I simply could not believe the Light dedicated an entire article to the proposition that the sale of some pillows at the price of $14.88 is antisemitic coding.
The “reasoning” used to reach that conclusion seems to be that the number 14 is some neo-Nazi reference and the number 8 refers to Adolf Hitler since H is the 8th letter of the alphabet, rendering 88 code for HH, Heil Hitler. There are myriad reasons why that is beyond preposterous, not least of which is the letter H is the ninth letter of the German alphabet, not the eighth. And have you seen how many products are for sale in numbers ending with 99? The Hitler secret code signals must be everywhere.
Far more worrisome, and actually relevant to the Jewish people, is the threat coming from the fact that this holiday season most Jews will not even go to shul, certainly not beyond Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. We are not threated in the least by pillow pricing, imaginary coded references to Hitler notwithstanding. We are existentially threatened by empty pews on Sukkot and Simchat Torah, as an entire generation of our youth are disengaged from our religion and history, making it less likely that they in turn will raise Jewish families. If you want to worry about the future of the Jewish people, I suggest that topic merits serious articles.
Matthew Grad
St Louis
