I realize it has been some time since Gershon Distenfeld placed his paid ad in your paper, an ad that I and many others felt wrongly criticized schools, minimized COVID-19 and contained several untruths. I emailed Distenfeld to express that he should have at least consulted professionals with medical licenses before giving questionable statistics or talking about how kids do not transmit COVID-19 (not a proven fact in the least). His answer to me was that he doesn’t need to consult an M.D., because he is a “statistician.” I found this to be irresponsible.

An investor who considers himself to be a statistician is not an M.D., infectious disease expert or epidemiologist, and Distenfeld had not one quote from any of those types of qualified experts. You can imagine that teachers in the local Jewish day schools were horrified when they saw that paid ad. Personally, it said to me that in Orthodoxy “money talks.” That’s not the type of religion many of us wish to be a part of.

I hope for the sake of advertising dollars and the success of your paper, you will be more discerning about ads placed going forward. Distenfeld is being hailed as a deity in the anti-masking/“Plandemic” portions of the Orthodox community and I find it to be an embarrassment and a chillul Hashem for the community overall.