Seeing Through Distorted Media Coverage of Israel (Guest post by Jerry Schwartz)

Guest post by Jerry Schwartz

 

I recently took a three-week trip to the United States from Israel to visit family and friends.  At each visit they pounced on me for information about the situation in Israel.  Even though they all follow current events in the American media, the news they were getting about the war between Israel and Hamas left them bewildered.

This is not surprising.  A recent research article published in the journal Israel Affairs studied the coverage of this war by the New York Times. The findings were damning, among them “misquoting Israeli leaders, employing questionable journalists..., misleading repeated errors, inadequate corrections, significant omissions, and poor editorial supervision.”  The authors concluded that “the Times pretends nothing has changed, but its newsroom has radically changed and does not uphold the same standards it once did.  This misleads many readers who still believe they are receiving broad well-founded views, as well as accurate and impartial information.”

So widespread has distorted reporting on Israel in Western media become that watchdog organizations have sprung up to counter it.  Two long-established examples are CAMERA and Honest Reporting.

Such reporting also tends to cause perplexity among visitors to Israel whose positive impressions clash with the negativity so widely portrayed in the media.  One such visitor was Professor Cherryl Smith.  In her book Framing Israel she defines and illustrates six patterns of distortion in coverage of Israel in mainstream media and campus discourse, and for each pattern gives the necessary basic historical background.  Once you learn to identify them, the distortions will no longer leave you perplexed as you read the Washington Post or other major western media outlets, but will seem transparent and even unprofessional.

Chapters 1 and 2 lay out the impetus for writing the book.  Chapters 3 and 4 are more academic and explain the theoretical underpinning of the method of rhetorical frames.  Chapters 5 through 10 develop the six rhetorical patterns.  The book is written in a personal, narrative style, and is engaging, not so abstruse as to make it challenging yet at a level that satisfies intelligent readers.

It’s a great book for incoming Jewish college freshmen to read and discuss during the summer preceding their first semester.  They will be much better prepared to see through and resist the anti-Israel indoctrination and activism they are about to confront from their professors and fellow students.

Like my family and friends, I have always been a staunch supporter of Israel, and like them, I trusted NPR and the New York Times, except that their reporting about Israel almost always got my hackles up--until I read this book when it was first published four years ago.  Since then I’ve been relying on other, more trustworthy sources for news and analysis about Israel.

The Israel-Hamas war has seen, and continues to see, egregiously distorted reporting.  Rereading Framing Israel now, I find its unique way of deconstructing distorted media coverage of Israel–to our great dismay–more relevant than ever.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Open Letter from A Jew to the Western World in the Aftermath of the 2023 Hamas Attack on Israel (Guest Post)

(Guest post)

Open Letter from A Jew to the Western World in the Aftermath of the 2023 Hamas Attack on Israel 

First, did the words "A Jew" have a disagreeable smell to you, just a little? Be honest.

They did to me, even though they say you can't smell yourself. I had to hold my nose to write them.

For contrast, let's do a sniff test on two other words: "A Christian."

Totally different, right? If "Christian" were a perfume, its signature would be Wholesome, Righteous, Valiant, Honorable, Loving, and Good. Interestingly, it’s the diametric opposite of "A Jew.” 

"Moslem" feels positive too, conjuring images of majestic spires or perhaps a demure woman in a hijab.

Relevant? I think yes, considering how important is the shared connotation of words. Just ask any "person of color" about being called a "colored person." Happily, Jew-equals-stinky-poo is not inhaled by quite everyone (and deep gratitude for the many with clogged noses!). Yet it's remarkable to me that it isn't, considering how pervasive the stench has been over the centuries in Western culture. I refer to everything from literature to philosophy to architecture to - dare I say it - parts of the Christian Bible (if Jews could kill Christ, what aren't they capable of?). And unlike the toppled statues of slavery defenders, these pillars of our culture have suffered little more than an occasional ding from academia lo these many centuries.

When you want to wage a war, you assert that the other side is both evil and powerful, and everyone rallies for "self-defense." Since for Jews, this portrayal is definitional, it's never a bad time to "defend" yourself - or others - against Jews!

So naturally, anti-Jewish actions in the West have been historically regarded as positive and liberating, from the Crusades to the Inquisition. Why would anyone expect a turnaround? True, modern cultural and Church influences have had some sway, but antisemitism still seems to feel only semi-wrong to many otherwise decent folks. If someone, regardless their contempt for Israel, cannot declare the deliberate targeting of an infant for mutilation as categorically immoral, I must conclude that they are among those who believe Jews cannot be fully guiltless by definition.

To many pundits and protestors, it’s as if no amount of anti-Jewish barbarism is completely undeserved. Rape and beheading as a form of "freedom fight" or venting of frustration sure look disproportionate to those of us with clarity. So much so that one can only deduce that the true offense must be The Cosmically Evil Jew. Only under this delusion are such acts “appropriate” - not to mention historically familiar.

Apropos disproportionality, ever consider disproportionate intent? The Hamas intent is avowedly genocidal; its founding charter says so. The intent of Jews is to finally live unmolested and in their place of origin (if Jews - swarthy, hook-nosed, and speaking a semitic language - are rather a Germanic tribe, do let me know). Indeed all that was ever required of sovereign Gaza was to live and let live. If someone believes that building a massive tunnel network into Israel had anything to do with Hamas procuring food for its people, then I have a proverbial bridge to sell you. 

As confessed by captured detainees, Hamas shelters its arms and leaders in hospitals, schools, and mosques as a way to avoid IDF attack or else max out civilian casualties. Taking such criminality further, Hamas also instructed Gazans, including at gunpoint, to stay put after Israel had warned them to leave. Yet how does the media and its followers process all this? By expressing distrust and "humanitarian" outrage at the side trying to defeat these leaders, and in favor of the side demonstrably and unreservedly committed to inhumanity, even toward its own people.

Here’s another curious media reaction: Hamas long made its genocidal intent toward Jews public, and now it has broadcast its gruesome early successes. Yet within twenty-four hours of the Hamas attack, media focus shifted to the horrors that Israel would do, could do, wanted to do, or was surely already plotting to do against innocent Gazans. This is classic anti-Jewish thinking, often referred to as hallucinatory. The trope is that Jews are suffused with malevolent intent and plot away in the shadows. (What could be more convenient than shadows, since who-all knows what goes on there? Only one’s fevered imagination is the limit!) It’s another reason why the atrocities actually committed by Hamas and actually documented by the perpetrators got eclipsed from the get-go.

Some are still inclined to say it's not about Jews but about fill-in-the-blank (Palestinians, Zionists, Netanyahu, settlers, right-wing governments, colonialism, oppression, occupation, apartheid, land theft, water, U.S. tax dollars, capitalism, imperialism, or perhaps intersectional transgenderism). My response is please don’t bother. Have instead the integrity of those you are allegedly "defending" and just say, "I oppose the Jews because this is my religion." 

It is the only argument that cannot be answered.

Yours truly,

A Jew

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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These Are Not Your Grandparents’ Goyim (Rivkah Lambert Adler)

Varda Epstein’s recent review of my book Ten From The Nations: Torah Awakening Among Non-Jews offers me a perfect opportunity to elaborate on how I see the world and why I do what I do. To the best of my knowledge, Varda and I have met exactly once, fleetingly. Nevertheless, we maintain a mutually respectful, professional relationship and admire one another’s work. It’s important to mention that at the outset because, although our viewpoints differ on a number of issues, civility is important to both of us. And I thank Varda for her graciousness in giving me a chance to respond.

I spend a significant amount of time each week building bridges with people from the Nations. Most of them come from Christian backgrounds, although many of the people with whom I interact no longer consider themselves mainstream Christians. A huge part of what distinguishes them from the rest of the 2.2 billion Christians worldwide is their fascination with Israel, with the Torah and with the Jewish people. Although they identify variously as Christian Zionists, as Ephraimites, as Bnei Noach or as gerei toshav, they are united in their understanding that the Jewish people have something to offer them.

I believe we are in an unprecedented time in history when, after 2,000 years of anti-Semitic pogroms, forced conversions and murder of Jews by Christians, there are now Christians who are singing a whole new song to the Jewish people. These are the people whose stories I published in Ten From The Nations and whose spiritual longings to get closer to Israel and to authentic Torah I both admire and work to nurture. In a nutshell, these are not your grandparents’ goyim. These are not the non-Jews you’ve been taught to fear, mistrust and hold at arm’s length.

I was raised to mistrust non-Jews at worst and to see them as irrelevant to my life at best. Since becoming involved in this work, my viewpoint has changed. It took a series of paradigm shifts for me to get to where I am now. 

As I see it, Varda and I differ in our understanding about three main issues.

A) Do all Christians have a missionizing agenda?
B) To whom does the Torah belong?
C) Do the Jewish people have any responsibility to non-Jews?

I’ll address these one at a time.

Do all Christians have a missionizing agenda? I believe that the vast majority still do. At the same time, I have personally met hundreds of people coming from Christian backgrounds who actively repent for the sins that have been committed against the Jewish people for 2,000 years. They have put to rest the fallacious and destructive ideas behind Replacement Theology and no longer believe that Christianity replaced Torah and that Christians replaced the Jewish people in God’s eyes. In the main, it was the return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel that rocked their theology and caused them to reexamine the most fundamental truths they had been taught. Rather than being the “strange ducks” that Varda suggests, I believe they are spiritual leaders who buck the potent forces of convention to follow Truth.

It has been suggested that only 1% of Christians today have renounced Replacement Theology. On the one hand, 1% is a tiny minority. On the other hand, 1% is 22 million people.  And that’s enough to keep me busy for the rest of my life.

I wish to be very clear. I find the proselytizing of Jews odious. I have zero tolerance for it. The relationships I build with people from the Nations are based on mutual respect. We agree to let our differences be settled by God at the End of Days. In the meantime, we inhabit the space where our worldviews overlap – a love of God, a love for Israel, a longing for Torah and a joy at seeing Biblical prophecy fulfilled in our days.

To whom does the Torah belong? I used to believe that Torah was the exclusive property of the Jewish people and its precepts were for us alone. Over time, the words of the Torah itself convinced me that it was intended, from the beginning, to be shared with the Nations. I believe that the Jewish people were tasked with being guardians of the Torah – until the rest of the world was ready for its teachings. Then we were intended to become the teachers of Torah to people from the Nations, while maintaining our unique relationship with God’s Holy texts.

Do the Jewish people have any responsibility to non-Jews? There are dozens of verses in Tanach, and also in our liturgy, even during Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, that speak of a time when the entire world will worship the One True God, the God of Israel. I believe that time has dawned. The shift is already taking place. Just as it says in the Book of Zechariah, people from the Nations are aligning with the Jewish people and begging, “Teach us about God.” This is unprecedented and the exact thing for which we have been preparing for 3,300 years.

Varda wrote, “Being a ‘light unto the nations’ doesn’t mean preaching Torah to them. It means being a good and moral example. No more, no less.” I also used to think exactly as she does. Now I see things differently. Today, I understand that fulfilling our God-given role as Ohr LaGoyim means that, when the Nations are receptive, we are obligated to teach them. Without question, the people I teach are desperately hungry for authentic Torah. It may not yet be the tafkid of the Jewish people as a whole, but I believe that Hashem has given this task to me personally, to serve among the group of Jews who are willing to build bridges with people from the Nations, using Torah as a primary tool.

Varda wrote, “I don’t understand why any Jew wants to help these people, instead of their own people, as a calling. I think that’s bizarre.” Working with non-Jews is an important part of my life, but it is not the only thing I do in life. For me, it’s not “instead of”. Rather it is “in addition to”. We are not all intended to do the same work in the world. Each of us is uniquely qualified for certain tasks. I believe, with all my heart and soul, that Hashem chose this challenging work for me personally. As Varda correctly said, I do indeed see it as holy work.

It would be misleading if I didn’t acknowledge that there are landmines in this work. There are things I see, hear and read that make the Jew in me cringe. All is not sweetness and light. We are building something new and it’s a huge and, oftentimes, messy job. I accept that as part of the process. I see Hashem’s Hand in bringing geula closer by re-aligning the relationship between Jews and people from the Nations. I can be patient.

I realize that, no matter what I say, there are people who will remain unconvinced. I accept that as part of the nature of what I do. If you have questions you’d like to ask me, I can be reached at editor@tenfromthenations.com. I’m happy to conduct a respectful dialogue with anyone who is interested. 

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