A special thanks to all of our letter writers in 2022

The width of Riverdale Avenue. A troublesome rooster. The fate of a historical church. The controversial boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel. Or the volatile politics of the 2022 Democratic primaries — you have let us know what you feel.

And we have let you know how we feel. It has been a conversation that has been going on for the better part of 72 years. Since The Riverdale Press founders David and Celia Stein printed the inaugural version of this newspaper in 1950.

From that Stein power couple, to the Stein brothers of Buddy and Richie, to the fantastic Richner family that runs things today, The Press has always resisted what so many of the city’s biggest newspapers do — limit the voice of its readers. Instead, we have always embraced an open forum. As long as you’re civil and not treating this space like a Yelp review, we will go out of our way to ensure your thoughts and opinions reach the thousands of eyeballs they deserve.

A lot of that changed around 2009 when social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter became household names. Now you didn’t have to shout from your balcony, or write a letter to the editor. Social media gave you a chance for instant publication and distribution.

The problem, however, is that unless you were one of the very rare people to have your opinion go viral, your thoughts and words were limited to just your close circle of friends.

Some may have predicted social media would be the death of journalistic institutions like the Opinion page. But not so at The Riverdale Press. And that’s thanks to fantastic readers like you.

You may not always agree with what’s written here — in fact, you could even be offended. But then again, if free speech was all about protecting words we agreed with, there would be no need for the First Amendment. Instead, free speech is about supporting not only the right for people we agree with to speak, but also for those we don’t agree with.

Technology allows you to contact us via our website and social media channels, but we pride ourselves on receiving the old-fashioned letters to the editor. This year we welcomed more than 200 unique authors, publishing nearly 133,000 words of submitted content — 85,000 of them specifically as letters to the editor

The most published author this year was Adam Stoler with nine submissions, while Helen Meltzer-Krim and Larry Penner each had eight.

Among the elected officials published were Mayor Eric Adams, state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, Councilman Eric Dinowitz, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, and state Sen. Gustavo Rivera.

While we have some regulars who grace our Opinion pages, we also attract new writers as well. Some are people from greater Riverdale, others are from outside the Bronx. They all share one thing in common: Delivering information and opinions to our readership on many international, national and local topics. We greatly appreciate their effort.

There were so many topics from the more than 320 letters to the editor and columns published this year that we would have to set aside a tremendous amount of space to list them all.

Instead, let’s use this space for something else. Let’s thank all of our writers.

We aren’t an effective newspaper unless we ensure your voice is included. Our reporters work hard to include that voice, but our Opinion pages guarantee we don’t miss a single word.

No matter how often you write, we thank you. Opinion pages are only as good as its writers. And we here at The Riverdale Press have the best.

Eric Adams, Muriel Adams, Rhoda Alben-Aronson, Don Appel, Karen Argenti, Giordana Avila

Ira Bigeleisen, Luz Marques Bembow, John Benfatti, Peter Bergel, Zachary Berman, Alessandra Biaggi, Joe Bialek, Gene Binder, Paul Birnbaum, Eric Blitz, Don Bluestone, Sylvia Blumenfeld, Barry Blumenthal, Stephen Boatti, Stephen Budihas, Melinda Burrell, Stephen Byrns

Miguelina Camilo, Andrew Campanella, Paul Campion, Bill Caplan, David Carlson, Richard Carmona, Diana Catz, Joel Chaiken, Ellen Chapnick, Kizzy Charles-Guzman, Dave Chokshi, Lee Chong, Stephanie Coggins, Elizabeth Cooke Levy, Marta Covi

Arthur Dallas, James Dalton, Jeff Daube, Stephen de Francesco, Lou Deholczer, Roxanne Delgado, Christina DeRespiris, Irene Diaz-Reyes, Eric Dinowitz, Jeffrey Dinowitz, Sue Ellen Dodell, Debbi Dolan, Gary Dombroff, Naomi Dorfman, Dennis Dugan

Stuart Eber, Alisa Eilenberg, Rob Eisman, Marilyn Elie, Stewart Epstein, Judith Esterquest, Barbara Estrin, Morgan Evers

Myra Fasner, Nick Fazio, Diane Ferretti-Perillo, Beverly Fettman, Moira Figueroa, Jennifer Firestone, David Fisher, Bob Flax, Judy Fletcher, Bob Friedrich

Sandy Galef, Mike Gatton, Andrew Gelb, David Gellman, Michael Gold, Phil Goldfeder, Alvin Gordon, Jessica Gordon, Josh Greenfield, Steve Gross, Manny Grossman, Mel Gurtov

Jessica Haller, Lois Harr, Tom Hastings, Miriam Levine Helbok, Michael Heller, Jerome Henkin, Leslie Hogan, Ariana Holback, Michael Holoszyc, Clare Horn, Christopher Hosford, Avrum Hyman

Aryeh Jeselsohn, Sura Jeselsohn, Barbara Kail, Jeff Kalfus, Sonia Kam, Noah Kaminsky, Betsey Knapp, David Knapp, Robert Koehler, Adam Kotok, Virginia Krompinger

Chris Lake, Ann Lane, Wim Laven, Richard Lawless, Eliot Lerman,Laura Liebman, Claire Lobel, Sara Lord

Jim Maney, Richard Marias, Cheryl McCourtie, Daniel McNickle, Damian McShane, Helen Meltzer-Krim, Mark Meridy, David Mirtz, Charles Moerdler, Andrew Moss,

Rob Okun, Vivian Oleen, Stephen Oppenheimer

Samuel Pacheco, Mark Parkinson, Larry Penner, Charles Persky, Gail Persky, Debbie Peters, Paul Petrick, Jake Pickering, Wayne Price, Penny Prince

Willy Ramirez, Ed Ravin, Joseph Reagan, John Reynolds, Gustavo Rivera, Madeline Ritter, Christopher Rizzo, Danny Rogers, Gene Roman, Hedy Rosen, Gay Rosenblum-Kumar, Jonathan Ross, Matthew Rostein, Derek Royden

Rachel Sabella, Eytan Saenger, Alan Saks, Raya Salter, Olivia Santo, Jennifer Scarlott, Eric Seiff, Richard Serviss, Jim Francis Sheehan, Hank Sheinkopf, James Shifren, George Silos, Ramdat Singh, Eldon Smith, Fred Smith, Joseph Smith, Bernard Stein, Lisa Stein, Brendon Stiles, Adam Stoler, Carol Stricker, Rivera Sun, Deborah Swiderski

Paul Thaler, Ron Torossian, Ellen Tremper, Matt Turov

Jaqueline Cornelia van Voorst, Kimberly Vanderbilt, Stephen Vazquez, Judi Veder, Diane Vigliarolo, Vytautas Vileniskis

Deborah Wallace, Philip Wasserman, Norman Wechsler, Ron Wegsman, Julie Weiner, Nat Weiner, Michael Wilder, Lawrence Wittner, Paul Wolf, Peter Wolf, Dale Wolff, Jessica Altagracia Woolford, Jing (Heidi) Wu, Dave Wuchinich