Vote for Murray Forman

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

For over three decades, I have had the privilege of serving the Five Towns community as a Trustee of the Lawrence Board of Education, including terms as President of the Board. During that time, I have served alongside many dedicated public servants. Few have demonstrated the consistency of commitment, seriousness of purpose, and devotion to this district, its children, and its families that Murray Forman has.

Public service, particularly at the local level, is rarely glamorous. More often, it consists of the quiet, everyday work that touches people where they live: overseeing budgets, improving schools, supporting students and families, and ensuring that institutions function responsibly and effectively.

Murray Forman has been that standout leader. Under Murray’s leadership, millions of dollars in grants and funding have been secured for our District. This funding supported initiatives such as the weekly kosher food drive during Covid, where Murray Forman was present each and every week in the middle school parking lot to ensure everything went smoothly for our district families. This money was also used to enhance and update our school buildings, gyms, and fields, where Murray often walks through the buildings, monitoring the progress and addressing all the workers by name. It also helped provide busing for over 6,000 yeshiva students using parameters far more favorable than New York State minimums dictate, and delivered special education services for yeshiva students in their yeshiva schools. Murray negotiated a teachers’ contract that will finally serve our district for years to come. All this was accomplished while maintaining the lowest tax rate in Nassau County for over a decade and upholding educational excellence at District schools.

These accomplishments do not happen by accident. They require patience, judgment, preparation, and the willingness to make difficult decisions.

When I think of public service generally, and Murray Forman specifically, I am reminded of President Theodore Roosevelt’s “Citizenship in a Republic” address, widely remembered as the “Man in the Arena” speech. Roosevelt observed: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.” Rather, Roosevelt wrote, the credit belongs: “to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again … but who does actually strive to do the deeds.”

That passage has always resonated deeply with me because it reflects the reality of public service in communities such as ours. It is easy to stand outside the arena. It is far harder to step into it year after year, accepting responsibility for consequential decisions and continuing to serve despite criticism and controversy. Murray Forman has been that man in the arena for the Lawrence School District.

One need not agree with every vote cast or every decision made to recognize the value of experience, institutional knowledge, and sustained dedication to the community. Over the past decades, Murray has devoted countless hours to the schools and to the children and families they serve. He has approached that responsibility thoughtfully, conscientiously, and with genuine care for both the district’s future and the broader Five Towns community. Unfortunately, his bid for reelection is being challenged by two district residents who have not even made it their business to attend School Board meetings.

President Roosevelt concluded that the man in the arena, even if he fails, “fails while daring greatly.” Murray Forman has spent years daring greatly on behalf of this community; he has not failed. For that he has earned both our respect and our support.

I proudly support Murray Forman for reelection to the Lawrence Board of Education and urge all my neighbors to cast their vote for Murray Forman in recognition and support of continuing his decades of outstanding service to our community.

Dr. David Sussman

An agitator being separated by the police after a fight broke out 

Pogrom in Flatbush

Dear Editor,

Many times, if I have to be in Manhattan I’ll park my car in Brooklyn and take the train into Manhattan so I can do some shopping on the way home. As I was coming out of Meal Mart on Ave. M, I noticed this huge crowd on the corner of Ave. M and Ocean Ave. Just a few minutes later, roving gangs of intimidating people with Palestinian headdress and complete face coverings, including masks and sunglasses, made their way down Ave. M, (I assume coming off the train) and began shouting and terrorizing the people shopping. Little did they expect that unlike Manhattan where the people cry for the police to protect them and hide under the bed, in this Midwood section of Brooklyn they encountered a different kind of a Jew, a tough Jew who would not put up with a pogrom in the middle of their community, a Jew whose great grandparents originate from Aleppo, Syria who the people fondly call SYs, a people who understand these street criminals as they had retail stores for years and understand how to deal with riffraff, These are pretty tough Jews to begin with, whose grandparents or great grandparents were in the U.S. Army during WWII, fighting the Nazis and here the Palestinian hooligan Nazis threatened the peace and tranquility of the SY community. Boy, were these hooligans taken by surprise when one by one as they intimidated the Jews they were told, “Just try to lay a hand on one of the Jews and they will find out what direction that will go.” When they brazenly did, many were arrested. The hooligans were not satisfied with just being at that location, as under police protection they marched all throughout the area, up and down residential blocks, calling out the Jews, turning over garbage cans and throwing garbage, and assaulting people including police brass who happened to be present at first in limited numbers. I stayed around and watched how slowly the crowd began to diminish close to 11 p.m., however they were crying to the police that the Jews were following them, and they are afraid to go back to where they came from on the train. The police did ask the SYs who were later joined with chassidim from Boro Park not to follow them, however no one listened and gave them a taste of their own medicine. They were petrified at the end as what began as a pogrom to intimidate and create havoc to the Jewish people turned into the Jewish people introducing havoc on them. In essence they messed with the wrong Jews.

Reuven Guttman 

Lawrence, NY