A step too far, and a paper-thin apology

HOWARD FELDMAN

The work was hardly original. A similar cartoon appeared in Germany in the 1920s. Only then it was Winston Churchill being led by a haredi looking Jew.

It took two days for the New York Times to acknowledge that the publication was in poor judgement, and that it contained anti-Semitic tropes. It took another day for it to apologise. Whether it would have done so if the so-called Jewish symbols of the Star of David and the yarmulke were removed is an interesting question. Then, it might have relied on the defence that it was a comment on Israel and not on Jews. Unfortunately, the clumsiness of the caricature left it very little wiggle room, and it had little option but to admit defeat.

In essence, the publication went a step too far. Especially since on the same day that it decided to acknowledge that the cartoon was anti-Semitic, a 19-year-old walked into a shul outside San Diego with the express intention of killing as many Jews as possible. Its timing couldn’t have been worse.

Worth interrogating is the reaction to this. Whereas almost everyone condemned it, there were a few I came across who failed to be offended by it. One Jewish social-media user (who often expresses disdain for Trump and Netanyahu) saw it more as a comment about the personalities and the characters being depicted than as a metaphor about Jews leading a lame, blinded America. Whereas he is fully entitled to choose to see it this way, I believe he is mistaken, as most readers will fail to make the distinction. As was the case in Germany with the depiction of Churchill being led.

In the course of my public activity and as a commentator on these types of issues, I am often concerned by our reaction. These events validate our fear and anxiety in the sense that they “prove” what we have been saying all along. So, in the case of the New York Times, which has been accused of being no friend to Jews or Israel, the publication of the cartoon is vindication and proof of what we have been feeling all along. It’s confirmation bias in that no matter how many other “balanced” articles might have been published, this one corroborates our thesis.

This is not to suggest that this cartoon was not racist, and it is not to suggest that the New York Times doesn’t engage in anti-Israel rhetoric on an ongoing basis, but we do need to temper our response.

In conversation on this issue with David Harris of the Clarion Project (an organisation that monitors global terror), he expressed that as a journalist for some years, the one thing he knew for certain was that a newspaper would not respond well by being lambasted and accused of anti-Semitism. He urged readers to engage (in this case) with the New York Times, but not spew hatred and accusation. Correspondence in that vein would just entrench negative or anti-Semitic feelings. And whereas I am not certain that I am comfortable with victim blaming, the adult part of my brain does hear what he is saying.

What is clear is that anti-Semitism has become mainstream. The lines are vague, and we can expect to see more of it as the limits are tested. The “artist” at the New York Times produced a piece that fell on the wrong side of acceptability. For now. And so, the paper apologised. This time.

It all reminds me of American Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who when asked to define the threshold test for obscenity, simply responded that although it was not easy to do, “I know it when I see it.”