To the Editor:

Several people have asked about where to find shoe repairs with the closure of Manor Shoes.

I am happy to report that Manor Shoes is re-opened for repairs at a new location; 445 Cedar Lane, directly across the street from Maadan.

Be sure to look at the store doors, and not the awnings, as the awning from the previous tenant has not been changed.

When the original Manor Shoes closed, the owner told me that his chief repair person would be re-opening soon a few stores down. This has now happened, and the same person that did the old repairs will do the new ones.

You will note that the new space is much smaller than the old space, as this is primarily a repair store and not a full service store, although it may sell some items in addition to doing repairs.

The old owner has allowed the new one to used the name “Manor Shoes,” which has considerable name recognition. This is a testament to the amicability between the two.

Rabbi Chaim Frazer
Teaneck

To the Editor:

It is ironic that Avi Shafran–the public relations director of a rabbinic organization–first criticizes the Jewish Link for rendering a “halachic decision” in a newspaper editorial, and then purports to render a medical opinion regarding the risks of metzitza b’peh in his letter to the editor (Sept. 11). The overwhelming medical consensus, as represented by the considered opinions of my clients the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, and the American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association, and as supported by abundant evidence, is that “it is incontrovertible that infectious diseases can be, and have been, transmitted through direct orogenital suction of the penile incision during circumcision (‘direct oral suction’), and that direct oral suction increases the risk that a neonate will acquire herpes simplex virus (‘HSV’) and other communicable diseases.” That the Agudah and three partisan doctors and statisticians who are working for it as “experts” (an affiliation that Shafran fails to disclose in his letter) stubbornly refuse to accept these medical facts does not make them any less so.

Akiva Shapiro
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Teaneck