As Melton alumni, we look forward to the upcoming Melton Evening of Learning led by Melton teacher Harman Grossman (April 28). Harman is typical of our local Melton teachers: brilliant yet approachable, inclusive and engaging. Although the evening is sponsored by the Northern New Jersey Melton Alumni Association, the program is also open to non-graduates who would like to become Patrons of Melton and experience Melton-style text-based interactive learning. Melton Alumni Association dues and donations by Patrons of Melton provide scholarship assistance to Melton students. We invite all to attend the May 16 event at the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey and to experience Melton first-hand.

Last week, the big news in The Jewish Standard was the acceptance of the disabled and those with learning disabilities and developmental issues into the framework of our synagogues. Why has it taken so long? Why should it even be an issue?

Worse than how long it took to accept them is how the mentally ill continue to be ignored. There is no welcome mat laid out for them. Why are there no resources for the mentally ill, no group homes, no free psychiatric clinics?

The stigma of mental disease is not new to the Jewish community. It is as old as time. Yet it remains a closet issue.

When will The Jewish Standard address this issue, not in platitudes, but in serious terms?

Our community needs desperately to open this up for discussion, for awareness, for funding. How heartbreaking that there is no one prepared to open that discussion.

Thank you so much for your editorial “Time to Speak.” It has been my mission for decades to emphasize the importance of local elections. Far more than national or international officials, local elected officials influence our daily lives and our quality of life. Even more tellingly, if we concentrated on keeping our own communities peaceful “Shalom Bayit,” there would be peace in all the world.

I am not a supporter of Gov. Chris Christie. l disagree with virtually all of his polices and I do not approve of his highly partisan style of governing. I do feel, however, that an op-ed article on these pages by Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson regarding the governor is neither correct nor fair. It charged that Christie is unfit to serve as vice president because of what the authors feel are his pro-Islamic views and actions.

The authors cite four actions taken by Christie that attempt to portray the governor as being soft on lslamism. A closer review would reveal that the perception is incorrect.

Many public figures from all political points of view, as well as religious leaders including rabbis, supported Mohammad Qatanani when the Department of Homeland Security attempted to deport him. The deportation case against Qatanani was particularly weak. The issue was whether he failed to disclose that he had been detained for a period of time and questioned by Israeli officials. There was no indication that he had been convicted of any offense. Most of the evidence against him was so-called “secret evidence” to which he had no opportunity to rebut. The immigration judge dismissed the government’s case, finding that there was no proof that Qatanani had ever been arrested or attempted to mislead the government.

With regard to supporting the firing of a person who burned pages of a Koran, one cannot question that it was an “unacceptable” act of “intolerance.” Would someone not condemn a person burning three pages of a chumash? Christie is not the first politician of either party — nor will he be the last — to be on the other side of an issue from the American Civil Liberties Union. Derek Fenton should not have been fired, but that does not excuse his actions.

Sohail Mohammed is an excellent attorney who deserved to be appointed to the Superior Court. He is the first Muslim to serve as a state judge in New Jersey. As an attorney, he was a role model to the Muslim community and actively protected the rights of that community. Of special interest was his work in regard to the short-lived special registration program instituted by President George W. Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft, which required people from certain countries to report to the Department of Homeland Security, where many were taken into custody and deported.

This program was in many ways reminiscent to the actions in Germany with regard to Jews in the 1930s. To question Mohammed as to his views of Shari’a law would be no different than questioning an Orthodox Jewish appointee as to whether his views of Torah law would color his actions as a judge.

Christie was correct in continuing to support Mohammed in light of the xenophobia surrounding his appointment.

Finally, Christie was not the only political figure to condemn the actions of the New York Police Department in conducting surveillance in New Jersey on New Jersey residents including students at Rutgers University. Sen. Robert Menendez also questioned the propriety of these actions. Reasonable people can differ as to whether it is appropriate for a local police force from another state to conduct surveillance on New Jersey residents.

I find many reasons not to support Chris Christie for national oftice, but to say that he is “soft on lsIamism” and lacks a “moral compass and integrity” are not among those reasons.

ATLANTA, Ga. – When I was eight, I had names picked out for all of my future offspring (a dozen baby girls). At 13, I had my own babysitting business. After grad school, I was teaching a class of fourth-graders.

So by the time I became pregnant with my first child — a boy, go figure! — I knew exactly what kind of mother I was going to be: calm, organized and completely in charge.

There is a prison in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, that is commonly referred to as a ghetto, or a prison town. There are walls surrounding a huge complex. Inside the walls are buildings, with a large open courtyard in the center. Prison guards apply nominal controls over the lives of the prisoners of Palmasola. It is the prisoners themselves who run the show. They even created an organization called the Disciplina Interna that governs their affairs, if govern is the correct term. There are few rules, with “stay alive” at the top of that list.

No food is served; lucky prisoners are permitted to receive visitors bearing gifts. Those who have no one outside usually fight, steal, beg, or die. There are small grocery stores run by inmates for anyone who can pay. Most of the 3,000 inmates do not live in cells, so they sleep on the streets; if they are spiritual enough, or crafty, they can go to morning prayers at the church run by clergy (who themselves are prisoners) and be granted permission to stay the night.

Prisoners with money on the outside can buy a private five square-foot cell, and be the envy of those who want the same. The poorest of the prisoners, who cannot support their families outside, have their wives and children join them on the streets of Palmasola. Those visitors can come, get a full body search, and be granted access. They get a stamp on their arms; only if they can produce that stamp on the way out do they get to leave.

It is a rough, lawless place where the drug trade is brisk and the cocaine is allegedly the finest you can buy. In the words of someone who just visited her husband, “If you didn’t go in a drug addict, you will almost certainly leave as one — if you leave at all.”

The prison is home to murderers, rapists, thieves, drug dealers, smugglers, and users. Major crimes and minor ones warrant imprisonment in Palmasola. One offense that is almost certain to get you tossed into this harsh wasteland is upsetting the government of Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales.

Needless to say, if you are Jewish and observant, Palmasola is definitely not the place to be. There is no kosher food there, and nowhere among the many churches within its walls does a synagogue stand.

So what does an observant Jewish man do when he gets incarcerated in Santa Cruz, and what could he have done to be put there in the first place?

For 11 months now, an American man from Borough Park, Brooklyn, has been in Palmasola prison. In the interest of full disclosure, I represent his wife in her efforts to call attention to what clearly is a huge injustice.

Jacob Ostreicher, a 53-year-old father of five and grandfather of 11, was arrested in June 2011 on suspicion of money-laundering. Unlike in the United States, where one is innocent until proven guilty, the Bolivian prosecutor claims that Ostreicher was jailed because he failed to prove the money he used for a land deal was obtained legally. The Bolivian government, for its part, cannot prove that it was illegal. After more than 25 hearings, what is most evident is that there is no evidence — at least none that the government thinks will stand up in court.

The facts are simple. In 2008, Ostreicher’s Swiss money manager and some other investors purchased Bolivian cattle and rice fields for about $20 million. They hired a local woman to manage the business, and the woman allegedly embezzled the money, investing it with a drug trafficker.

It was after Ostreicher filed charges against the woman for theft that his problems escalated. He was arrested on suspicion of laundering drug money when he went to authorities to file a grievance against the woman, who is also now in prison.

The last significant legal proceedings yielded an odd result. The defense received a letter from Interpol saying that Ostreicher was not wanted anywhere, so in September 2011, the judge on the case believed there was sufficient evidence to release him. That judge ordered Jacob’s release, but only six days later reversed his decision. Miriam Ungar, Ostreicher’s wife, said that the judge later claimed that he was threatened with jail time unless he reversed his decision. That judge was promoted and a new judge was assigned to the case. He resigned after five scheduled hearings. There is no judge currently assigned to Ostreicher’s case.

Ungar is now campaigning to get her husband released. She says that neither Sens. Charles Schumer nor Kirsten Gillibrand pay attention to her husband’s case, and that the same is true of her congressman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler. She believes that if New York’s congressional delegation pushes the United States State Department to act, that could move the scales of justice for Jacob.

An American sits in a dangerous prison in a country with few ties to the United States, but has not been officially charged with a crime. Yet no official here seems interested in doing something about it. Last week, in an effort to call attention to his plight, about 400 of Ostreicher’s friends and family members came out to the Bolivian Mission to the United Nations to rally for his freedom.

Among the supporters was Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who represents Ostreicher’s neighborhood. There also is a Facebook site devoted to Ostreicher’s case, a Twitter feed, and a campaign website at http://www.freejacobnow.com. If supporters can get 25,000 signatures in one month’s time, a petition will be brought to President Barack Obama’s desk.

It is bizarre that a U.S. citizen is being held — without formal charges being filed, much less any kind of a trial conducted — in harsh conditions in a foreign prison, and our leaders do not seem to care.

Hikind yelled out over the megaphone at the rally, “How cheap is American citizenship today that a United States citizen can sit in a Bolivian jail without being charged for a crime and no one lifts a finger?”

It is a very good — and extremely sad — question.

Next week, beginning immediately after Shabbat on May 19 and continuing through sundown the next day, Jews the world over outside Israel will studiously avoid acknowledging, much less celebrating, Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, the 28th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar, the day in 5727 that Jewish history changed forever.

Some Jews, of course, will celebrate Yom Yerushalayim, but quietly, unobtrusively, “so the neighbors shouldn’t see and shouldn’t know, God forbid.”

Rabbi Jack Moline’s recent op-ed column (April 27) presents a skewed perspective on the serious debate over Jewish-Muslim dialogue in the post 9/11 era. I trust that student and mentor can disagree.

Jack has been a mentor of mine for nearly 35 years. I agree with him when he criticizes those in our community who see a terrorist behind every American Muslim leader. There are those in our midst who are purveyors of hate and unwarranted mistrust; they must be censured. I agree that there a good and decent Muslim clergy and laity with whom to dialogue.

My only question is, “How do we distinguish?” How do we distinguish between the Muslims who, actively or passively, support such terrorist organizations as Hamas and Hizbullah, and those who oppose them? How do we distinguish between those Muslims who advocate the destruction of the State of Israel in their sermons and teachings, and those who merely oppose Israeli policies in the territories? (Are there any Muslim leaders who actually support Israel as beacon of liberty in a very dark corner of the world?)

I think these are legitimate questions and asking them does not make me into an anti-Muslim bigot.

The Jewish world is not divided into the reasonable advocates of dialogue, on the one hand, and the anti-Muslim bigots on the other. I am convinced that there are a sizable number of Jews, perhaps even a majority, who are merely cautious about exactly which Muslim leaders we can trust.

This caution does not derive from hatred or rigid ideology. It derives from an experience of being duped. Yasser Arafat spoke in English of the “peace of the brave,” while directing and funding the murder of Israelis. Dr. Sami Al-Arian led a “Muslim think tank” at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla., while at the same time speaking out against Israel in private Muslim gatherings, and fundraising for Palestinian Islamic Jihad. These are two example, but we all are aware of Muslim leaders who have duped us. We do not want to get burned again. There is too much at stake.

I hope that my mentor has the knowledge and expertise to make the correct judgments about American Muslim leadership. I do not. All I can say is “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”

The American Jewish community needs to have an open and honest discussion about the issue of dialogue with Muslims. We need to know both the risks and the rewards. And we need to know now.