Most Inane Instance

Editor, Post and Opinion:

I am writing to you concerning your recent publication of an ad by Christian missionaries to the Jews.

Quite frankly, I should have reacted immediately, but I was so outraged and scandalized by your ad that I thought it wiser to wait rather than give expression to my dismay immediately.

My opinions and the depth of my feelings, however, have not changed one iota. That you should have considered the whole project reveals incredibly bad taste and a shocking lack of Jewish sensitivity. That you should have done so as a matter of exchange, publishing this missionary ad in exchange for placing a pro-Jewish sermon in their magazines, is the most inane instance of “sportsmanship” or interreligious commerce I have ever encountered.

I am not so concerned about the direct effect of the missionary ad on your readers. The ad was stupid beyond words. I am concerned that this act of momentously poor judgment by the editor of a national Jewish newspaper will have the effect of whittling down the natural Jewish resistance to evangelical efforts, especially at a time when such a proselytizing campaign is being launched and when too many Jews are increasingly vulnerable.

This is one case where your penchant for the sensational has taken you beyond the bounds of what I, as one individual reader, can suffer in silence.

You may or may not print this letter, as you wish. But please cancel my subscription immediately.

Rabbi Norman Lamm

The Jewish Center

131 West 86th Street

New York, NY