Rabbi Jason Miller, blogger of RabbiJason.com, heard that an article in Time Magazine isn’t good for the Jews. After having read a few posts about the article, he decided to throw his several hundred words of cents in. He has cleverly titled his post, Time not on Israel’s Side. (Get it? See, the name of the magazine is…)
Writes Miller:
This week’s issue of Time Magazine has the bold headline proclaiming “Why Israel Doesn’t Care About Peace.” I haven’t read the article yet (the online version is an abridged version of the cover story appearing in the September 13, 2010 issue), but I’ve read several responses to it.
Despite not having read that article that isn’t even available to read yet (!), Miller already has some choice words for it. But don’t take my word for it! Go read Miller’s post. All of it. You see, he has had the foresight to make entire post available to read today, so we can go ahead and start critiquing it now.
I don’t have anything to say about the article itself, because, unlike Miller, I can’t see the future/read through walls. But I will say that the entire premise of his post is mumbo-jumbo. He’s saying that the cover title itself is anti-Semitic. If even Miller himself, a rabbi, can’t read the damn article for himself, how can we expect any other ordinary Americans to read it? Therefore, we should disregard the content of Time’s article and focus on the headline, which is meant to grab attention. (I guess it’s working?)
I’d like to suggest that he’s doing exactly what he thinks the article is doing. Anti-Semite is a pretty drastic label to assign a publication today. Now, if I only read the first little bit of his post, say just the title or something, I might come away with the impression that he’s trying to slander Time Magazine. I have actually read the whole post, so I’m pretty sure his intentions are better–and more complex–than that. I think I’ll wait to read the article in Time before passing the kind of judgement on it that I’ve just passed in Miller’s wrong-headed post.
He should be embarrassed.
**The title of this blog post is meant satirically and not at all sincerely. Both David and New Voices know that Rabbi Jason is not an anti-Semite.**
David AM-
First, I did read the article online before I blogged about it. I hadn’t yet read the print edition (although my copy arrived today and I have read the complete print version as well).
Second, you write that I called the cover title itself anti-Semitic. Where did I do that? Can you please quote back to me where in my blog post I wrote that the cover is anti-Semitic?
Third, you write that if you were to only read the title of my blog post (Time Not on Israel’s Side) you might come away with the impression that I’m trying to slander Time Magazine. I think as the editor of a student magazine, you should look up the word “slander.” And while you’re at it, I’d also recommend looking up the word “libel.” In any event, writing that Time Magazine (in my title) isn’t on Israel’s side is far from a libelous statement. It’s my opinion.
Fourth, my argument remains that the cover is all most people will see (on display at bookstores, libraries, supermarkets, drugstores, and airports throughout North America (or perhaps the world). I acknowledge that there are many Israelis who are millionaires (and even billionaires), but that doesn’t change the fact that Time Magazine implying that Jewish Israelis are more concerned with their money than with the peace process brings up the old Jewish stereotype about Jews and money.
If you, as the editor of New Voices, write a derogatory blog post about a non-Jewish individual, they can legitimately take exception with your writing and your views. However, if they claim that this only proves that Jews run the media, that gets into the realm of anti-Semitism (even if there are a good number of Jews in the media).
I hope you (and other college students) will take a look at Camera’s commentary on the Time issue here: http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=37&x_article=1921. It’s important for students like yourself to be educated about the anti-Israel bias in the media, which permeates many college campuses.
Finally, as we approach Rosh Hashanah tomorrow evening, I hope you will re-read your blog post above and question whether your words may be harsh. I didn’t attack any individuals in my blog post. I called into question the choice of a large, international magazine to print a sensational cover title in the midst of a peace summit. I can live with that. Your ad hominem attack is simply uncalled for.
Jason, show me a Time a cover that doesn’t have a bold statement that takes the subject matter of the cover story to an extreme. It’s the way it is. There is always a group (in this case, us Jews) who feel close to issue in the headline and may take exception to it. And that’s all I see happening here.
First, I’d like to correct something I wrote in my previous comment. I stated that you are the editor of the New Voices student magazine. Both the editor (Ben Sales) and the chair of the Jewish Student Press Service (Mik Moore) sent me email messages informing me that you are not the editor.
Again, David, you are clearly missing the point of my blog post. You don’t have to agree with me (or the many other Jewish leaders, politicians, scholars, and commentators who have taken exception with this week’s issue of Time publicly). The article presents an interesting and factual thesis, namely that many Israelis (especially those secular ones living in Tel Aviv) are not paying much attention to the peace negotiations currently taking place. They are pessimistic that any good will come from these talks and they are content with the good life they’re living in Tel Aviv with prosperity and no terrorism currently. HOWEVER, when the article veers into the age-old stereotype that Jews (I’m sure you’re aware that there are many Jews living in Israel) only care about money, we should take notice. You don’t have to be Abe Foxman to recognize anti-Semitic rhetoric like this.
Now I realize it could be generational. You’re a young college student who has probably never experienced any anti-Semitism firsthand. So, let me explain to you why this is a concern. Rabbi Daniel Gordis (you could learn a lot from him — send me your mailing address and I’ll ship you one of his books as a Rosh Hashanah gift) refers to Time’s allegation that Israelis care more about money (classic anti-Semitic charge) than peace. The money aspect is the problematic piece here. Had a Time Magazine article come out during the Irish peace process and said that the Irish are more concerned with money than with peace, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But if the article said the Irish are more interested in getting drunk, that would be a different story (that’s an Irish stereotype… look it up).
I’m in good company with other Jewish leaders who have criticized Time for the article’s focus on Jews and money. I quote Rabbi Gordis in my blog post who agrees with the general thesis of the article — as do I. What I really don’t understand is how (as your editor Ben Sales explained to me) you were taking aim at my ideas, and yet you admitted that you also hadn’t read the article in its entirety in the print version of the magazine before chiming in. Now that just seems hypocritical.
DAM Wilensky:
Read this. Think about it. Don’t respond.
Just Out: TIME Magazine’s Latest Blood Libel About Israel
by Phyllis Chesler
The September 13, 2010 issue of TIME Magazine arrived yesterday. The cover story is titled “Why Israel Doesn’t Care About Peace” and is illustrated by a large Jewish star composed of daisies. Yes, daises—as in “counting daisies, don’t have a care in the world.”
This is precisely the point of Karl Vick’s article. He writes:
Israelis are no longer preoccupied with the matter [of peace with the Palestinians]. They’re otherwise engaged: They’re making money; they’re enjoying the rays of the late summer … they have moved on.
Vick quotes an Israeli real estate agent in Ashdod, one Eli, who tells him:
People are indifferent. They don’t care if there’s going to be war. They don’t care if there’s going to be peace. They don’t care. They live in the day.
According to Vick, Israelis don’t care about peace, peace negotiations, or about the Palestinians because they are simply having too good a time: sunbathing, swimming, café-hopping, profiting from start-up companies, and, according to polls cited by Vick, utterly disconnected from “politics;” indeed Vick suggests that Israelis resemble Californians more than they resemble Egyptians. These are all points which scream: Israel does not fit in; if Israelis were only more impoverished, more indolent, and paradoxically, even more “laid back,” they might be recognizable as indigenous to the region, a true part of the Middle East.
These are Vick’s thoughts, not mine.
Of course, Jews are the original Palestinians and the most indigenous of the region’s inhabitants; yes, there are many impoverished Israelis, both Jews and non-Jews; and, let’s not forget that there are even some Israelis who remain permanently on high alert for the next terrorist attack, permanently scarred by the last ones. For a moment, let’s forget about all that. Allow me to ask: Why doesn’t Vick also point out that Palestinians are leading the high life on the West Bank and in sumptuous villas on both the West Bank and in Gaza; that they, too, are sunbathing, swimming, shopping, dining out, and relaxing at the beach—at least as much as the Islamist thugs who run the lives of Palestinians will allow it?
Vick and his editors at TIME seem to think that showing six photos of Israelis at leisure: blowing smoke on a beach chair, lounging on a beach chair, resting in an army uniform on the beach without a chair, playing with one’s baby in a stroller, sitting at a café—are proof that Israelis are engaging in activities which are not admirable, are, in fact, “proof” that they are not suffering but rather, proof that Israelis simply don’t care about peace with the Palestinians. And Vick brings in polls as well as expert and person-in-the-street opinions to back up this claim.
Vick writes that real estate is booming, as is business in general, Israeli “brainiacs” have helped their nation avoid the economic disasters that have plunged Europe and America into a recession. He literally writes this. “Israel avoided the debt traps that dragged the U.S. and Europe into recession. It is known as a start-up nation—second only to the U.S. companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange.”
Is Vick aware that, consciously or not, intentionally or not, he is counting on the world’s long-held resentment about Jewish creativity, genius, and scientific and economic success—counting on the world’s willingness to scapegoat Israel once again for crimes that it has not committed? Or because Jews seem to “know something,” maybe they are channeling God directly and thus, the deck is stacked against non-Jews. Vick presents Israel’s “success” as somehow unseemly, because it makes other nations look bad. Does he harbor the suspicion that Jewish prosperity has been “stolen” from non-Jews or is he merely advertising that Jewish gold is there, ripe for the taking?
Buried—but really buried– in Vick’s four page cover piece are snippets of true facts: That the Israelis are weary of peace negotiations which never succeed because the Palestinians do not want peace; that Arabs and Palestinians want to destroy the Jewish state and as many Jews as possible.
But Vick fails to convey that negotiations cannot work as long as the ultra-Nazified Arab Islamic propaganda against Jews and Israel continues to turn out children who hate Jews and who become human homicide bombs, snipers, kidnappers, kassam rocket launchers, etc.
Here is what Vick utterly fails to comprehend, namely, that the Israelis are not merely tired, disenchanted, living in la-la land a la southern Californians (hence, the Jewish star made of daisies on the cover). The Israelis are actually showing the entire world how to embrace life, even as they live, trembling, in the shadow of death. They are teaching the world how to “love life more than they fear death.” A new and wonderful book A New Shoah. The Untold Story of Israel’s Victims of Terrorism by Italian journalist Giulio Meotti, which is not yet out, makes precisely this point.
The Jewish insistence on life may be the key to our survival as a people despite ceaseless persecution. It might be the lesson, the model, for all humanity in an era of genocides, civil wars, torture chambers, tyrannies, and totalitarian regimes. Why is TIME turning things on their head and refusing to recognize the courage and the heroism of Jewish Israelis who choose to live in the moment when the moment is all they have? Against all odds, the Jews simply refuse to give up. As Meotti writes of the numerous victims of terrorism during the ongoing Intifada of 2000, “Israel teaches the world love of life, not in the sense of a banal joie de vivre, but as a solemn celebration.”
Meotti begins where I began in early 2004, when I wrote about a new Holocaust in the pages of The Jewish Press, a Holocaust which is now based in Israel. At the time, I was not heard beyond a small circle. I did what Meotti now does in his opening pages. Meotti fully understands that Israel is the “first country ever to experience suicide terrorism on a mass scale: that more than 150 suicide attacks have been carried out plus 500 have been prevented.” According to Meotti, there have been “1,723 people (murdered) and 10,000 injured” in Israel. Meotti does what I did: He converts these numbers into the demographic equivalent of attacks on Americans. When I did so there were somewhat fewer people in both categories. Thus, Meotti writes that in American population terms, this means that “74,000 Americans” would have been killed and “400,000 injured.”
Vick does not factor this grave reality into his article. Nor does he seem to know how high the Jewish population growth was in the DP camps right after the Holocaust. Can he comprehend that permanently endangered Jews—a people that has survived as a people for nearly six thousand years—the Chosen People—have always chosen life in the moment, have chosen to seize life with both hands, even as they memorialize their dead and make sense of their persecution in a way that illuminates this particular Hell for all humanity?
What Meotti is doing is remembering the lives and the deaths of the Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism during the last decade. I have only read the first few chapters but cannot put it down. These are unknown stories, unnamed victims, whose mortal remains have often evaporated, disintegrated as surely as those Jews who literally went up in smoke during the Nazi Holocaust. His stories are mainly of victims who were unarmed and helpless and who, it turns out, were actually exceptionally kind to others, often to the very Arab Palestinians who shot them down, bludgeoned them to death, or blew them up into unrecognizable bone fragments, drops of blood, perhaps a few teeth.
I look forward to completing Meotti’s book. I hope that people more fully understand that TIME Magazine as well as countless other media in the Western world, can no longer be trusted to tell the truth.
Jason, the kind of company you are in and the people who agree with you are a red herring here. We’re talking about the idea, not who agrees with you about it.
Again, having not read the article (which I’m gonna damn well have to do pretty soon here), I can’t speak to its contents with any specificity.
You have missed my point, so I’ll explain a little more clearly how it is that I’m not a hypocrite. I have not defended the article. Rather, I have asserted that judging it before reading all of it is not good. I have also asserted that Time headlines are meant to stir things up and sell magazines.
Now let me explain to you why the way you’re talking right now isn’t going to get me and my silly generation that doesn’t know anything to listen to you. We know what anti-Semitism is, but we don’t see it lurking behind every corner. Not only that, but we’ve got a nose for condescension and mine’s lit up like Rudolph in a blizzard.
Phyllis, “don’t respond?” You’re really commenting on our blog and then asking one of us (uh… me) not to respond to it? Give me a break.
As I read your comment, there seemed to be something missing. And then, somewhere in the middle, I found what I had been expecting all along: “ultra-Nazified Arab Islamic propaganda.” That’s right, folks. Everyone who has a bone to pick with the Jews is a Nazi. Never mind that Arab critiques of Israel have essentially nothing in common politically or culturally with Nazi Germany. If only we could just shout to the world, as loud as possible, that everyone who doesn’t like something a Jew does is a Nazi, maybe then they’d finally understand the gravity of the situation. Give me a break.
Rabbi Jason’s central argument is sound. A major magazine should be more careful. Its writers and editors should be aware of stereotypes and work to avoid them–not reinforce them. Maybe it’s just my relatively “old” age now (31), but I feel more aware of anti-Semitism now than I was even 2 or 3 years ago. Very recent example: My dad works for the federal government and one day coworkers were talking about the president of a local university and a decision he supported. One of the coworkers (who regularly travels around the world as part of his job) said the university president supported the decision because it was a moneymaker and that’s what Jews do. When my dad (who is not Jewish) just stared at the man, the man said, “Well, I thought he was a Jew.” In his mind there wasn’t anything wrong with conecting Jewish people and money. His self-correction was maybe he was wrong about the university president being Jewish. And I’m sure if you asked him, this man wouldn’t feel what he said was anti-Semitic.
Time’s headline isn’t as overt and offensive as: Country Full of Jews Loves Money More than Peace, but there is content in the article that helps reinforce the stereotype. For perople like me who continue to hear some version of this, it jumps out. The point is, whether or not Vick is consciously reinforcing the stereotype–he’s reinforcing the stereotype. Time and its journalists should be better than that.
Thank you for the disclaimer explaining Wilensky’s attempt at satire in the title.
I don’t think this article (or the online excerpt, at least, which contains the quotation that everyone references) reinforces Jewish money stereotypes, and that idea didn’t even occur to me until I saw Jews complaining about it. I think the cover of the magazine and the online article’s central premise are misguided, but just because Vick is pointing out that some Israelis would rather focus on succeeding in business than on a vapid peace process does not make him or the article anti-Semitic. It seems to me that this is a case of Foxmanian Jews looking for Jewish stereotypes everywhere they turn and being hypersensitive to anything that may strike as offensive. This article was not propagating a stereotype, though, and everyone needs to calm down.
I’m gonna agree with Ben on the money stereotype. Unfortunately, that it was present in the article had already been suggested by the time I read it, so I couldn’t go in fresh. Either way, there’s a difference between making a assertions about Jews and doing the legwork and seeing that there are Jews saying the things that real estate folks said in the article.
Is the message of some of the critics of this article essentially that if Jews appear happy with their economic situation in the news, the news must be anti-Semitic?
What has been lost in all of this discussion is that most Israelis don’t care about the peace process, let alone ending the occupation. They have created a senario where they can control the Palestinian population with checkpoints and walls, and thus don’t have any investment on actually ending the conflict. Check out Jeff Halper’s work on the “matrix of control.” This article, or the excerpt posted online, seems to be about reporting on this element of the peace process. It is newsworthy that the vast majority of israelis have next to zero investment in a negotiated end to the ocupparion and the resulting conflict, because the leaders are hopping around Washington talking about a peace process. Since, as this article implies, there is zero domestic pressure on Bibi to make a deal, that may shif where we place the “blame” for the inevitable failure of this political dance.