Summary of the article: After noticing that several of the worst landlords in NY are Orthodox Jews, the paper sent a reporter to interview various Jews and to ask with mock alarm and fake incredulity "How is it possible that so many Orthodox Jews are slumlords?" (Or as the paper puts it: "How exactly can a religious (read: Orthodox) person justify being a bad landlord?")
For reasons unknown, the list of people interviewed includes several non-Orthodox Jews, but for the most part, the people gave answers that put the journalist, and her stupid question right in their place.
>> Read it all here.
The best exchange:
What about the whole "Never mistreat the stranger because you were once a stranger in a strange land," that I heard so much growing up? I'm sure someone has told you by now: You don't base your life on what is in the Torah. You live your life, and you find passages in the Torah that justify the way you are living. - Baruch HerzfeldExactly. More to the point: The Jewish slumlords are simply terrible people, doing as they wish, using the same sort of bogus, self-pleasing justifications all of us use to justify everything we do. Some of us use the fake justifications for good; others use them for evil. So it goes. And until someone brings proof to the contrary, the fact that these particular terrible people are also Jews must be understood as simply an unfortunate coincidence.
Search for more information about dumb articles at 4torah.com.
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