Rabbi Pruzansky's Blog

This is, I hope, my last word on this subject. I confess that I expected better. I expected that Gary Rosenblatt and the Jewish Week would do what is honorable and decent, a sign of integrity, and what should be typical among Jews with even faint aspirations for ethical goodness: retract and apologize for printing a demonstrable lie, to wit: that I resigned as Rosh Bet Din in Bergen County because the RCA appointed women to a committee to review the standards and practices for conversion and to minimize the potential for future abuses. But rather than apologize, the Jewish Week utilized two standard journalistic gimmicks, both of which reflect poorly on the publisher and his staff.

The first gimmick involved just dropping the lie from subsequent news accounts. No clarification, no correction, no retraction and, of course, no apology. The lie was just dropped, lifted from the printed page as precipitously as it was first placed there. To the unsuspecting or casual reader, it is as if it never took place. But, of course, the lie remains in cyberspace, and especially in the accounts of other newspapers that re-printed it before it was summarily dropped. To the Jewish Week way of thinking, apparently, dropping a lie is the same as retracting it. In the real world where normal people live and interact, it is not. One who wrongly insults another person does not make amends for the insult by abstaining from its repetition.
The second gimmick – oh, how they must have enjoyed this one! – was accusing me of exploiting the Holocaust by, in their words, comparing the publisher to a Nazi and the paper to an infamous Nazi propaganda vehicle. Of course, as several astute readers pointed out with elaboration, I did no such thing. Sadly, not every reader is as astute, and many – apparently including some of my colleagues – suffer from reading comprehension issues. (Granted, any mention of anything Holocaust-related often causes people’s rational faculties to shut down and their emotional sensitivities to shift into overdrive.)
All I did was respond in kind to a sleazy journalistic trick that they attempted to use on me. The trick? Conflating “comparison” with “commonality.” It goes like this: the statement, “Gary Rosenblatt has two eyes and two feet, just like Genghis Khan” is a true statement. It is not a comparison of those two individuals, but an assertion of what they have “in common.” It is no indication at all that the two men are essentially alike – values, personality, temperament, world-view, etc. – but the linkage of the two is designed to arouse in the mind of the reader an  unfavorable image.
This is the game that the Jewish Weak played with me (I imagine it does with other targets as well). Writing about me, they decided to drop in a couple of sentences that indicated that I served on the Executive Committee of the RCA (a true statement) along with (the gratuitous expression of commonality) a certain DC colleague who has since been arrested for voyeurism. In their choice phrase, I “shared company” with him on the RCA. Did they “compare” me to him? Not really. They just wanted to awaken in the mind of the reader the unfortunate association on the RCA between him (alleged miscreant) and me (their new target).
Obviously, dozens of other rabbis, perhaps as many as 100, at one time or another “shared company” with the alleged offender. Not as obviously, some RCA rabbis had a much closer relationship with him than I did and failed to rein him in when made aware of his past misconduct. But no matter: what was important to this tabloid was to plant the thought in the mind of the reader that bad guy (him)=bad guy (me) without actually saying that.
Well, if they wanted to play the game of commonality v. comparison, then I suggested they should try this on for size: both Gary Rosenblatt and Julius Streicher publish[ed] newspapers. Both use[d] ink on paper. Both were preoccupied with Jews. Etc. Is that a comparison? Of course not. It is just underscoring the commonalities that exist between the two – in non-essential matters – in order to plant a negative image in the mind of the reader.
Having exposed the cheap trick that they used, the publisher soared into high dudgeon and accused me of “exploiting the Holocaust.” That was certainly a masterful way of changing the topic away from his lies, and attempting to portray himself as victim rather than as victimizer. I did remove the phrase from my comment in deference to an esteemed colleague who is exquisitely sensitive to any Holocaust reference, not that it did me any good. But the focus wasn’t on the Holocaust – but on journalism. I could’ve provided examples of “yellow journalism” and Hearst, Pulitzer and the rest, but that allusion would have been lost on most people.

It is true that whenever the Holocaust is referred to at all, any subtlety is completely lost in the process. It is indeed unpleasant to find one’s name gratuitously linked in the same sentence with a Nazi, as it is unpleasant to find one’s name gratuitously linked in the same sentence with an accused voyeur. That was my point! Yet, the publisher acts as if it was some innocent mistake on his part, or something that lent itself to different meanings, and something that offended me and would not have offended another person.
It is not surprising that he resented having his sordid tactics used against him, and his only response – rather than concede the use of the dastardly ploy – was to cry “Holocaust.”
So allow me to state unequivocally that Gary Rosenblatt is not a Nazi, and the Jewish Week is not Der Sturmer. The Jewish Week is adept at a modern form of yellow journalism, in which the use of commonality as comparison is rampant, in which lies are wantonly published and in which targets – especially Orthodox Rabbis, Orthodox Jews and the Holy Torah – are routinely assailed. Sadly, such drivel has its audience.
I am among the legion of Jews who ordinarily pay absolutely no attention to the Jewish Week. As such, I never realized the extent to which this paper and its publisher have tormented Rabbis, trampled Orthodoxy, and provided a forum for hatred of Torah (as well the liberal politics that passes in some circles for Torah). I also never realized the extent of the disdain and contempt with which the Jewish Week and its publisher are held in this corner of the Torah world.
Now that the attempt is being made to shift the story away from the lies they print to – Rosenblatt- shorthand – “he called me a Nazi” (which, obviously, I did not), I take this opportunity to correct the record, or to make the record. Some will say that I should just ignore them and their lies. But the days are long gone when I will let someone else define me, depict me falsely in the public domain, or otherwise defame me without response. That mistake I made in the 1990’s, and with this same “news” paper, among others.
I should not leave off the hook the reporter who printed the original set of lies – several, not just one. One would think that a reporter named Dreyfus would be sensitized to the dangers inherent in lodging false accusations against innocent Jews. I guess not. (What amused me was the characterization of my emotional state that led to my original decision. To the Jewish Week, I was “angered” by the RCA decision; to one cellar-dweller, I was “enraged” by their decision. What’s next? Livid? Foaming at the mouth? Needed to be restrained by a strait-jacket? Fabricating someone’s emotional state is just another insidious journalistic technique to paint the story in line with their agenda. I haven’t felt even a twinge of anger. Angry? Why would I be angry?)
For the record, and at the risk of redundancy, I did not call Gary Rosenblatt a Nazi nor did I compare his paper to Der Sturmer. He is not and it is not. I simply pointed out commonalities that do not reflect the true essence of either – i.e., exactly what he did to me by linking me to an accused voyeur. I have exactly the same amount of regret for doing so that he does for doing it to me.  I did it to point out to him the device that he used against me – and, for all I know, against others as well: linkage through innuendo, commonality as comparison.
Gary Rosenblatt is not a Nazi, nor a Communist, nor a Fascist. But until he retracts and apologizes for the lies he wrote about me, he remains a Liar.
And that is the last word. Anticipating no apology, we move on.

(This was originally entitled “Media Lies.” As much as I hate mentioning names – it personalizes the matter when it is far better just to discuss the issues – I am responding to the Jewish Week’s latest attack on me, an obvious attempt to evade responsibility for the lies they published by cloaking themselves in the mantle of the Holocaust. If they do apologize eventually, I will be delighted to note it, and return to weightier matters. – RSP)

The Jerusalem Post earlier this week picked up the lie originally published in the NY Jewish Week – “US Rabbi Leaves Conversion Court over Women’s Role” – proving once again truth of Mark Twain’s adage that “a lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” I never realized how literal that statement was.

The contention of the NY Jewish Week that I stepped down to protest the formation by the RCA of a mixed gender conversion committee was a lie, is a lie and will remain a lie. Even worse, it was published and retained by them as a conscious, calculated and intentional lie. They were informed immediately after they published the lie that it was a lie. Immediately. Not a day later or a week later. Immediately. The publisher then doubled down and compounded his lies with more lies.

 A number of Jewish community leaders have appealed to the publisher to retract and apologize – or at least retract – knowing, as they do, that the newspapers’ assertion is a complete lie. To date, the publisher has refused to retract, clarify, apologize or in any way mitigate the propagation of the lie that his reporter fabricated and that he disseminated. He has attempted to divert attention for his misdeeds by playing word games. Nice try at changing the topic. So much for the great ethics of the great ethicists who sit in judgment of everyone else.

You can judge for yourselves, for it is on this paragraph that the lie was based, a paragraph that I wrote last week:

“The GPS system has always had its detractors, inside and outside the RCA, and those detractors are exploiting this crisis to change the system. (Those who have obsessively focused on the Rabbanut angle always missed the point, and Israel is now dealing with its own conversion crisis with issues regarding standards that are not dissimilar to ours.) Thus, the RCA has just appointed a committee “that will review its current Geirus Protocol and Standards (GPS) conversion process and suggest safeguards against possible abuses.” The committee consists of six men and five women, bolstering the trend on the Orthodox left to create quasi-rabbinical functions for women. Is there a role for women to play in “suggest[ing] safeguards against possible abuse”? Probably, although it really is self-understood. But what role can they play in “review[ing]” the GPS conversion process? That is halacha, minhag, psak – a purely rabbinical role.

     There are members of the committee who have never liked the GPS guidelines, and do not follow them. There are very few members of the committee who were part of the original committee, which entirely consisted of Rabbis. Of course, they will have to water down the standards – they’ll call it a “revision” and an “improvement” – but I fear we will not be far from the old days of quickie conversions with little true commitment. That, by the way, still happens, and a few RCA rabbis acting outside the GPS system still perform those.

I will be delighted to be proven wrong. But I don’t think I will be, and therefore it is time to get out. I do not wish to be coerced to apply standards and guidelines that, to my thinking, may not comport with the requirements of Torah, and the makeup of the committee will almost ensure that outcome, however it is presented.”

I noted that this was an attempt to bolster the trend on the Orthodox left to create quasi-rabbinical roles for women. Did I suggest or even hint that the appointment of women to the committee was a reason to resign? Not in the least. I even noted that women “probably” have a role to play in suggesting safeguards against abuse – but not in formulating conversion standards or practices. It is the committee itself that troubles me – not the presence of women on the committee – an exercise more in public relations than in substance. There are men whose presence on the committee troubled me, as their hostility to the GPS system is well known. That is the “makeup” of the committee to which I referred.

Was there even an insinuation, an allusion, or a reference to the presence of women on the committee that would induce me to resign? Not in the slightest. We have women on our shul board and a woman Vice-President. I interact with professional and intelligent women all the time; I don’t live in a cave or in the 16^th century (not that there’s anything wrong with the 16^th century, or the modern cave). The Jewish Week is simply engaging in character assassination, trying to marginalize my voice (notwithstanding that to some, the suggestion that I resigned because of the presence of women made me a hero, not a villain). But if I am to be a hero to some, then at least let it be for some principle I espoused, value that I upheld or action that I performed that achieved some good. Not for a lie.

It was quite clear to any reader – except the willfully dishonest ones – that my reasons for resigning related to my sense that the GPS standards would change – in one form or another – and to escape the culture of negativity, suspicion and distrust with which the conversion process has been invested. It had absolutely nothing to do with women – on the committee, off the committee, or anywhere else. That was an intentional and malicious fabrication. There is simply no way that the words that I wrote could be interpreted to mean what they claimed it meant.

Indeed, insiders knew of my decision a week before I even knew a committee was being formed, and attempted to talk me out of it. One can agree or disagree with the formation of the RCA committee, its composition or its mandate – but no honest person can assert that it was the presence of women that led to my decision. It was simply not in my words or in my thought process. The attempt to make that the story is simply shameful, reprehensible and dishonorable. And the publisher still refuses to apologize or retract. This is not a misunderstanding or a few words taken out of context. This is a disgraceful lie.

Now, why would a journalist blatantly print lies and falsehoods? I hesitate to speculate. Obviously, recent events have reminded us that we never fully know what kind of demons lurk within human beings, demons that they carry with them (perhaps from childhood) and lead them into all sorts of mischief. One astute observer commented, about the publisher: “The man never met a feminist, especially a so-called “orthodox” one he hasn’t tripped over his shoes running to worship. Likewise, he’s never met an orthodox rabbi, especially ones that ignore him, that he hasn’t tried to vilify.”

     The press has tremendous power. Despite its low standing with the public, and the obvious credibility issues some journalists have, people have a tendency to believe something simply because it is in print. (The Rambam mentions such a phenomenon in the Guide to the Perplexed, in reference to ancient writings.) Obviously, in this particular case, the publisher and his staff are pushing an agenda, trying to ensure that a very vocal interest group maintains its pressure on the RCA and trying – for years already – to belittle, disparage and weaken the rabbinate as an institution. They are actively engaged in trying to remake the Jewish world by weakening observance, diluting Jewish identity, and mocking true commitment. It really is the “Jewish Weak.”

It is not just the highlighting of rabbinical scandals, especially involving Orthodox rabbis. That is a legitimate role, even if it can also be abused. More troubling is the ignoring of some rabbinical scandals because they involved favored rabbis, those who toe the ideological line of the publisher or have otherwise earned his favor. Then, the “public interest” in exposing malfeasance takes a back seat to the “public interest” – as he sees it – in promoting a particular agenda. That is dishonest.

None of this is new nor should it be shocking. In the most infamous example of the last decade in just a slightly different context, Israeli journalists admitted to protecting PM Ariel Sharon “like an etrog” (their term) from the corruption and bribery scandals that engulfed him during his tenure in office so that he would be able to expel Jews from Gaza and destroy the settlements there – a goal of the Israeli left (and the American Jewish left, including the Jewish Week) since those settlements were built. Fortunately, Gaza has been quiet since the expulsion in 2005 and there have been no harmful ramifications of that expulsion…  A right-wing prime minister accused of the same crimes would have been hounded out of office, as we see the left consistently pesters PM Netanyahu over nonsense, especially things involving his wife. The same process occurred with Ehud Olmert – although it was the relentless reporting of a right-wing journalist that eventually led to his downfall, arrest, conviction and pending prison sentence, and after decades of corrupt behavior.

Sadly, the day has long passed when journalists just report the news. Now, they think they are the news, they make the news, and sometimes – as in my case – they just make up the news. And they can do that – not, of course, according to the Torah, which is grossly violated, but according to the US Supreme Court in NY Times v. Sullivan (my analysis can be heard here, http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/765992/Rabbi_Steven_Pruzansky/THE_LAW_AND_THE_LAW:_The_New_York_Times_v_Sullivan:_Libel_Law,_and_the_Torah’s_View_of_Journalism‘), which essentially permits journalists to defame public figures as long as they don’t do it with “malice.” And go prove that there is malice.

Of course, I hesitate to castigate all journalists just because of the sins of one; they are not rabbis after all, who are held to that standard… They are not all guilty of something venal just because one is. They don’t all have to be suspects just because one is. Nah, that’s just for rabbis…

Once again, I call on the Jewish Week to retract and apologize. They can then try to undo the harm that they have attempted to cause me – collect all the feathers blowing in the wind, in the famous parable – by publicizing their retraction, informing the Jerusalem Post and other outlets that unknowingly disseminated their lies. And if they don’t, they don’t. Dante placed in the Ninth Circle of Purgatory those people who were guilty of treachery born of pride, i.e., arrogance. (The Eighth Circle consists of those guilty of fraud; I wonder who decides when there are several options…) Perhaps dishonest journalists just do not want the denizens of Dante’s Ninth Circle of Purgatory to be lonely. Sweet, sensitive types, obviously.

Many good Jews do not read the NY Jewish Week, being quite familiar with the animus of some of its staff to Torah Judaism. Other good Jews who would not consider bringing treif food into their homes should really ask themselves on what grounds they justify bringing treif newspapers into their homes, do they really want to desecrate their Shabbat with such publications – and why should they patronize the advertisers who enrich the purveyors of prevarications, fomenters of falsehoods and haters of holiness?

People can agree or disagree with me. That is fine, indeed welcome. I enjoy the exchanges and it often spurs public debate in a healthy direction. But people with integrity do not fabricate assertions and use them to disparage their ideological opponents. We shall soon learn if there is even a shred of integrity at the NY Jewish Week. Gary, apologize and retract. Don’t hide behind diversions, word games or excuses.

     At the risk of boring the reader, and the double risk of redundancy, here’s the link to the Link, and an interview from this week:  http://jewishlinkbc.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5388%3Arabbi-pruzansky-responds-why-i-stepped-down-from-the-rcbc-bet-din&catid=150%3Anews&Itemid=562.

[Update: Just a short time ago, the hapless Jewish Week sort of “regret” linking me with the DC rabbi accused of a number of crimes, claiming  that they did not intend to suggest that I was connected to his activities. Obviously, then, the reference  was just gratuitous and an attempt to further malign me, but the publisher then claimed that we were linked in an “unsuccessful challenge” to the RCA slate of officers running in 2012.

Can’t the Jewish Week get anything right? I, and a dozen or so others, ran independently as petition candidates for various RCA offices in 2012.

But I won my election, and currently serve on the Executive Committee. That is hardly what one would call an “unsuccessful challenge,” except in Jewish Week speak. This partial apology was offered in the context of changing the topic – as corrupt journalists do so well – accusing me of comparing the Jewish Week and its publisher to the infamous Der Sturmer and its publisher, Julius Streicher, what they termed an “outrageous comparison.” Heaven forfend! There is no comparison and I would never make such a comparison, any more than they were comparing me to my DC colleague. One can note what they have in common – they are both newspapers – without comparing them. There is no comparison! I certainly regret if they misconstrued my comment and anyone offended took offense, even those who do not mind routinely causing offense to others.

Now, will the Jewish Week apologize and retract for disseminating the false propaganda that I resigned from the local Bet Din in order to protest the inclusion of women on the RCA Committee, or will they continue to hide and obfuscate behind linguistic smokescreens and pitiable diversions?

-RSP

It was twenty years ago this week that the estimable Charles Krauthammer made the following observation. There are certain norms that are routinely followed in advertising. An airline – say, United – will not urge its services on passengers by asserting that another airline, say, US Air – has a terrible record of crashes. A soap company will not say another company’s soap stinks, and Coke does not claim that Pepsi rots your teeth. It is rare and extraordinary for another company to boost its product by denigrating the opposition.
The exception is politics, where the norm in political advertising is to allege that the opponent is a liar, scoundrel, thief, swindler and bum. Often, campaign ads will not even mention the candidate it favors (except in a tagline at the very end, required by regulation); the focus is on disparaging and belittling the opposition. It is as if it is more important to lambaste one’s opponent for sins real and imagined that it is to extol one’s own virtues or policies.
Why is this done? For two reasons.
It is done because, unlike the airlines, the soap and soda companies, or anyone selling a product, the politicians usually want to suppress the vote. Each politician strives to bring out his (or her) base to vote, and they know they cannot prevent the opponent’s base from voting. The hard core on each side is always mobilized. But most of the electorate is not hard core; perhaps less than half are even remotely interested. So each politician endeavors to discourage the opponent’s soft base (those who generally like his policies but are not overly enthusiastic about politics) from voting, and that is done by inducing a sentiment of “a pox on all your houses”.
The airlines are trying to get you to fly, like the soda companies want you to drink soda. If you are a customer – even of another brand – you are potentially a customer of their brand. So they do not denigrate the industry or goad the consumer in avoiding whatever product their industry sells.         Politicians are the opposite; they wish to incite disgust, fatigue, malaise and discontent in the electorate – so decent people will stay home and not vote, and then completely ignore what they do while they are in office. The negative campaigning appeals to the base and sours everyone else. Obviously, whatever they say in public, a politician would rather have you not vote than vote for the opposition. So they seek to bring out the committed voter (to them) and have the doubtful voter find something else to do on Election Day.
And it is done because it works. There is a name for a politician who, in today’s environment, runs a clean campaign and does not go negative. He is known in the trade as an “ex-politician.” He loses. And that is the fault of the American people.
The United States might be polarized, except that relatively few people are engaged in the polarization. Most don’t care. The negative tactics work so well that Obama won re-election by claiming that Romney was an ogre, more or less, a heartless capitalist, murderer of old women, stealer of cancer medication, and fomenter of wars. And Obama paid a price for that successful campaign, not that he cares: Obama is the second president in history – the first since James Madison in 1812, exactly two centuries ago! – to win a second term with a lower percentage of the vote than he won for his first term and a lower total in real numbers (about 4,000,000 votes fewer in 2012 than he recorded in 2008). The plan worked to perfection: his base came out, and people who were naturally inclined to Romney but not fervent were essentially dissuaded from voting, because who wants to drive to the polls and vote for the devil?
It does not even matter that so many of the commercials contain claims that are demonstrably false. All that is necessary is to create an impression of venality, criminality, indifference or hostility toward one or another segment of the population, and that impression lingers enough to dishearten the interested but not passionate voter. For sure, this tactic is bi-partisan, but it has been perfected by the Democrats with their tired litany of wars on…women, children, the elderly, the poor, blacks, etc.
It actually is a war on our intelligence, and quite a successful one at that.
The war on women takes two forms: the hoary myth of interference with a woman’s body by the bad Republicans, and the canard of “unequal pay for equal work” which is more slogan than reality. In one Virginia campaign, the politician who did not support free contraception (i.e., free to the recipient, but a charge to all taxpayers) was described by his opponent as “evil.” Evil? Can’t one disagree with the scope of government without being labeled “evil”? (That word is not usually found in advertising. How would the consumer respond to this? “Four out of five dentists surveyed recommend (say) Colgate. The fifth is an evil sadist.” Unthinkable, except in politics.)
No one has yet to explain to me the following: if women earn 77% of a man’s salary for doing the same work, why would anyone hire a man? As an employer or business owner, I would love to shrink my payroll by 23% without lifting a finger and getting the same value out of my employees. The answer is that, of course, the claim is absurd. There is no such thing as “equal pay” because there is no such thing as “equal work.” Such comparisons never factor in seniority, experience, hours worked, time off for family considerations, ability and production. Comparing the salaries of male lawyers to female lawyers, with no other considerations, makes as much sense as comparing the salaries of NBA players to those in the WNBA. Who do you think is paid more, and why? (The NBA players, because they generate more revenue, as if you didn’t know.)
And there is a “war” on children, because we all know that children do not need two parents in the home but they do need big government to take care of them. And what was the war on the elderly? Who remembers, but Obama’s cuts to Medicare have harshly impacted seniors, and naturally blamed on the Republicans. And the poor don’t need jobs, but handouts. And when all else fails, play the race card, as in Joe Biden, August 14, 2012, to a black audience: Romney’s policies will put “you all back in chains;” or, oppose voter ID verification because, like, no one has an ID today, they are very hard to get, and it does prevent the dead from voting once and the living from voting twice. As in Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) of Louisiana, claiming just the other day that she and the President are unpopular because of sex and race, respectively. Sure; there is no other reason imaginable.
Sadly, these tactics do work. These phony “wars” are successful, so successful that real wars – such as a “war on Muslim terror” – are unnecessary and do not exist in the Obama lexicon. For sure, if you have nothing else, then negative is the only option; hence the plethora of “wars” to be trotted out every election cycle. And certainly the Democrat cause is suffering; their Congressional candidates are so completely avoiding President Obama than one half-suspects he has come down with the Ebola virus.
I wish I could say that I would never vote for a candidate who runs negative advertising, but that is tantamount to saying that I will never vote. American society is not in a healthy state, right now, even recognizing that campaigns were even dirtier in the past. It is just that today, the dirt is so much more pervasive. Perhaps a reader can recall the last political campaign that was run without rancor, bitterness, meanness and malice. I don’t (not counting uncontested elections, where even there, the only candidate sometimes runs negative ads anyway).
One other point should be made. I am weary of candidates who will “fight” for me. Don’t fight anyone. Just do your job, which involves ensuring the country is safe and secure, entrepreneurs are allowed to pursue their dreams, taxes are kept to a bare minimum, a safety net is provided for the downtrodden, and government otherwise leaves me alone as much as possible.
Hey, that would make a great platform for an honest and humble politician.