6 Responses

1. That area has a bowling alley and is right off the Van Wyck Expressway. It is not a Jewish area, though any fire, certainly with a fatality, is a sad event. I do not know why it is relevant to the Yeshiva World, in particular, though.

2. mr. hakatan , maybe this firehouse is owed hakoras hatov or the poor firefighters family is echad shelanu. or just a bit of local current events, why you are so negative about a bit of a heads up to anyone who lives/works in that neighborhood ?

3. HaKatan: It is actually a few blocks away from a frum Yeshivishe area called Kew Gardens, which has a very large Yeshiva there. You are correct though, that immediate neighborhood does not have Jews but are we limiting all our news to that only of Jews? Statements like that give “them” more reason to hate “us”. V’hamyavin Yavin.

4. You know, I think you people are castigating Hakatan unfairly. He SAID that any fire is a sad event. He did NOT disparage non-Jews nor did he say anything nasty. He was just wondering why a place called “Yeshiva World News” has news about things that have occurred outside, strictly speaking, of the Yeshivah World. I don’t see the harm or wrongness in his question, whether or not I agree with it.

5. Please accept my apology. I did mean to be negative nor did I say that this story was of no interest to YW. I only asked why this particular incident was of any PARTICULAR interest to YW. As I clearly stated in my comment, such a news item is a tragedy anywhere, but I did not see the PARTICULAR relevance to the YW.

   I read the secular new media and I see countless stories like this (and worse) and they don’t merit YW’s Breaking News coverage. I merely wondered why this particular story did. I didn’t say it couldn’t possibly be relevant; I only wondered “why?”.

   YW certainly does seem to focus on news as it affects the YW, just as, say, the Christian magazine America focuses on news that affects its readership, not on the state of affairs of the reform and conservative rabbinates.

   Put a bit differently, if you live in LA, you’re not going to see this story in your local paper. So, for the YW, does anyone know why this story was in “the YW local paper”?

   YW Editor Responds: When there is a fatal fire in the middle of the night, and the entire neighborhood is Frum people we post the story. We thought that was self-explanatory.

6. Hakatan did not know that it was very close to a frum neighborhood, called Kew Gardens. Thats all that happened here. Besuros Tovos.