Does the NYT Magazine have a Jewish problem? http://blogs.jta.org/ENTRY_PERMALINK_HERE/does-the-nyt-magazine-have-a-jewish-problem/ JTA’s Ami Eden wants to know. en-us aeden@jta.org Copyright 2007 2007-10-25T;22:08:01-05:00 Comment by nomail@gmail.com Correction:  “...ask your brothers to (look) at your brothers and you will find your own enemy.” I believe the true issue is one ignored.  The problem conservative Jews refuse to look at seriously in context of the spiritual battle. You have a liberal Jewish lobby that bashes the only friend of Israel and it is a very powerful lobby.  It bashes America, it bashes conservative Chritians, the very base most likely to support Israel. I feel sometimes I am watching Cybil on steroids.  Miriam fighting Miriam.  I love Israel and the Jewish people for so much gifts, not just material, but the spiritual gift.  But I am confused by the hatred, the arrogance and thrashing by Hollywood studios, producers, actors, comedians, etc., Bill Maher, Jon Stuart Leibowitz, and it goes on and on.  This is a spiritual battle and so far the conservative Jew is on the outside, complaining and whining against the liberals on all sides. Correction:  “...ask your brothers to (look) at your brothers and you will find your own enemy.”

I believe the true issue is one ignored.  The problem conservative Jews refuse to look at seriously in context of the spiritual battle.

You have a liberal Jewish lobby that bashes the only friend of Israel and it is a very powerful lobby.  It bashes America, it bashes conservative Chritians, the very base most likely to support Israel.

I feel sometimes I am watching Cybil on steroids.  Miriam fighting Miriam.  I love Israel and the Jewish people for so much gifts, not just material, but the spiritual gift. 

But I am confused by the hatred, the arrogance and thrashing by Hollywood studios, producers, actors, comedians, etc., Bill Maher, Jon Stuart Leibowitz, and it goes on and on. 

This is a spiritual battle and so far the conservative Jew is on the outside, complaining and whining against the liberals on all sides.

]]> 2009-11-19T;22:58:01-05:00 Comment by nomail@gmail.com Is Hollywood anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-conservative, anti-orthodox, anti-Israel?  Does Sulzberger support all of these anti- stances? He sure does… and he is a Jew, so are the majority of Hollywood studio heads.  Please, ask your brothers to at your brothers and you will find your own enemy. Is Hollywood anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-conservative, anti-orthodox, anti-Israel?  Does Sulzberger support all of these anti- stances?

He sure does… and he is a Jew, so are the majority of Hollywood studio heads. 

Please, ask your brothers to at your brothers and you will find your own enemy.

]]> 2009-11-19T;22:58:01-05:00 Comment by 74rivka@msn.com Mr. Eden, Israel and the Jewish people are facing diplomatic and terrorist attacks that threaten our very existence - Iranian nuclear weapons, Olmert’s willingness to abandon Hebron and Jerusalem etc. And you are worried what some scribblers are concocting in a throw-away newspaper?? In case you haven’t heard, the NYT has become an irrelevant nonentity outside the North-Eastern ghetto of the Jewish pesudo-intelligentsia. Since my parrot died I have not bought the NYT because I didn’t need it for the birdcage. To all of you in the Boston-NYC-DC axis - go out and fight anti-Semitism where it is rampant, i.e. the Ivy League Schools, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and the Democratic Party. Don’t waste your time on a newspaper that has become a dinosaur with an hypertrophied left wing. Mr. Eden,
Israel and the Jewish people are facing diplomatic and terrorist attacks that threaten our very existence - Iranian nuclear weapons, Olmert’s willingness to abandon Hebron and Jerusalem etc. And you are worried what some scribblers are concocting in a throw-away newspaper?? In case you haven’t heard, the NYT has become an irrelevant nonentity outside the North-Eastern ghetto of the Jewish pesudo-intelligentsia. Since my parrot died I have not bought the NYT because I didn’t need it for the birdcage. To all of you in the Boston-NYC-DC axis - go out and fight anti-Semitism where it is rampant, i.e. the Ivy League Schools, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and the Democratic Party. Don’t waste your time on a newspaper that has become a dinosaur with an hypertrophied left wing.

]]> 2009-11-19T;22:58:01-05:00 Comment by david@sternlight.com Careless? Yes. Stupid? Certainly. Malicious? The failure to respond to a cricism supported by its own Public Editor certainly suggests so. That the Public Editor admits he has no enforcement powers is telling. At a minimum he should be able to compel a response from writers he feels have overstepped their bounds. That is not censorship, but journalistic responsibility. Should a writer refuse to respond on point, the Public Editor should have space in a prominent place on the editorial page to respond to fair criticism speaking officially for the Times. Careless? Yes.
Stupid? Certainly.
Malicious? The failure to respond to a cricism supported by its own Public Editor certainly suggests so.

That the Public Editor admits he has no enforcement powers is telling. At a minimum he should be able to compel a response from writers he feels have overstepped their bounds. That is not censorship, but journalistic responsibility. Should a writer refuse to respond on point, the Public Editor should have space in a prominent place on the editorial page to respond to fair criticism speaking officially for the Times.

]]> 2009-11-19T;22:58:01-05:00 Comment by Zeliglaw@aol.com The NY Times has had an assimilationist and decidedly anti Zionist point of view in its editorial , news and feature coverage since the Leo Frank trial, when its sympathy for Leo Frank caused the Ochs family concern that undue public outcry for Frank would lead to anti Semitism. The Times viewed Zionism as fascism and supported a bi-national state-Ochs and Judah Magnes supported each other’s perspective. The Times’ coverage of the Holocaust was nonexistent and its coverage of Israel, esp[ecially under Thomas Friedman and Debra Solomon, has always been disgraceful. The Feldman, Chaftetz and Traub articles, its tolerance of Islamofascists in our midst and its thumbs in the nose coverage of the Orthodox community’s expansion into suburbia show a newspaper that is hostile to the Jewish community. The NY Times has had an assimilationist and decidedly anti Zionist point of view in its editorial , news and feature coverage since the Leo Frank trial, when its sympathy for Leo Frank caused the Ochs family concern that undue public outcry for Frank would lead to anti Semitism. The Times viewed Zionism as fascism and supported a bi-national state-Ochs and Judah Magnes supported each other’s perspective. The Times’ coverage of the Holocaust was nonexistent and its coverage of Israel, esp[ecially under Thomas Friedman and Debra Solomon, has always been disgraceful. The Feldman, Chaftetz and Traub articles, its tolerance of Islamofascists in our midst and its thumbs in the nose coverage of the Orthodox community’s expansion into suburbia show a newspaper that is hostile to the Jewish community.

]]> 2009-11-19T;22:58:01-05:00 Comment by stephenrjaffe@gmail.com The phrase “Jewish problem” is an unfortunate choice of words, as it is the same phrase used by Hitler during the Holocaust to justify genocide. I fail to see a substantive distinction between deliberately cropping subjects out of a photograph and deliberately selecting a photograph from which specific persons are absent.  The result in either case is the same, i.e., the persons are erased from photographic existence. The phrase “Jewish problem” is an unfortunate choice of words, as it is the same phrase used by Hitler during the Holocaust to justify genocide.

I fail to see a substantive distinction between deliberately cropping subjects out of a photograph and deliberately selecting a photograph from which specific persons are absent.  The result in either case is the same, i.e., the persons are erased from photographic existence.

]]> 2009-11-19T;22:58:01-05:00 Comment by herbert.grossman@ferc.gov It is not just the NY Times’ Magazine, but the entire paper that is and has been anti-Jewish, dating back 3 generations when the publishing family was still Jewish and striving to disassociate itself from those “other” Jews.  Now that the family is Episcopalian, it continues to hire only those Jews of like mind, like Thomas Friedman, Joel Greenberg, Clyde Haberman, etc., who denigrate Jews and/or the Jewish State so as to continue to prove that they are not typical Jews and the Times is not a “Jewish newspaper.” Herb Grossman It is not just the NY Times’ Magazine, but the entire paper that is and has been anti-Jewish, dating back 3 generations when the publishing family was still Jewish and striving to disassociate itself from those “other” Jews.  Now that the family is Episcopalian, it continues to hire only those Jews of like mind, like Thomas Friedman, Joel Greenberg, Clyde Haberman, etc., who denigrate Jews and/or the Jewish State so as to continue to prove that they are not typical Jews and the Times is not a “Jewish newspaper.”

Herb Grossman

]]> 2009-11-19T;22:58:01-05:00 Comment by apostallian@embarqmail.com Yes, they are Jewish. Every group needs a moral cleansing every now and then. Its good for the soul and keeps us in bounds. like Foxman denying the Armenian Genocide issue.We dont deny the Holocaust. Those poor people we should be concerned about,not playing politics.  Compish. Yes, they are Jewish. Every group needs a moral cleansing every now and then. Its good for the soul and keeps us in bounds. like Foxman denying the Armenian Genocide issue.We dont deny the Holocaust. Those poor people we should be concerned about,not playing politics.  Compish.

]]> 2009-11-19T;22:58:01-05:00 Comment by trapido@mega.co.za I feel that as Jews, with our history, we do tend to over-analyse each and every item relating to Jews and/or Israel. I believe we need to be slower to assume that every non-Jew is either anti-semitic or about to become one : http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/traps/2007/10/25/halle-berry-and-the-jewish-joke/ I feel that as Jews, with our history, we do tend to over-analyse each and every item relating to Jews and/or Israel.

I believe we need to be slower to assume that every non-Jew is either anti-semitic or about to become one :

http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/traps/2007/10/25/halle-berry-and-the-jewish-joke/

]]> 2009-11-19T;22:58:01-05:00 Comment by formschnider@aol.com the new york times has always had a problem with it’s anti semitic bigotry. one of the most famous examples was when the described in a color photo on the front page, an American jewish student who was being protected by a Israeli cop from the pali arab mob that had beaten him bloody as a pali arab who that cop had beaten.  When the mother of the Jewish student saw her son on the front page and the new york times admited its mistake the correction was put on the back page under the fold.  The PLO was still using this photo with the new york times copy two years after the event. A question on another subject did the new york times every return the pulitzer they got for saying no geonicde occured in the ukraine under joe stalin? the new york times has always had a problem with it’s anti semitic bigotry.

one of the most famous examples was when the described in a color photo on the front page, an American jewish student who was being protected by a Israeli cop from the pali arab mob that had beaten him bloody as a pali arab who that cop had beaten.  When the mother of the Jewish student saw her son on the front page and the new york times admited its mistake the correction was put on the back page under the fold.  The PLO was still using this photo with the new york times copy two years after the event.

A question on another subject did the new york times every return the pulitzer they got for saying no geonicde occured in the ukraine under joe stalin?

]]> 2009-11-19T;22:58:01-05:00 Comment by asc@njjewishnews.com Three other articles of note appeared in the Magazine in the time frame you discuss—Zev Chafetz’s articles on Chabad diamond mogul Lev Leviev and his portrait of the Brookyln’s Syrian community. Last week saw the ode to the disappearing kosher deli. At the most obvious level, the Times is writing to its audience, which is heavily Jewish for obvious reasons. Had history and circumstances been different and the nation’s culture and financial powers decamped to Minnesota, the country’s Paper of Record would be published out of Minneapolis and been obsessed with the ways of Lutherans. Do the the three articles I mention reflect a “Jewish problem”? I know Chafets’ two articles left some people uncomfortable, because the individuals he profiled reflected traits of Jewish community that a lot of us would prefer not be fanned out before the gentiles—and they both reflected an Orthodox subculture that is either ominous or admirable, depending on you point of view.  And you could read the deli piece as a nostalgic look at a Judaism of the near and fading past—kosher but not religious, cozily ethnic with no obligations, gastronomic but not parochial. But publications are ultimately creations of individuals (or as the Russian proverb has it, the fish rots from the head). Beyond your content analysis, and mine, I guess what needs to be known is who are the individuals who are editing the magazine, what are their predilections and biases (and I don’t mean prejudices, althought hey may have them too—I mean bias in the sense of enthusiasms, which give any magazine a distinctive voice for good or bad). And I am willing to bet that you’d find a lot of Jewish intellectuals, or non-Jews who are deep within a Jewish intellectual milieu, struggling to understand a Jewish world whose power and activist center is becoming less ethnic and more religious, less broadly intellectual and more parochial in its obsessions, less liberal and more conservative, less universal and more inward-focused. Three other articles of note appeared in the Magazine in the time frame you discuss—Zev Chafetz’s articles on Chabad diamond mogul Lev Leviev and his portrait of the Brookyln’s Syrian community. Last week saw the ode to the disappearing kosher deli.

At the most obvious level, the Times is writing to its audience, which is heavily Jewish for obvious reasons. Had history and circumstances been different and the nation’s culture and financial powers decamped to Minnesota, the country’s Paper of Record would be published out of Minneapolis and been obsessed with the ways of Lutherans.

Do the the three articles I mention reflect a “Jewish problem”? I know Chafets’ two articles left some people uncomfortable, because the individuals he profiled reflected traits of Jewish community that a lot of us would prefer not be fanned out before the gentiles—and they both reflected an Orthodox subculture that is either ominous or admirable, depending on you point of view.  And you could read the deli piece as a nostalgic look at a Judaism of the near and fading past—kosher but not religious, cozily ethnic with no obligations, gastronomic but not parochial.

But publications are ultimately creations of individuals (or as the Russian proverb has it, the fish rots from the head). Beyond your content analysis, and mine, I guess what needs to be known is who are the individuals who are editing the magazine, what are their predilections and biases (and I don’t mean prejudices, althought hey may have them too—I mean bias in the sense of enthusiasms, which give any magazine a distinctive voice for good or bad). And I am willing to bet that you’d find a lot of Jewish intellectuals, or non-Jews who are deep within a Jewish intellectual milieu, struggling to understand a Jewish world whose power and activist center is becoming less ethnic and more religious, less broadly intellectual and more parochial in its obsessions, less liberal and more conservative, less universal and more inward-focused.

]]> 2009-11-19T;22:58:01-05:00