To The Editor:
Re: Yated Ne'eman 27 Nisan
On page 40 you printed an article on Zimbabwe which contains
figures that are grossly incorrect. It is the responsibility
of a newspaper to check the information it puts out for, if
you get even only one thing hopelessly wrong, how is any
reader going to be able to have confidence in anything you
write?
In this case, you were only a telephone call away from the
South African Zionist Federation who would have corrected
your article had you asked them to.
Particularly I suggest you request from them the actual
population figure at 1965, which was never anywhere near as
high as 30,000, and the current value of the Zimbabwe
dollar, which is certainly not as low as one U.S. cent! And,
with the corrected figures in your hand, print a correction
in your next issue with appropriate apologies to your
readers.
Finally, your description of the last religious leader as a
"lay preacher" conjures up impressions of goyishe
village parson with his head jammed in the clouds, which is
as far as you could get from the actual reality. I knew him
well and would like to comment, "Halevai most of our
current rabbis would be as earnest a Yiddishe leader as he
was!"
Yours faithfully,
A Krikler
The Editor Replies:
On a recent day that we checked, the Zimbabwe dollar was
quoted at less than 1.5 U.S. cents. We also believe that the
population figure is accurate. We did not mean the term "lay
preacher" as a disrespectful description, and are glad to
hear the good words about him.
