Just to follow up Nate Bloom (Letters, June 8), the New York Yankees were also a football team, they played in the late forties, and some of their players joined the original NFL teams when the Yankees disbanded their franchise. Among the notables was a running back by the name of Buddy Young, who transferred to the Baltimore Colts. He was a great football player in his day and set the tone for the iconic Jimmy Brown of the Cleveland Browns.

New York was the true center of sports and it still is. No other city will ever come close in having so many legends in all types of major sports as New York City had and still has, even today.

I have mixed feelings about “Religion and foster care” (June 22). In a perfect world, with many resources for all the children who need temporary or permanent new homes, it would be ideal for them to be placed within their racial and religious backgrounds. But we live in a very imperfect world. There are far too many children lingering with unfit parents, or with kinship families who are unfit to raise them.

Considering how many children, many of whom are either mentally or physically damaged, need a permanent home, with people who will love them as their own, it seems very trivial to hold out in a way that will detain a child’s adoption. I am against anything that will impede a child’s future just because some of us place such an emphasis on religion and ethnicity.

When my late husband and I adopted the second two of our adopted children, they already had lingered in foster care for four years. There was no reason for all that time to have passed, and it affected their lives hugely. In the life of a child who has an uncertain future, even one month is too long to wait for a home.

In a perfect world, there would be an equal number of needy children and homes that want them, all with families of the right color, race, and creed. Unfortunately we do not live in that world.

I find it disgusting that President Peres accepted the Medal of Freedom from President Obama under current conditions (“Shimon Peres has journey,” June 15). Clemency should be granted to Jonathan Pollard as a matter of justice. There is worldwide support for clemency for Pollard from former members of various agencies within the U.S. government, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. President Peres presented President Obama with a new petition with more 75,000 names calling for clemency for Pollard. Pollard is being held in prison as a bargaining chip to pressure Israel to take actions that it does not want to take. Dennis Ross, in his book The Missing Peace, writes that he advised Clinton not to release Pollard, even though there were commitments at the Wye conference with Netanyahu to do so. He said that humanitarian concerns are outweighed by politics, even though the sentence was unjustified.

Having Jay Carney say that Pollard will not be released at his daily press conference is one more use of subordinates to shield Obama from making the announcement himself.

Peres allowed himself to be used by Obama to further Obama’s stature with the Jewish community in the run-up to the upcoming elections. Peres had an excellent opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes promise, in writing, to grant clemency for Pollard. Instead, he received a medal and talked effusively about how great Obama is with the State of Israel.

It is interesting that the U.S. urges and pressures Israel to free terrorist prisoners who have the blood of Israelis and Americans on their hands but cannot find the decency to free a prisoner whose sentence was disproportionate to the crime committed.

The acceptance of the medal should have been tied to Pollard’s freedom.

I was thrilled to read Dan Pine’s article on the 60 years of Mad magazine at the Comic Art Museum in San Francisco (June 22). I was not so thrilled that Will Elder’s name was left off the list of “usual gang of idiots.” Elder was not only one of the gang, it has been argued that he is the actual source of Mad’s bedlam. Bill Gaines, Mad’s publisher, called Elder “The funniest artist Mad ever had. Just pure mayhem.” Elder also was the first artist to have painted Alfred E. Newman for Mad. Not only that, Elder was featured on the cover of the Jewish Standard on May 15, 2009. Because of his seminal influence on Mad and as a long-time resident of Englewood, his name should have been included in that short article. The original art for Elder’s parody of the radio show “The Shadow” is on display at the Cartoon Art Museum along with several others. Many of the stories written by Harvey Kurtzman were brought to excessive heights of hilarity by Elder’s art. Mad would not have been Mad were it not for Will Elder; born Wolf William Eisenberg with a pure yiddishe kup!

Two articles in your June 15 issue — by Ethan Kaminsky and Shmuley Boteach — resonated with me. Both were related to the primary for the new 9th C.D.

As a registered Democrat of long standing, I had to choose between Reps. William J. Pascrell, Jr., and Steve Rothman to represent the Democratic party in the general election.

My problem with Pascrell was that I had sent him an e-mail when I learned that he was one of the signers of the Gaza 54 letter, asking him to explain how, as a supporter of Israel, he could sign it. I’m still waiting to hear from him. As for Rothman, I didn’t know much about him, but his tactics about how to garner votes turned me off. So I decided to sit that one out, as, according to Kaminsky, did many others.

My decision about what I will do in the general election depends greatly on whether Shmuley Boteach will be any more successful than I in getting Pascrell to reply regarding his signing of the Gaza 54 letter.

While Rep. William J. Pascrell, Jr., writes in his op-ed (June 22) that he “promoted — and always will promote — the security of the State of Israel,” his actions prove otherwise.

First, the bills he says he co-sponsored on Israel’s behalf, such as visa waivers for tourists, were never controversial, involved no political pushback from Paterson’s strong Arab constituency, and constituted a politician’s lip service to Jewish voters.

Where he faced strong pressure from his Arab base, however, Pascrell repeatedly caved completely, as in his signing the infamous anti-Israel Gaza 54 letter, which was an attempt to delegitimize Israel by accusing it of denying essential food and medicine to Palestinians living in Gaza.

Pascrell repeats this slander even in his Jewish Standard article. Israel never denied humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza — ever. For Pascrell to restate this grotesque slander is deeply offensive.

Finally, Pascrell made no mention of his support for Paterson’s Imam Mohammad Qatanani, whom the INS repeatedly has tried to deport for lying about being arrested by Israel for being a member of the terrorist group Hamas. Qatanani has never been heard to denounce Hamas, at least not publicly. Pascrell’s support for him demands an explanation.

Rep. William J. Pascrell, Jr., deserves congratulations for a well-run primary campaign. He won, in part, because his opponent went negative, even to the point of exaggerating the differences between himself and Pascrell, according to some. In his June 22 article in The Jewish Standard, however, Pascrell is himself guilty of exaggeration. The Gaza 54 Letter of which he was a signatory misrepresented Israel’s role in any hardship experienced by the Palestinians living in Gaza. There never was a blockade of food or medicine by Israel to Gaza, and Pascrell knows this. His explanation for his support of the letter, which could only damage Israel’s reputation, is unfortunate. It is common knowledge this letter is a clear mark against the pro-Israel record of every signatory. I hope that Pascrell will come to realize his error, even if he refuses to admit it now. To claim he did it for compassionate reasons, rather than to win certain votes in his district is, if you will forgive the term, just politics.

The International Olympic Committee should remember the 11 Israeli athletes who were murdered during the Munich Olympics by Palestinian terrorists. The recognition of this tragedy is long overdue for an organization that prides itself on promoting world peace and understanding between diverse cultures.

Anti-Israeli political pressure should be brushed aside. This is not a political issue. This horror was a crime against humanity. It was a crime against all people of good will.