I was appalled at [Daniel] Vitow’s comments regarding his North Shore Hebrew Academy’s (NSHA,) aggressive marketing tactics (“Cutthroat Education: Pilfered Class Lists,” Nov. 19). Last year members of my shul received solicitations from NSHA for both their middle school and high school open houses.
Vitow asserts that obtaining private address lists and using (or abusing) them for his own school’s benefit is “standard practice across the Jewish community.” I find that hard to believe, considering I personally know of yeshivot who take the high road and do not abuse questionably obtained private lists. Plus, to date, I have only received unwanted solicitations from two schools (including North Shore Hebrew Academy.) So it appears me to that this aggressive and desperate behavior is not rampant throughout the Jewish day school community.
Most bothersome however, was Vitow’s comment, “I only started doing it because everybody was doing it.” What a philosophy to be teaching to his students. Even my 12-year-old daughter knows better than that — she would never act inappropriately just because a group of students is doing so. This is not the example we in the Jewish community want to set for our children.
Plainview, L.I.
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