January 7, 2008
Tidbits: News from elsewhere on the Web
Writing in the Sunday New York Times, journalist Jeffrey Goldberg reviews "Jihad and Jew-Hatred," a new book in which a German scholar, Matthias Küntzel, argues that Muslim anti-Semitism can be traced to a project of the Nazi Party. Here's more:
[Küntzel's] bracing, even startling, book, “Jihad and Jew-Hatred” (translated by Colin Meade), reminds us that it is perilous to ignore idiotic ideas if these idiotic ideas are broadly, and fervently, believed. And across the Muslim world, the very worst ideas about Jews — intricate, outlandish conspiracy theories about their malevolent and absolute power over world affairs — have become scandalously ubiquitous. Hezbollah and Hamas, to name two prominent examples, understand the world largely through the prism of Jewish power. Hezbollah officials employ language that shamelessly echoes Nazi propaganda, describing Jews as parasites and tumors and prescribing the murder of Jews as a kind of chemotherapy.
Later this week, PBS will begin airing its mini-series "The Jewish Americans." It will come out in two-hour installments beginning this Wednesday night at 9 p.m. and continuing through Jan. 23. You can learn more about the documentary by reading this article in the Tampa Bay Tribune.
Also this week, a new book written by a woman being touted as the French Anne Frank will arrive in bookstores. This story in The Guardian says, "the harrowing story of a young Jewish girl in occupied Paris, will be, according to the newspaper Liberation, 'the publishing sensation of 2008.'"
Lastly, the Philadelphia Inquirer's chief book critic, Carlin Romano, wrote a piece comparing and contrasting two Jewish newspapers: the Philadelphia Exponent and the Jewish Forward. Here's more about the editors' approach to covering Israel:
The two editors also exhibit stark differences in their political stances. "Editorially, we are a pro-Israel newspaper," says [the Exponent's Jonathan] Tobin. "We write from a Zionist frame of reference that represents the consensus of the community. I feel very strongly about that."
In contrast, says [the Forward's J.J.] Goldberg, an ex-kibbutznik, "we're not here to defend Israel. We're here to tell you – on the assumption that you care about Israel – what's really going on in Israel." Similarly, he advises, "we're not here to defend or convince people of Zionism, though personally I'm a card-carrying Zionist."
Those quotes are very telling. Who's coverage would you trust more, the Forward's or the Exponent?