Sunday, October 19, 2014

The New York Times can't get its story straight: anti-Semitism in Germany

I shelved this article planning to write a commentary on it today but was glad to see the folks at Mondoweiss beat me to it.  It is really amazing: "Three weeks ago the New York Times stunned its readers with a frontpage story proclaiming, “Europe’s Anti-Semitism Comes out of the Shadows.” From the immigrant enclaves of the Parisian suburbs to the drizzly bureaucratic city of Brussels to the industrial heartland of Germany, Europe’s old demon returned this summer. The story contained numerous references to German anti-Semitism. “Gas the Jews!” yelled marchers at a pro-Palestinian protest in Germany, the story said. And a long section on “Anxiety in Germany” included this lesson from an attempted firebombing of a synagogue in Wupperthal: “For Jews in Germany, especially for us, this has very, very deep meaning,” said Artour Gourari, a local businessman and synagogue member. “Synagogues are burning again in Germany in the night.” OK, now fasten your neckbolts tight. Because today the New York Times has a story, on an inside page, about Jews leaving Israel for… Germany: “In Exodus From Israel to Germany, a Young Nation’s Fissures Show.” Germany sure seems like a different place than the last article". 

PS Let me give some background: many of the Western correspondents of US papers are lazy and often they do stories that were previously done in the Economist magazine.  This is one of them. I mean, the second story in the Times about Israeli leaving for Germany.