Posted By James Besser
Are Only Orthodox Jews `Religious’?/ Gary Rosenblatt in New York
We published a letter to the editor last week (Nov. 30 issue) from a Stephen Appell of Brooklyn who expressed his “dismay at the regular use of the term ‘religious’ in Jewish publications to refer exclusively to the Orthodox community.”
He raises a good point in that too often “religious” and “Orthodox” are used interchangeably.
The article in question was an Opinion piece entitled “Are Religious Jews The Enemy?” (Oct. 26)
We try to be careful about these and other delicate and often hard to define terms, and Mr. Appell’s letter reminded me of an incident some years ago, when I was editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times.
There had been a fatal Amtrak train wreck in Maryland, including Jewish victims, and our story had a headline that read something like (I don’t have the article at hand) “Orthodox Couple Killed In Train Crash.”
A reader wrote to question whether we would have, if the circumstances had been different, published a headline that read “Conservative Couple Killed,” or “Reconstructionist Couple Killed.”
He was quite right that we were guilty of some kind of imbalance, however unintentional, and since then I’ve tried to use his formula of substituting one religious denomination for another in a headline or story to see if it makes sense and is fair.
We’ve received several letters in response to Mr. Appell’s letter, including one from a reader who claims he has never met a non-Orthodox person who describes himself or herself as “religious.”
That may be, but it begs the question about our responsibility to be as sensitive and impartial as possible in describing someone’s inner beliefs -- not just synagogue affiliation -- and that is always tricky. But worth remembering.