All the News That’s Unfit to Print
Does it seem as though the NY Times has had special difficulties lately in terms of blows to its lofty goal of being the unassailable paper of record?
The Netanyahu/Trump anti-Semitic cartoon, and then another anti-Semitic cartoon, both of which were noticed and to which enough people objected that the Times had to make some mild mea culpas. And now this (hat tip: commenter Barry Meislin):
The New York Times, which apologized yesterday for running “anti-Semitic propaganda” against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump, issued a correction about an article alleging Jesus was Palestinian and not Jewish.
The op-ed, titled “As a Black Child in Los Angeles, I Couldn’t Understand Why Jesus Had Blue Eyes,” read: “Jesus, born in Bethlehem, was most likely a Palestinian man with dark skin.” The New York Times issued the correction one week after it ran the story and received a barrage of criticism…
It was changed to: “But Jesus, a Jew born in Bethlehem, presumably had the complexion of a Middle Eastern man.”
What is “the complexion of a Middle Eastern man”? Well, I have “the complexion of a Middle Eastern woman,” more or less, which is about the same as the complexion of a Greek or Italian woman. Big deal.
I can’t say I care about Jesus’ skin color, but some people apparently do, and if you’re interested, here’s a big discussion of what Jesus probably looked like. It concludes that he probably didn’t have blue eyes, by the way.
And have you noticed a certain theme in many of the NY Times’ recent egg-on-face moments? They all involve insults to Jews, and one also involves an insult to Christians (a twofer, as it were).
Yesterday in the comments of this blog there was a big discussion of the supposed Jewish ownership of the Times. That used to be true, but it’s not true any more. Until 2018, this guy had been in charge for over twenty years:
Sulzberger’s mother was of mostly English and Scottish origin and his father was of Jewish origin (both Ashkenazic and Sephardic). His parents divorced when he was five years old. Sulzberger was raised in his mother’s Episcopalian faith; however, he no longer observes any religion.
So not Jewish at all in the religious sense, not Jewish in the group sense (passed down through mother, not father), and half-Jewish in the genetic sense. No Jewish identity, nor did he ever have one.
Since 2018 the owner is his son:
Sulzberger was born in Washington, DC, on August 5, 1980, to Gail Gregg and Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. Through his father, he is a grandson of Arthur Ochs “Punch” Sulzberger Sr., great-grandson of Arthur Hays Sulzberger, and great-great-grandson of Adolph Ochs. His paternal grandfather was Jewish, and the rest of his family is of Christian background (Episcopalian and Congregationalist).
Not. Jewish.
Why this matters I know not, but people seem quite intent on figuring it out, so I’m providing the answer.
I also can’t help but notice a trend the last few days: a lot of posts here about Jews and Jewish concerns, be it anti-Semitism or Israel or vaccines. But that’s what’s been in the air. A lot of it has to do with press coverage of Jews, and how biased it is.
But that’s nothing new, either. Yesterday I pointed out how anti-Semitic cartoons have been winning prizes in Europe for decades, for example. And groups such as CAMERA have been grinding away at the incredibly mendacious anti-Israel reporting of the Times in particular for decades, too. In fact, in 2012 they wrote a book entitled “Indicting Israel: New York Times Coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.
The bias of the Times used to be more subtle, and harder for the naive reader to detect. The paper seems to have slipped lately—just as the Democratic Party candidates have—into showing their hand more clearly.
” The paper seems to have slipped lately—just as the Democratic Party candidates have—into showing their hand more clearly. ”
I’m not convinced they’re showing their hand per se but CERTAINLY showing who they’re happy to serve, and cater to, in exchange for survival.
They must, like many—most (all?)—other mainly print news services, be losing money hand over fist.
So the (rhetorical?) question is: Who is the piper?
I believe that Carlos Sim (spelling?), Mexican Billionaire has a large chunk of Times stock.
The casual anti-Semitism of the Times reflects the Elite class here and in UK and the rest of Europe. Yet, the Jews still vote liberal. Denial?
Jesus was a white Jew And anti-Semites need to deal with it.
In the past anti-Semites would make an Uber Aryan to deny his Jewishness and now the left makes him an Arab to deny his Jewishness.
. That’s the only reason why I care
Slim, but formerly Selim.
(Hmmm.)
Still, I don’t know for sure, but I doubt he’s the only person pouring money into it.
LYNN HARGROVE:
Many of the Jews who vote Democratic are of Jewish ethnicity only and have no alliance with Judaism and no support for Israel, and are politically liberal and/or left. They are overwhelmingly clustered in large liberal cities such as NY and LA, where the whole population is overwhelmingly liberal, not just the Jews.
So it’s not the least surprising that they vote for Democrats in numbers between 2/3 and 3/4, which means Jews in America are far less politically monolithic than, say, black people in America.
. “Yet, the Jews still vote liberal. Denial?”
This is largely true of the secular pork Eating nonobservant community that has replaced Judaism with secular liberalism and could not care less about Israel or the next generation.
however, in the observant community including Chabad overwhelmingly support trump. Just look at a map of New York City in the 2016 election .the only red areas were the Orthodox sections.
And we are the only one with you to statistically significant Jewish grandchildren
Well, one could—and does—claim that “Jesus was a Palestinian”. (It’s a favorite meme of the Palestinian Authority and its fan base; and they’ve repeated it so often that they may even have begun to believe it.)
To be sure, that would mean that Jesus was a “Palestinian” over a century BEFORE “Palestine” was adapted as the official name of the region—in circa 135 CE, by the Emperor Hadrian. (But who’s counting?…. One might note, too, that there are exactly zero ancient Roman coins containing the words “Palestina Capta”).
Of course, one could argue that Jesus was always way ahead of his time….
But if one dare think that a “correction” (heh) by the NYT will promote any changes in Palestinian revisionist “history” (AKA propaganda AKA button-pushing), then prepare to be severely disappointed….
One could always say that the NYT is making preparations for its future readership (assuming it has much of a future). It wants to ride that wave. It far prefers to be a leader rather than a follower. A leader, not a hanger on.
And since the following may well represent the “educated cohort” of tomorrow, should one blame the NYT for preparing for that glorious dawn?
https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/30/depaul-students-demand-professors-censure-as-racist-for-supporting-israel-in-the-federalist/
It’s going to be funny/sad when Jews discover their safe spaces are Baptist churches and NASCAR events.
I suppose, Neo, that people are interested in the religious affiliation of NYT owners because it used to be Jewish-owned, and because people can’t understand how Jewish ownership (if it were) could be so anti-Jewish. These questions would particularly apply to the 1930s and 1940s, when the paper was, in fact, owned by a Jewish family. These days, “liberal” Jews and “liberal” Christians have adopted leftist political platforms as their religion, eschewing the religions as they were handed down. So it makes little difference whether the current Sulzberger is Jewish (he’s not) or Episcopalian.
Slipped? Perhaps; but, I believe it’s more likely a testing of the waters. I think Omar did it. I’m sure the UK Labour party has been doing it from some time. I think it is planned and is a kind of pushing the envelope. Jews push back and win….it PROVES that Jews have all the power. Bada bing bada boom. Mission accomplished. Rinse and repeat.
And it would seem there’s another cartoon in the International edition…
https://twitter.com/ReaganBattalion/status/1122861990169411585
The NYT has always been blatantly anti catholic. Now they are blatantly anti Jewish.
Oh, come on, the left has wanted you dead for 100+ years, after torture of course, because they enjoy torturing you, get with the program.
The NYSlimes is a publicly-traded company. Sulzbergers may have control thru special classes of common stock, though.
To a good many of us, “Palestine” has always meant the area of the ancient Holy Land . Before this whole “Palestine”/Israel business blew up in our faces, if asked, I myself would have agreed that Jesus was from Palestine, or was Palestinian. In fact reading the posting, my instant thought was, Well, yeah, d’uh.
Remember your Wallace Stevens:
(from “Sunday Morning,” written in 1915 or earlier.)
According to the Great Foot,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_(region)
You could perfectly well be “Palestinian” while still being Jewish in Jesus’s time. “Palestine” was a region, not a country. And the people inhabiting the area certainly included Jews (but not Muslims, of course).
There’s no reason for anybody who’s ever been to either a Christian or Jewish “Sunday School,” or stepped into a church, or had a decent world-history class in high school, to get het up over the NYT’s saying that Jesus was Palestinian … because he was. The Great Frog knows they’re a bunch of sinful heathens, but in this case they sinned not.
I haven’t read the op-ed, but what ever happened to the study of art history and the use of conventions in art? Depictions of Jesus are made by Western European artists for a Western European audience. To have the proper artistic appeal, there is the need for an idealized figure that looks like you (the spectator or audience).
In fairness to the op-ed writer, a minority person like that will always feel out of place because he was “adopted”, in a manner of speaking, into Western Civilization and American culture and history. Other people outside the primary Anglo-European origins of America may feel the same way.
One really good recent depiction of Jesus was that by the actor Diogo Morgado in “The Bible” mini-series from 2013 (tall, handsome, long light brown hair, short beard, brown eyes, and Portuguese). The purpose of such a casting is to convey a sense of His divine grace and benevolence to the audience.
As noted by some others, the Emperor Hadrian brought the short beard back into style, where it remained for centuries. He was also fed up with the continual revolts in that certain region of the Roman Empire, and sought to teach those people a lasting lesson.
There’s a lot of conflicting information, much of it ideologically and/or religiously motivated.
“Philistia” rather than Palestine (in Hebrew, “Peleshet” or “Pelaashet”—depending on where the word appears in the sentence—penultimate stress in both cases), Philistia being the relative narrow strip of land—the “plane”—between the Mediterranean and the foothills of the hills of Judea, inhabited by the Philistines (“Pelishtim” in Hebrew)—though wider in the relatively flat area of the northwestern Negev (i.e., east of today’s Gaza Strip).
Philistia means “the land the Philistines” rather than “Palestine” per se, which latter term indicates the entire region from “the River to the Sea” (AKA “Southern Syria”; though during the British Mandate period, Palestine also included Transjordan—until Transjordan was removed from the Mandate in the early 20s and “granted” by Britain as a kingdom to Prince Abdullah ibn Al-Hussein, one of the sons of Hussein, the Sherif of Mecca, who was kicked out of Mecca (and the Arabian peninsula entirely) by Ibn Saud.
It is said that Herodotus actually visited only Philistia—and did not venture very far inland—on his voyage to the area, extrapolating, perhaps from his visit to narrow “Philistia” that the entire region was referred to as “Palestine”.
Curiously, however, according to the following site “Philistia”/Palestine is NOT mentioned at all in the New Testament:
http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/hebrew/palestine.html
Regarding the origin of the word (Peleshet/Pelishtim/Philistia), there seems to be some confusion regarding the derivation; but I’m not sure exactly why this should be, since “peleshet” means “invader” in Hebrew; and the Philistines are said to have been a warlike, sea-faring people, originally from the Greek islands, who arrived, conquered, and settled the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean (i.e., the southwestern coast of the Land of Canaan), where they created a formidable federation of city states—a kind of mini-empire.
They were the reason the route of the “exodus” from Egypt (if one believes in its occurrence) took the Israelites due eastward rather than northeastward (which would have been the much shorter route). They were, subsequently, a constant antagonist, irritant and enemy to the Israelites once the latter conquered and settled the Land of Canaan.
The area began to be called “Palestine” by the Romans after the Bar Kochba revolt of 132-136 CE. They did so as an insult to the defeated Jews. The regions of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea appear in the New Testament, but “Palestine” wasn’t a place name. More recent scholars may refer to the area at the time as “Palestine,” but it’s an anachronism.
The “Jesus was a Palestinian” line wasn’t an accidental historical anachronism. It was a political statement intended to claim Jesus for the modern-day Palestinian political cause, which is why it was objectionable.
And the people Herodotus described were circumcised. I don’t think he was referring to Greek Philistines
Could this be a new religion? A supersessionism that erases Christianity, Judaism and Islam, replacing it with Palestinianism. But hey, at least that means there’s no need for any of those prophecies of endtimes Armageddon in the eschatologies of all three Abrahamic faiths— since none of them exist. Uh oh, means the religious texts are errant, quick, cue the apocalypse.
Esther, regrettably, Palestinianism is now concurrent with fanatic Islamism. Arabic-speaking Christians are now only barely tolerated, or not tolerated at all. This is true even though, obedient dhimmis, many of them despise Jews.
“Palestine” has been the name of a region of the Near East since at least 500 B.C.
To quote from my comment above, with added boldface:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_(region)
The name was used by ancient Greek writers….
[Snip]
The first clear use of the term Palestine to refer to the entire area between Phoenicia and Egypt was in 5th century BCE Ancient Greece,[7][8] when Herodotus wrote of a “district of Syria, called Palaistinê”, (Ancient Greek: [Greek Spelling])[9] in The Histories which included the Judean mountains and the Jordan Rift Valley.[10][ii] Approximately a century later, Aristotle used a similar definition for the region in Meteorology, in which he included the Dead Sea.[12]
Julie near Chicago:
Of course Wikipedia is a reliable source. I am disappointed, but everyone has an off day.
Ray on April 30, 2019 at 8:34 pm at 8:34 pm said:
The NYT has always been blatantly anti catholic. Now they are blatantly anti Jewish.
* * *
Or worse.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/01/getting-difficult-tell-difference-new-york-times-al-jazeera/
om, I am more than aware of the problems with Wikipedia. But I hardly think that Wikipedian bias is at work in stating the Greek root of the word “Palestine.”
From the Jewish Virtual Library:
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/origin-of-quot-palestine-quot
Or, there’s this from a translation of Herodotus (Bk. 7y, Chapter 89):
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Herodotus/7b*.html
If you question the accuracy of the translation, take it up with the University of Chicago, not me.
Several more sources give this same information.
Jesus was a Palestinian?
I’ll take it. One of the more blatant Freudian slips I’ve seen, when one considers the implications. Take it as a given that Jesus was a Jew. If he was then also a Palestinians, then Jews are the REAL indigenous Palestinians.
Game, set, match.
If you question the accuracy of the translation, take it up with the University of Chicago, not me.
Several more sources give this same information.
and he said the people were circumcised, unlike the arabs and greek philistines.
sorry he was talking about Jews
The Leftists and Marxists cared a lot about Israel, back when Israel was founded by Marxists and others.
But later on, Israel the state changed and it became less popular amongst Leftists, which included Jewish disaspora (divorced from YHVH).,
Yeshua also visited India, that is how he could fast for 40 or whatever days without or with water. You try doing that without the yogic conditioning and see what happens.
Yeshua, also went to UK and roamed around, working on his uncle Joseph’s trade business.
Yeshua, the lost years, hah.