http://blog.thejewishweek.com Jewish Week editors and reporters talk about the stories behind the stories en-us Copyright 2008 The Jewish Week Blogs - Behind the Headlines http://blog.thejewishweek.com/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:13:14 CST The Jewish Week Editors Blog has moved. Check out the new, improved blog site here, and remember to update your bookmarks! http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Behind_the_Headlines_has_moved.html http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Behind_the_Headlines_has_moved.html jdbesser@gmail.com (James Besser) Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:10:00 CST Behind the Headlines Behind the Headlines: Covering Obama Rob Goldblum, managing editor The Jewish Week has heard from some readers unhappy about what they see as an imbalance in  our coverage of this year's presidential campaigns.  Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has been on the front page a lot in recent months; Sen. John McCain, his GOP rival, has not. It's a fair criticism because at least in terms of the number of stories, there has been an imbalance. But that is the result not of a pro-Obama bias by editors or reporters, but the way the campaigns have spun out in recent months and in particular the campaigns for Jewish votes - the special interest of Jewish Week readers. Sen. Obama's campaign, surprisingly media savvy despite their champion's relative inexperience, has kept their candidate in the spotlight throughout the summer months, when the usual election-year media frenzy slows down. Obama has made some real news of interest to our community, including his surprise announcement that he will support a variation of the Bush administration's faith based initiative, his clumsy remarks and subsequent "clarification" about an "undivided" Jerusalem and his recent trip to Israel. The Obama campaign has a big and efficient Jewish outreach team; the McCain campaign's effort, as the Jewish Week noted in a story this week, has yet to gel, which means the GOP contender is not generating the kind of focused news of his rival. John McCain is a known quantity to most Jewish voters, which is why he is doing better in the polls than recent Republican candidates. He isn't working hard to introduce himself to a political segment that already knows who he is and what he stands for.  Obama is slick but elusive.  His followers believe his campaign is full of promise, but to reporters it's also full of intriguing question marks. The Jewish Week is not alone.  There has been an active discussion throughout the mainstream media of the difficulty of not seeming to take sides in the campaign when one candidate seems to be producing much more news than the other. We can assure our readers of this: Jewish Week editors and reporters are aware of these concerns and will strive to avoid any hint of bias in our news coverage. But we will also continue to call the stories as we see them. If that produces more stories about one candidate than the other, well, that's the news biz. http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Covering_Obama.html http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Covering_Obama.html jdbesser@gmail.com (James Besser) Fri, 01 Aug 2008 07:21:00 CST Behind the Headlines Behind the Headlines:  Mordechai Gafni Is Back     The last time Mordechai Gafni was in the news was two years ago, when the charismatic and controversial rabbi accused of sexual misconduct here and in Israel was dismissed as the rebbe of Bayit Chadash, a spiritual renewal community in Tel Aviv. Faced with sexual abuse complaints filed with the police in Israel by several women who were former students or employees of Bayit Chadash, Gafni came to the U.S., issued a public statement apologizing to those he had hurt, said he was "sick" and needed treatment, and disappeared. This was the conclusion of the column I wrote then (June 9, 2006): "In the past, when Gafni said he had made mistakes in his life but that he had done teshuva, some were ready to believe him; others were not. At some point in the future he is sure to reappear, eager to resume his role of spiritual guide and teacher, insisting he has gone through therapy and is cured. "Will we believe him then?" Well, Gafni has resurfaced in Salt Lake City, Utah and is insisting that he, not his female accusers, was the victim of the events of two years ago. He has an extensive web site (www.marcgafni.com), which includes not only his teachings and writings on kabbalah and spirituality, but an aggressive defense of his previous actions, complete with a report on the results of a polygraph test he took and which he claims clears him of abuse. The test indicates that Gafni was engaged in mutual and consensual relationships with the women, he says. (Gafni, formerly known as Mordechai Winiarz, was ordained by Shlomo Riskin, an Orthodox rabbi, but later evolved into a spiritual guru who wrote and lectured on incorporating Eros into Judaism. At 47, he has been married and divorced three times, and surrounded by accusations of sexual misbehavior his entire adult life.) Gafni appears to have been embraced by a New Age spiritual community (not Jewish) in Salt Lake City, as evidenced by a lengthy and sympathetic profile in Catalyst, a local magazine focused on "the world's ecological, social and spiritual crises," and to which he has contributed a column called "Spiritually Incorrect." The profile, written by editor and publisher Greta deJong, portrays him as having saintly qualities but hounded by accusers -- as often happens with "charismatic spiritual leaders," she notes. Gafni now says that he wrote his public apology for his behavior two years ago under stress, and that the women accusers banded together to destroy his career. He also argues that his chief critics are bloggers who are irresponsible and untrue in their accusations. On his web site, where he describes himself as "a cutting edge spiritual teacher, author, television personality, mediator, corporate consultant, iconoclast and gentle provocateur," as well as a "Heart Servant," he writes that his primary motto is "Do No Harm." He has done plenty, though, based on interviews I have had with those once close to him, including two of his former wives, and rabbis and Jewish educators who feel he misrepresented himself to them. Gafni has always been best at re-inventing himself, and no doubt he will continue to charm, if not seduce, others with his ideas and personality. But with the attention he has received in The Jewish Week and elsewhere, people can no longer say they were unaware of his past. http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Gafni_is_Back.html http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Gafni_is_Back.html gary@jewishweek.org (Gary Rosenblatt) Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:11:00 CST Behind the Headlines Behind the Headlines:  A Play About Koby Mandell     Koby Mandell would have turned 21 last week, and probably would be finishing his service in the Israeli army. Instead, slain at 13, with a friend, in a cave near their home in the community of Tekoa on Lag B'Omer, 2001, Koby is a memory to those who loved him and a symbol of the hundreds of innocent Jewish victims of the intifada, an eighth grader stoned to death on a day he skipped school. Somehow, Koby¹s parents managed to channel their anger and grief into positive work, creating a foundation in their son's name that offers summer camp and other healing programs to children in Israel who have lost close relatives to terror. And Sherri Mandell, a journalist and author, wrote an award-winning book about dealing with the loss of her son, "The Blessing Of A Broken Heart." Now her book has been adapted as a play (with the same title) by Todd Salovey, associate artistic director of the San Diego Repertory Theater, and has been performed in the New York area in recent days. I saw it last night at the JCC On The Palisades in Tenafly, NJ, and was deeply impressed by the thoughtful adaptation, and by the powerful performance of Lisa Robins, who plays Sherri Mandell, at times with pain and tears and at times with humor. To their credit, the creators and actors (there are several gifted teens who play the Mandell children), never drift into the mawkish but maintain a dignity that is real, and all the more touching. Rabbi Seth Mandell, Koby's dad, answered questions after the show and acknowledged that he had seen it for the first time the night before, and had not read the script. Some of the questions from the audience were quite personal, about his and his family's feelings and coping mechanisms, but he handled them forthrightly, at one point noting that while there is much laughter in the Mandell home ­ there are three younger children ­ there is never a sense of complete joy. For more information on the play and the Koby Mandell Foundation, click on www.kobymandell.org http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/A_Play_About_Koby_Mandell.html http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/A_Play_About_Koby_Mandell.html gary@jewishweek.org (Gary Rosenblatt) Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:27:00 CST Behind the Headlines Behind the Headlines: World's Busiest News Cycle     Jerusalem – Nothing too exciting happened in the world yesterday, except in Israel. The front-page stories in today's International Herald Tribune deal with economic concerns, mostly about rising oil prices. But even a quick glance at several Israeli newspapers reveals the heightened drama of daily life here, from the latest plan to rescue kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit, to speculation on renewed war in Gaza and renewed peace talks with Syria, all against the backdrop of Prime Minister Olmert's struggle to resist resigning from office. Just another day in the Israeli news cycle, with more news happening in this small country than seems possible, and much of it of an existential nature. It's life-and-death stuff – reports on what, if anything, is being done to counter Iran's plans to destroy Israel with a nuclear bomb; security concerns about more sophisticated rocket attacks on Israeli cities from Hamas; speculation on precisely when and to what degree Israel will next attack Hamas. (Isn't that what the military censors are suppposed to censor?) Israelis are big consumers of their newspapers, and the talk around the table is always about politics and "the matsav," or, the condition, referring to the latest and ongoing crisis with the Arabs. Clearly, the easiest job in this country is weatherman, at least during the spring and summer. Here's the weather forecast for the next few days (and every day during this season) from today's Jerusalem Post: a cartoon of a bright sun, and the following text: Today Sunny, Wednesday Sunny, Thursday Sunny. Can't wait to see Friday's forecast.     http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Worlds_Busiest_News_Cycle.html http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Worlds_Busiest_News_Cycle.html gary@jewishweek.org (Gary Rosenblatt) Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:45:00 CST Behind the Headlines Behind the Headlines: A Walk Through the Darkness       Jerusalem – In the Bible, Jews are commanded to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Temple three times a year, on each of the festivals of Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot – a tradition that was revived after Israel's victory in the Six Day War reunited the city of Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, at the site of the Temple. Based on the belief that the Torah was given at dawn, tens of thousands of people come to pray at the Wall on Shavuot morning just as darkness gives way to light, many having been up all night studying Torah, another custom of the holiday that seems particularly fitting for insomniacs. Not wanting to miss out on this experience, my wife and I set out at 4:20 a.m. on Monday from Emek Refaim, in the heart of the German Colony, to make the hilly, holy trek to the Old City. From the outset, we were enthralled by the vision of a steady stream of people walking quietly but purposefully in the cool night air. Many were teenagers, part of Bnei Akiva [religious Zionist] youth groups, in their white shirts and dark pants, but there were people of all ages, and we joined them for the half-hour walk. Men carried their tallit bags and prayer books, some people carried portable chairs on their backs [anticipating the two-hour prayer service], and just about everyone had water with them, since the walk back would be in the heat of the day. Along the way, we could not help thinking that we were retracing the footsteps of our ancestors thousands of years ago, and of the miracle of an Israel reborn in our time. And for all the divisions that plague Israeli society, the sight, on arrival in the plaza leading up to the Kotel, of many thousands of Jews here to share this experience was heartening, though it was clear that this was overwhelmingly an Orthodox crowd, from chasidim to haredim to the more modern. We had rarely seen the plaza so densely packed, with prayer services sprouting up every few yards, and the space between people quite limited. But there was little noise, considering the multitude. There was an air of dignity; people knew where they were, and why they had come. The words of the ancient prayers, calling for the rebuilding of Jerusalem and celebrating the festivals there, took on an added meaning during the service we joined, and we felt part of a tradition and people that seem to transcend history. But the memory most vivid for me is that purposeful, almost silent walk in the still of night, joining with so many others on the way to the Old City. It was a feeling of connectedness to those around us and to our ancestors as well, symbolizing the faith of generations who made their way through the darkness, driven by the belief that the dawn of their deliverance awaited them on the path ahead.     http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/walk_through_darkness.html http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/walk_through_darkness.html gary@jewishweek.org (Gary Rosenblatt) Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:38:00 CST Behind the Headlines Behind the Headlines:  Birthright Israel's Biggest Night       Jerusalem – I attended the biggest Mega-Event ever for Birthright Israel on Sunday night, with 7,500 screaming participants gathered at an outdoor ampitheater near here, and my ears are still ringing. The Mega-Events are the highlight and culmination of the ten-day free trips for 18-26 year olds from throughout the diaspora, bringing all of the current participants together for one special evening featuring theatrical productions that rival Broadway and the Academy Awards with a mixture of music, strobe lights, videos, choreographed dancing, fireworks and lots of kitsch. The crowd at the Latrun tank museum (the site of a major battle in the 1948 War of Independence) was pumped from the outset with uptempo Israeli music blaring, to get them in a celebratory mood. The scene looked like a European soccer match, with the various national groups cheering themselves hoarse, waving Israeli flags and doing the wave even before the program started. There were contingents from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France and India, and of course, the U.S., the biggest by far. Birthright officials expect 24,000 participants on trips this summer, and 42,000 in all this year, the biggest numbers ever, thanks in large part to a major infusion in funding from Las Vegas-based businessman and philanthropist Sheldon Adelson. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed the crowd and may have received the last enthusiastic reception of his tenure, given the view that his days in office are numbered. But you would have never known it from him or the crowd as he exhorted the young people to come back to Israel. "There is only one place in the world that is ours," Olmert said, "and this is our place. This is your home. There is no other home for you but this one." The audience cheered. Olmert personally thanked the mega-donors who helped make Birthright a reality, and presented awards onstage to Michael and Judy Steinhardt, Charles Bronfman, Lynn Schusterman, incoming Birthright chair Dan Och of New York, and several others. Then the entertainment began, hosted by popular Israeli TV host Michael HarPaz (Hebrew for Goldberg), who began his introduction in a thick Hebrew accent before looking up and proclaiming in perfect English, "who am I kidding, I'm from Detroit!" The next hour and a half was non-stop entertainment, with pop stars, elaborate stage productions, sing-a-longs (like "Adon Olam" and other Hebrew songs transliterated into English on giant screens so the Americans could join in), and a seemingly endless supply of fireworks, an Israeli favorite. The dramatic highlight: after a short film clip about a young Israeli soldier, Assaf Hershkowitz, from a canine unit who had to leave the Canadian group he was touring with (more than 30,000 Israeli soldiers have traveled with the 180,000 Birthright participants over the last eight years) to return to his unit the day before, a helicopter appeared in the night sky. It circled over the crowd, then appeared to land just behind the stage, and Assaf soon trotted onstage with his dog at his side as the crowd roared its approval. Asked by HarPaz if the dog, Vosko, did any tricks, Assaf answered, "well, he can find bombs." Over the top? Sure. And was it ironic that towards evening's end, HarPaz led the crowd in a heartfelt rendition of John Lennon's "Imagine," with everyone singing about an ideal world of no nations and no religion? Absolutely. But everyone was having too good a time to deconstruct the good feelings created by having so many thousands of young Jews together, celebrating Israel and their Jewishness. There are, no doubt, valid criticisms of the hedonistic aspects of the Birthright trips, and surely there could be more serious Jewish content infused in the tours. But there is no arguing with the fact that Birthright has been a huge success in attracting so many young people who may never have visited, or thought about, Israel had it not been for this bold venture. For one night, at least, there was a palpable sense of excitement and Jewish unity and pride in the cool night air of Latrun, and one can only hope that those good feelings will last a lifetime. http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Birthright_Mega_Event.html http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Birthright_Mega_Event.html gary@jewishweek.org (Gary Rosenblatt) Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:00:00 CST Behind the Headlines Behind the Headlines: Obama A Threat To Israel,  Mideast Expert Charges      Tel Aviv -- Judging from the views of Israeli academics at a panel Thursday afternoon, Israel has much to worry about if Barack Obama is elected president this fall. Barry Rubin, a well-known and respected Mideast expert and academic, told an audience today at a conference at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA) at Bar-Ilan University here that an Obama victory would precipitate "the most dangerous crisis facing the world." After citing his own credentials as a former Washingtonian who worked for the campaigns of numerous Democratic presidential candidates, going back to John Kennedy in 1960, Rubin described Obama as "not the candidate of the [moderate] Arab states, but the candidate of the Islamists, whether he knows it or not. "If elected, he will be the most anti-Israel president in American history," asserted Rubin, who is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center at IDC, the Interdisciplinary Center of Herzliya, and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. He said that while Obama speaks of his willingness to meet with autocratic leaders of countries like Iran and Syria, he only uses the carrot half of the carrot/stick equation. "He never mentions what he would do if the talks fail, and he doesn't talk about the need for the U.S. to show its strength." Rubin predicted that Obama would choose Robert Malley, a former State Department official who criticized Israel for its role in the failure of the Camp David peace talks in 2000, to be director of policy planning, if elected. And Rubin said it was no accident that Obama's recent reference to the Israel-Palestinian conflict as "a constant sore" was the same phrase Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University,  has used in an article in The Nation. Another Israeli panelist on Thursday, Eytan Gilboa of the sponsoring BESA Center, was not as critical as Rubin. But he said that Obama has the American Arab vote "in his pocket" and that his lack of experience and seeming eagerness to talk through any problem were "worrisome" traits. The other two panelists were Robert Lieber of Georgetown University and me. Lieber said Obama is not anti-Israel and indeed appears supportive of the Jewish state. But he said the Illinois senator would face a serious problem if, as president, he tries to reason with American and Israeli enemies like Iran, whose leaders have proven intractable for decades. "It won't get him very far," said Lieber, who also spoke of Obama's inexperience, predicting that he would be tested early on by U.S. adversaries. In my presentation, I said there was "a good deal of discomfort and unease" with Obama among American Jews, particularly those over 40, and that it was difficult to tell how much was based on his policies or lack of experience, how much on his association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and how much on race, among other factors. The two-day conference theme was "Whither American Zionism?" But most of the presentations dealt with the past, with several speakers, including former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens, pointing out that the movement's golden years were its early ones, in the first two decades of the 20th century. The movement had "an auspicious start," noted Arens, who cited early leaders like Justice Louis Brandeis and Justice Felix Frankfurter. "But it didn't live up to expectations," he said, citing the low figures of American aliyah. Large-scale aliyah from the U.S. "could have made all the difference," Arens said, in Israel's struggles with its Arab neighbors. http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Obama_Threat_to_Israel_Expert_Charges.html http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Obama_Threat_to_Israel_Expert_Charges.html gary@jewishweek.org (Gary Rosenblatt) Fri, 30 May 2008 08:43:00 CST Behind the Headlines Behind the Headlines: Israel And The Press - An Ongoing Battle     Some things never change. Taking part in a panel the other night at the JCC in Manhattan on "Israel, The Jews and The Press: Exploding the Myths," my colleagues -- Clyde Haberman of the New York Times and Sam Freedman of the Columbia Journalism School and the Times -- and I felt like we were in a time warp. The questions from the overflow audience of about 100 people began with a request for a response to a 1992 NPR report that appeared to be biased against Israel, and included a complaint about Peter Jennings, the ABC-TV correspondent and anchor who the questioner referred to as "Peter of Arabia." Jennings died almost three years ago. It's not surprising that people have long memories when it comes to slights, whether it be in their personal lives or in reading, watching or listening to media reports, especially when it comes to caring Jews following the Mideast conflict. I understand that, and often share the frustration of reading a report that is unbalanced, lacking in perspective or just plain uninformed. But we also have to realize that the Mideast narrative has changed over the years, and the media has changed with it. When Israel won the 1967 war, it was the darling of the mainstream press. But after the Yom Kippur War six years later and the resulting oil shortage, Israel was transformed from David to Goliath, the powerful military presence in the Mideast oppressing helpless Palestinians. Israel of the last 25 years is known for enduring two intifadas, the assassination of a prime minister, and widespread charges of corruption in its various governments - not exactly inspiring events. It's also, of course, the country that has led the way in medical, agricultural, scientific and economic advances despite being under almost constant attack from those who would prefer it destroyed. Israel's story, and message, are complicated. It sees itself as victim, a tiny democratic state surrounded by tens of millions of Arabs who oppose its very existence. But others see Israel as a powerful state still keeping Palestinians from independence. There is no doubt that the mainstream media is so focused on symmetry and "fairness" in telling the story of the Mideast conflict that it fails to point out the context, most notably that Israeli leaders (and citizens) from left to right now welcome a Palestinian state, while Palestinian leaders across the board are unwilling or unable to meet the minimum requirement for a peace deal: stopping the violence. Or that Palestinians target Israeli civilians on purpose while casualties inflicted by Israeli soldiers on Palestinian civilians are the unintended result of firing on militants who purposefully place themselves in the midst of innocents. But on balance, American mainstream reporters are doing their best at telling a complex and highly charged story, and we have to recognize our own biases and unrealistic expectations of having every Mideast story reinforce our own point of view. That was the message our panel tried to convey the other night, but I'm not at all certain we changed anyone's mind.   http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Israel_and_the_press.html http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Israel_and_the_press.html gary@jewishweek.org (Gary Rosenblatt) Sat, 17 May 2008 19:53:00 CST Behind the Headlines Behind the Headlines: The Great Yeshiva `Riot' Of `68     Forty years ago this spring, Columbia University was rocked by student riots, and Yeshiva University, where I was a senior, was the scene of a major water fight. And therein lies a tale. Keep in mind that the spring of 1968 was one of the most tumultuous times in modern American history, with the Vietnam war raging, the assassination of Martin Luther King in April and subsequent riots across the country, and only two months later, the murder of Sen. Bobby Kennedy moments after he won the California primary for the Democratic presidential nomination. One sensed that the violent events taking place, less than five years after President Kennedy's assassination, were changing the course of American history, putting the nation on a downward spiral. The student riots at Columbia that spring ostensibly were in protest of a university housing plan that would displace poor residents in the Morning Side Heights neighborhood. But they were more about anger over Vietnam, and the assertion of an emerging sex, drugs and rock and roll attitude among young people deeply suspicious of the Establishment. Caught up in the atmosphere of the times, a group of Yeshiva seniors took the subway down to Columbia several warm afternoons to participate vicariously in the rebellious mood by watching the students screaming at the cops, calling them "pigs" and trying to provoke a violent response. Despite the less than 60 blocks that separated them, the Columbia and YU campuses were really light years apart. One was at the cutting edge of revolution; one was framed by Talmudic study steeped in disputes of centuries past. So the edginess of the times, compounded by final exams, played out in a major water fight in the main dorm one spring night at YU, with scores of students in their swim trunks heaving large cans of water on each other, and sometimes out the window onto Amsterdam Avenue. Soon, the fire department arrived, with firemen wading through the puddles in the dorm halls, axes at the ready, responding to calls from neighbors. Surveying the scene, though, they were good-natured about the mess, and didn't stay long. Hours later, well after midnight, two student activists from Columbia's SDS chapter, appeared at my dorm room. SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) was the radical group behind the Columbia protests, and it seems they had received word that, in their memorable words to my roommate and me, "Yeshiva was being liberated." They said they were there to help us plan a takeover of the president's office. Too embarrassed to explain that the commotion at YU was a water fight, not a student protest - and that any prospective rebellion at YU would have been quelled by a rabbinic scholar announcing that such acts were halachically not permissible, or just not right -- we listened as they urged us to secure maps of the administrative buildings and fortify ourselves for a long stay. We nodded, scribbled notes, thanked them for their advice, and finally were rid of them, raising our fists to meet theirs in solidarity. Then we had a good laugh before going back to sleep before another day of Talmud study and exams.   http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Great_Yeshiva_Riot_of_1968.html http://blog.thejewishweek.com/post/Great_Yeshiva_Riot_of_1968.html jdbesser@gmail.com (James Besser) Mon, 28 Apr 2008 06:05:00 CST Behind the Headlines