Tens of thousands of Jews say: Shame on you, Boteach

Four photographers from The Record managed to cover Memorial Day parades in only five Bergen County towns, according to today's Local section, but none visited Englewood, above and below.

VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Shame on you, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, for your publicity mongering and your support of Governor Christie, the worst leader in New Jersey history.

And shame on you, Editor Martin Gottlieb and Columnist Mike Kelly, for devoting more than 100 inches in The Record today to a rabbi who makes tens of thousands of Jews cringe at the thought that they have anything in common.

How can Kelly -- himself a walking question mark --dare ask on Page 1, "Who is he [Boteach], anyway?" (A-1).

Readers know Boteach purchased a mansion on Englewood's East Hill, even though it was next door to the home of the Libyan ambassador to the U.S.

Then, in 2009, the shamelessly self-promoting rabbi grabbed the front page of The Record several days in a row, protesting the planned visit of Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi.

Folloing those news stories was a glowing profile by Staff Writer Jim Beckerman, who described pop king Michael Jackson's visit to the Boteach mansion for Friday night dinners.

The reporter referred to the mansion as "an ordinary house in Englewood."

Must-read list

Head Assigment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza managed today to find room for Memorial Day photos from only a half-dozen North Jersey towns (L-1, L-2 and L-3).

Any other photos were held to make room for thousands of names in a huge Dean's List (L-5), which Sykes and Sforza rely on frequently when they can't find legitimate municipal news.

Monday's paper

The Record's front-page story on the crash death of Princeton University mathematician John Nash fails to report the Nobel laureate and his wife weren't wearing seat belts in the back seat of a taxi.

NJ.com reported the Nashes were ejected from the cab during the national "Click It or Ticket" campaign on seat-belt use, a stepped up enforcement program that runs through May 31.

In mid-May, Road Warrior John Cichowski warned more than 4,400 tickets were issued in Bergen County alone during last year's two-week crackdown.

Yet, The Record consistently fails to report whether people killed in car crashes were belted in.

Christie and crime

In another front-page story on Monday, Gottlieb and the other editors managed to hold Christie blameless for police layoffs that resulted in a spike in violent crime in Camden, Newark, Paterson and other cities.

The story by Staff Writers Abbott Koloff and Melissa Hayes goes on and on, but never reports the GOP bully cut state aid to poor cities in 2011.

Camden lost 163 officers and Paterson -- which has twice as many residents -- let go 125.

The Record's revisionist theory is that the layoffs were caused by the "recession, coupled with a freeze in state aid and a 2 percent state-imposed cap on local property tax levies" (Saturday's A-11).

Different story

In 2011, The Record and other media attributed the layoffs to Christie's state aid cuts. 

On July 1, 2011, NJ.com reported the governor cut aid for the state's most troubled cities to $10 million from $149 million.

On Monday, The Record described that drastic aid cut as "a freeze in state aid."

Now, the Woodland Park daily -- which struggles to report what happened yesterday completely and without errors -- can't be relied on to accurately report what Christie did in his second year in office.