Letters to the editor: Fish-fry story rankles readers

Has the Light run out of material or have you lost your way? Space is usually at a premium in the Light. Why are you using valuable space to promote church activities?

The article, “Family Friendly Fry-day Night,” (March 30) is an outrage to be printed in a Jewish newspaper. It is very inappropriate and should not have been included. What Jewish values are presented by comparing which fish fry has the best shrimp and catfish? It has nothing to do with Jewish people or Jewish interests and it is offensive to think that the Light would consider it newsworthy.

What an embarrassment for the St. Louis Jewish community!

Joan and Jules Stiber

St. Louis County

It concerns me that the Jewish Light staffers would check out a handful of fish fries and find that they attract a cross-section of the interfaith community wanting to procure tasty fish to eat in or carry out.” How nice. Am I missing something here?  This is an article in the Jewish Light.  Your review was really free advertisement for fish fries at these five Catholic churches. How about the kosher establishments in St. Louis?  I am sure they would like a review and the same kind of free advertisement you gave the fish fries! But, maybe St. Louis doesn’t have five interesting kosher butchers, bakeries, and restaurants!  Or maybe the Light is not interested in the kosher establishments in St. Louis. 

Jackie Kofsky

Creve Coeur

I thoroughly enjoyed the April Fools Day edition of your Jewish paper, in which several local churches’ Lenten fish fries were reviewed. Next year, April 1 is Palm Sunday; perhaps the Jewish Light can have a write-up on local observances.

Michael Hamm

University City

I am very angry and offended about your “stylish” and chatty story “Family friendly fry-day night,” which is a review of Friday evening Lenten fish fry dinners. Is this some kind of act of interfaith dialogue? There are Jews all over the globe. Was there a shortage of Jewish news?

It’s a wide world of media out there. Besides books, magazines, newspapers and chain email, there is TV, Netflix, YouTube, radio – lots of voices competing for our attention. The Jewish Light should occupy a special niche. There ought to be a reason to turn to or subscribe to the Light and it is not to hear about different churches serving up fried fish.

In the Jewish universe, Friday night is for Shabbat, not fish fry hopping. St. Louis Jewish families choose their own ways to recognize Friday night as the beginning of the Sabbath. But it is really offensive to have a Jewish institution organize against traditional ways by reviewing Friday night dining at area churches.

Does anybody at the Light know shellfish, even “shrimp offered two ways-fried or cold boiled” is taboo by Jewish dietary laws? Regardless of what Jewish St. Louis eats in their own homes and restaurants should a Jewish agency be promoting taboo foods?

The content of the Jewish Light belongs more to us the Jewish community of St. Louis than the editor’s idea of what is contemporary and fun.

Ellyn Goldman Ross

Creve Coeur

Aw, you guys! You really had me goin’. That article in the Jewish Light about Lenten fish fry dinner at churches around town was Jewish “Lite,” an April Fool’s Day joke a couple of days early. Right? 

LOL (laugh out loud). A big headline. A picture of a man frying fish at St. Richard’s. A couple of intro paragraphs written real straight-face (as if you were doing the Light’s) Jewish readers a big service by covering an alternative to Friday night services or Shabbat candle-lighting and dinner at home) and then a line-up of five entries continuing to most of a second page with little fishies to rate the food, the parking, the value and the atmosphere at five different churches. A great comic touch, the fishies. It was because you were so thorough and serious, about fish fry dinners, that I realized it must be a gag.

A Jewish community newspaper with a soup to nuts review of fish fry dinners from Ash Wednesday through Easter, including different kinds of shrimp! Ha ha. Good one!  Or leprechauns have taken over the Light’s editorial offices?  A perfect time to bring back Bob Cohn.

Howard K. Miller

St. Louis