B’H Friends, As of this writing (which began last night and is continuing now at 2:30 p.m.) conflicting reports about the fate of the hostages in the Kosher Supermarket in Paris continue to surface. We pray that the reports of four being wounded to be the accurate one. It is a dark day for our people –once again the victims of what the French President Holland has described as an anti-Semitic attack. With such darkness rearing its ugly ahead yet again, please do your part to counter it with light and light Shabbat candles tonight by 5:27 P.M. and pray for the victims and their families). On Jews and Journalism Shortly after the fall of communism, a Russian patron of a local café, orders a tea and a “Pravda”. Pravda was the communist newspaper. The waiter says to him; “nito Pravda” there is no Pravda (as the paper was now defunct. The next day he sits himself down in the café and again orders a tea and a “Pravda”. Again the waiter tells him that there is no Pravda anymore. After the same request was made on the third day, the waiter lost his cool at the patron “why do you keep asking for a Pravda, when I tell you every day that there is none?”! “Ah’ says the patron “I cannot tell what music it is to my ears to hear “nito Pravda”! A free press is one of the basic expressions of a free society. In Paris this week, it came under assault with the violent murders of twelve innocent journalists. Why is a free press such a basic component of a free and democratic society? There are a number of answers to that: 1. it prevents tyranny. 2. It gives a voice for the people to be heard. 3. It allows for the exchange of different ideas, ideologies, perspectives, and views. As self- evident as all the above may be to citizen of the free world, does it resonate as readily for a religious person who believes in an absolute truth? Arguably a free press is the antithesis of religious doctrine; it’s relativism versus absolutism. A fundamental and foundational tenant of Judaism is the infallible Divine Authorship and truth of Torah. What then is a Jew to make of the free press, where nothing is sacred and all is subject to analysis, opinion, and in many instances ridicule and satire? This question is now being hotly debated from the opposite spectrum as well, as journalists and editors are asking themselves how far can you go with the freedom of press? Is it ok to be offensive? To be sure, any piece of journalism is likely to be offensive to someone. But clearly there are more subtle and more overt forms of offensive journalism. To be equally sure, nothing can possibly be offensive enough to justify the heinous acts of terror perpetrated by Islamic terrorists this week in Paris. Still the question the press needs to ask itself is; just because I can be offensive ought I to be? And the question the religionist must ask himself is; does the fact the press may espouse views that do not fit into my religious worldview or are even offensive to them, mean that I must reject the free press? Clearly the answer to the former is that as much as press is free, editors continuously engage in a form of self- censorship. Some draw the line with what they would deem to be “gratuitously offensive “content. Media is after all business. It doesn’t make much sense to seek ways to be blatantly offensive; it’s just bad business if nothing else. Particularly with regard to religious affairs; most people have some degree of affiliation with religion. Given the nature of religious conviction (even cursory) and particularly a religion which holds its honor to be the most supremely important tenant of its faith, one wonders what the benefit of in your face provocation is. Is not exercising the right to being offensive an indication of capitulation and surrender? Is it the abrogation of freedom? To shed light onto the Jewish view of journalism, I think that the Rebbe provides a perspective that is representative of the Jewish / Torah based position. What follows then are quotes from Joseph Telushkin’s New York Times bestselling book: Rebbe. In 1972, the veteran journalist Gershon Jacobson was considering starting a new Yiddish newspaper (Der Tog Morgen Zhurnal had recently closed) and he went to consult with the Rebbe… Jacobson should not have been surprised by the Rebbe’s encouragement. An omnivorously curious person, newspaper had long mattered to the Rebbe, as vehicles for both acquiring knowledge and disseminating it. There are people who lived in Crown Heights in the 1940s who recall seeing him heading for the subway station in the morning, carrying four newspapers, the New York Times, the Yddish Der Tog Morgen Zhurnal, a newspaper in French, and another in Russian (the newsstand special ordered these last two for him). The fact that he was reading newspapers in four languages suggests not only the Rebbe’s unusual linguistic abilities but also bears testimony to his lifelong belief in the importance of having a wide variety of sources for acquiring information. ….. Newspapers were also recognized by the Rebbe as important vehicles for disseminating knowledge. Rabbi Hirsch Chitrik, a wealthy Chabad businessman, was once summoned by the Rebbe, who told him of a newspaper with Conservative Jewish leanings that was suffering financial setbacks and was in danger of closing. He asked Chitrik to find out how much money the publication needed, and he, the Rebbe, would supply it (though he did not wish his involvement to become known). Chitrick was shocked. Why was the Rebbe concerned with supporting a Conservative-leaning paper, given that its views on matters of Jewish law and thought were so at variance with those of the Rebbe? The Rebbe told him that each week the publication supplied the right time at which people were supposed to light Shabbat candles; if the paper cased to publish, those who relied on it would no longer have easy access to such information. Similarly, when speaking to Jacobson, the Rebbe mentioned in passing the role newspapers could play in educating Jews who might not otherwise be reached. He told Jacobson of an incident from the 1930s, when his father-in-law, the Frierdiker Rebbe, lived in Warsaw. “He said to me that I should go find a newspaper that will publish his talks. So I came back with a list of three or four newspapers and my father-in-law said, ‘In all of Warsaw there are only three or four Jewish newspapers?” “I answered, ‘No, but these are the religious ones.’ “And the [Friediker] Rebbe said to me, ‘If I want to reach only religious Jews, we could put these writings in every shtiebl and shul in Warsaw. I want to reach Jews who don’t go to synagogue.” The Rebbe told Jacobson that he eventually found a Socialist-leaning paper that was willing to publish his father-in-law’s talks. But the Rebbe didn’t penetrate only the world of Yiddish newspapers. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik spoke with great admiration of Chabad’s impact on the American press: “In the past, when a Jewish issue came up, the major newspapers such as the New York Times would only cite the viewpoints of representatives of Reform Judaism. Orthodoxy did not exist for them. Nowadays, the Lubavitch movement has placed Orthodoxy in these newspapers, and on the radio and television” (interview in Ma’ariv, October 28, 1977). Jacobson soon went ahead with his decision to begin the Algemeiner Journal. In time, as the newspaper became known and its influence grew, a local Crown Heights rabbi suggested to him that a group of rabbis check over the weekly paper in advance to make sure the content was appropriate. “Did anyone ask the Rebbe about this?” Jacobson inquired. The rabbi said: “We think this is what the Rebbe would want.” Jacobson went in to ask the Rebbe, telling him that some people wanted to set up a kind of rabbinic supervision bureau to determine what should and shouldn’t be put into the paper. The Rebbe smiled: “And what will you do if these rabbis decide that the newspaper should be closed down?” Jacobson said: “So what’s the Rebbe’s opinion?” The Rebbe lifted his hands in a way that was clearly dismissive of the other rabbi’s message to Jacobson. “What do rabbis have to do with a newspaper? A rabbi should pasken [rule] that a Jew should be learning Torah all day, and every second that’s free is bittul Torah [wasted time that should be spent studying Torah]. So how are rabbis going to issue a ruling regarding a newspaper when they should be telling a person not to read newspapers but to study Torah? Newspapers are for people who don’t listen to rabbis or who don’t ask rabbis. And when you put into the paper a few words of Torah, you will be reaching such people.” To make certain he was clear about the Rebbe’s attitude toward the direction the Algemeiner Journal should take, Jacobson asked if the paper should establish a formal affiliation with Lubavitch. This, the Rebbe opposed: “A Lubavitch newspaper is a contradiction in terms. You have to look at everything in terms of its mission. The mission of Lubavitch is to help people access their Jewishness [Yiddishkeit]. The mission of a newspaper is to have more readers and be a successful media outlet. A newspaper has its goals and Lubavitch has its goals. As far as your editorial positions are concerned, that’s your decision.” These thoughts in particular were refreshing and liberating. Newspapers and magazines published under Orthodox auspices generally adhere to a very restricted editorial line, more or less identical with the beliefs of the publisher or the organization supporting the publication. However, because the Algemeiner Journal had no organizational affiliation, Jacobson could follow his instincts and keep the paper open to opinions with which he — and the Rebbe as well — disagreed. …Gershon Jacobson felt bad and told the Rebbe that he wanted to apologize for publishing an article that caused so much aggravation… The Rebbe assured Jacobson that he had done nothing for which he needed to apologize. “You have to do your job, I have to do my job. You’re a newspaper. You’re not supposed to be censoring opinions. What I’m saying is what I have to do.” ( For more , I strongly encourage you to read the book. Available at Amzaon) What emerges is a beautifully balanced and somewhat nuanced position. As a religious organization, Chabad (or any other religious organization) would justifiably seek to use its own media outlets to further it’s values and beliefs. By the same token however, the rights others to express their views and opinions , even if they are antithetical to yours must also be respected. I think perhaps there is something else to be added to the Rebbe’s view. Might it be said, that the degree to which a religion is tolerant of other/opposing views is commensurate with the degree to which it feels secure in its own? That censorship, the need to suppress, is borne out of insecurity? The Rebbe wasn’t afraid of people expressing their views. He was too firmly anchored in his own for that. He encouraged self –expression, because he believed that if you give people space, they will find faith on their own terms. And when you are that deeply anchored in a faith thousands of years old, one that has withstood the most oppressive tests of time, you are not afraid of scrutiny, investigation, exposure, you welcome it. The more it is exposed, the more it shines. Good Shabbos and Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Ruvi New
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 20:27:59 +0000