irreversible damage to kidneys.

Unfortunately, not everyone will receive a transplant. More donations are needed. A single donor can save or enhance the lives of up to 50 people through organ and tissue donation. N.J. Sharing Network urges everyone to consider donation.

N.J. Sharing Network is the nonprofit, federally designated, state-certified recovery agency responsible for providing donated organs and tissue for New Jersey residents in need of transplantation, as well as those on waiting lists nationwide. The organization has full, unconditional accreditation by the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations.

For further information on organ donation, the organ donor license plate, obtaining a donor registry brochure or to learn more about saying “yes” to organ donation on the digital driver’s license, call N.J. Sharing Network at 1-800-SHARE-NJ [742-7365] or visit our Web site at http://www.sharenj.org.

Myra Burks-Davis

Manager of Communications

N.J. Organ and Tissue Sharing Network

Springfield

Local church celebrates Community Day

Hope Cathedral Church in Jackson recently celebrated its first Community Day service. Special invitations were presented to friends, family and neighbors of Jackson, as well as those of the surrounding communities. The day was a huge success, with more than 200 in attendance.

The special service was intended to spread the good news of Hope to these communities.

Hope Cathedral is an inter-denominational, charismatic church focused on making a positive impact in the Jackson area by creating a citywide family center where all individuals and families can grow in faith and discover true hope only found in God.

The church was started on Nov. 24, 2002, when the first worship service was held in the family room of the home of Pastor Trevon and Minister Qwynn Gross. There were 17 people in the first service. The ministry continued to grow and, as a result, on Sunday, Jan. 26, 2003, the church moved to Crawford-Rodriguez Elemen-tary School located at 1025 Larsen Road. The church now averages more than 100 people at each service.

On Feb. 28, 2005, the church purchased a nearly 10-acre parcel of land to house the future permanent home of the church. The property is adjacent to 454 W. Veterans Highway in Jackson. It is west of the township buildings and very centrally located.

To learn more about the ministry at Hope Cathedral, visit the Web site at www.Hopecathedral.org

Sonja Parker

Director of Communications

Hope Cathedral

Jackson

Resident sees need for a less-Orthodox synagogue

In the heat of accusations of anti-Semitism by people on both sides of the “yeshiva question,” I think we are losing sight of an important fact. Congregation Anshei Roosevelt members tell the truth when complaining that they can’t scrape up enough men to form a minyan (10 men needed for religious services), but they would have a minyan and more if they had not actively discouraged Roosevelt’s less-Orthodox Jews from attending the shul. By inviting the Yeshiva Me’on Hatorah group to establish a dawn-to-nighttime school at the synagogue, where full Orthodox services will take place three times a day, the congregation is virtually disenfranchising the vast majority of Roosevelt’s Jews, who are not Orthodox.

Nearly 15 years ago, I was one of a group of Roosevelt mothers who helped found the Aleph Bet Sunday School at Congregation Anshei Roosevelt, offering Hebrew school experience to a good number of Roosevelt’s children. This school operated successfully for several years, and our teacher, Mora Tova, was a member of the Freehold Chabad House. Although the Chabad is a very observant Orthodox group, Aleph Bet accepted children of all Jewish denominations. Boys and girls sat together in the classroom, Mora Tova never pushed any of our children to accept Orthodox strictures, and we hosted many well-attended events including matzo-baking lessons, shofar-blowing sessions, Purim and Hanukkah parties, model Seders, and Sukkah building parties. There was no mehitzah (divider between the men’s and women’s seating areas in the synagogue) at this time. Many Aleph Bet children and their families (some of which contained non-Jewish, non-Caucasian parents) attended such services as Simchas Torah and the Megilla reading on Purim. All were welcome.

Aleph Bet died a natural death when our “man who ran the services,” Shlomo Weiss, left the area. The congregation engaged a stricter “rabbi,” the mehitzah went up, and converts and non-Jewish spouses no longer felt welcome to attend. Many of our families joined less-restrictive synagogues in East Windsor, and sons and daughters had to celebrate bar and bat mitzvahs out of town.

I think that the Aleph Bet experience demonstrates that there is a need and demand for a non-Orthodox, or at least not strictly Orthodox, synagogue in Roosevelt. Other local synagogues have gained our families as members showing that many of us want to join a temple sympathetic to our needs. The fact that Congregation Anshei Roosevelt refuses to take our wishes into consideration is very sad for many Roosevelt Jews, especially those whose parents were long-time members of the congregation. Whatever Mrs. Shapiro and other shul members claim, we will not return to a synagogue whose beliefs are restrictive. There is no chance that this yeshiva group, whose students in New York are described on a Web site as 100 percent white, male and Orthodox, will make any effort to accommodate the majority of Roosevelt’s Jews.

Who are the anti-Semites here?

Alison Petrilla

Roosevelt

Mayor has lost legitimacy as an official, resident says

Arthur Shapiro, Neil Marko and members of Congregation Anshei have successfully turned a dispute about zoning and neighborhoods into a fierce battle about religion, bias and anti-Semitism.

These are the facts as we know them:

1. Congregation Anshei intends to lease the synagogue to Yeshiva Me’on Hatorah, which will provide an Orthodox rabbi to the congregation.

2. Yeshiva Me’on Hatorah intends to conduct a religious school (a yeshiva) on the property with an initial class of 15 to 25 boys. (These numbers continue to fluctuate.)

3. New classes would be added on a yearly basis until the student body reaches as many as 150 students. (Again, this is a constantly fluctuating number.)

4. The yeshiva leadership has also indicated that they wish to build classrooms on the synagogue property as well as a dormitory for these 150 students on this site or somewhere nearby in town.

5. A live-in dormitory for 150 adolescents must come with a dining hall, a kosher kitchen, a dairy kitchen, various storage areas, apartments for proctors, staff, outdoor recreational areas, etc., and, of course, a loading dock and parking.

6. Congregation Anshei owns a total of 1.78 acres, on which there presently sit both the synagogue and a rectory.

7. The synagogue was built in 1954, before the adoption of our current zoning statutes. Under the current zoning, which reflects the Roosevelt Master Plan, religious institutions and schools are not allowed in the Borough of Roosevelt on a site of less than 10 acres. Obviously the proposed school fails this requirement.

In addition to the community’s concern that the proposed school will blatantly violate a thoughtfully formulated master plan, there is considerable concern on Homestead Lane about disturbance of our quiet neighborhood.

The synagogue property sits in the midst of single-family homes sited on half-acre lots. Most of these homes have been there since 1938.

(Full disclosure: My wife and I live next door to the synagogue, as we have for over 40 years.)

If classes at the yeshiva begin in September, as planned, they will be held six days a week, from about 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. (closing earlier on Friday). Until the dormitories are built, students will arrive and depart by school bus, very early in the morning and late in the evening.

A school with up to 150 adolescents in residence six days a week, operating 14 hours a day, clearly constitutes a nuisance in a residential neighborhood. It is obvious that attempting to place this type of facility on Homestead Lane is an affront to the neighbors.

Since Mr. and Mrs. Shapiro, Mr. and Mrs. Marko and many other members of the Congregation do not live in this neighborhood or, in many instances, not even in the borough, their action will have no impact on their lives and are of scant interest to them.

Rumor has it that Mayor Marko assured the clerics from the yeshiva that there would be no trouble in advancing their plans. Perhaps the rumor arose from the fact that two rabbis associated with Yeshiva Me’on Hatorah bought homes in Roosevelt before the congregation board approved the “lease” agreement for the school. It has already been demonstrated, however, that the mayor’s assurances were false.

Mayor Marko was elected to uphold the borough’s laws. By deciding to aid and abet those who would contravene those laws, he has lost his legitimacy as a public official. A petition to recall Marko was signed by half the registered voters in Roosevelt and twice the number needed for a recall election.

Mr. and Mrs. Shapiro and Mr. Marko can be sure that if the present plans of the yeshiva for a school go forward, the congregation can expect increased animosity and can look forward to litigation.

Bert Ellentuck

Roosevelt

Downing Street Minutes discussed at area event

On July 23, I attended a public reading of the Downing Street Minutes in Highland Park. The event commemorated the third anniversary of a cabinet meeting held by British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Minutes from this meeting, leaked recently to the press, indicate that the Bush administration was committed to pursuing war with Iraq nearly eight months before the war actually began.

The Downing Street Minutes, named for Blair’s official offices in London, claim that Bush was tired of diplomacy and had already decided to take military action. The “smoking gun” in the memo is this fateful paragraph:

“Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC [National Security Council] had no patience with the U.N. route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record.

“There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.”

The Downing Street Minutes demonstrate that Bush pursued war as a preferred course of action, rather than as a last resort — contrary to what Bush told the nation. The memos also illustrate the administration’s disregard for developing an exit strategy. This undisciplined approach led to the loss of more than 1,700 American troops — a vast majority of them since May 2003, when Bush declared the end of major combat.

I want to thank the organizers of the Highland Park event for raising public awareness of the Downing Street Minutes. Anyone who missed this remarkable event can learn more by visiting AfterDowningStreet.org or downingstreetmemo.com.

Eddie Konczal

Monroe Township