10 Jun
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Is NPR Anti-Israel?

by Symi Rom-Rymer It’s practically impossible for a news organization, especially one like NPR, that is considered left-of-center, to cover the Middle East conflict and not to be accused, by someone, of being anti-Israel. A quick Google search shows that people across the spectrum have taken issue with NPR and its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  In 2000, CAMERA (The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), a conservative pro-Israel media watchdog group, called the station’s coverage of Israel hostile, adding that it presented Israel as “morally reprehensible.” In May of this year, it criticized the Diane Rehm Show, saying that Rehm “stacked the deck against Israel” in a segment. Of course, it’s not only pro-Israel advocates who take issue with NPR’s Middle East reporting. In 2001, FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), a liberal...

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06 Jun
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Fear and Loathing in Los Angeles

By Steven Philp It is a common fiction that Jews control Hollywood. Yet there are few more adamant about this misrepresentation—and no one less happy—than Orthodox Jew and conservative columnist Ben Shapiro. According to his new book Primetime Propaganda the producers, writers, and actors based in Los Angeles are, instead, a group of liberals using television to promote a “radical” agenda. Friends counters traditional family values, Happy Days took a stance against American engagement in Viet Nam, and M*A*S*H pushed the merits of pacifism. In an interview with The Independent, Shapiro promises that his book will illustrate how people in the industry have attempted to “shape America in their own leftist image.” The 416-page exposé utilizes interviews with approximately seventy media professionals; this includes what he characterizes as “gotcha” moments, in which those interviewed admit to...

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14 Mar
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There is No Love in Bigotry

By Steven Philp On Sunday, March 6 the Jewish Federation of North America kicked off Tribefest, a three-day event in Las Vegas, NV that billed itself as “an entertaining, interactive and educational celebration” of Jewish Life. Approximately fifteen hundred people aged 22 to 45 were said to attend the conference, participating in workshops led by Jewish leaders from across North America. One of these presentations—entitled “The Kabbalah of Love”—focused on love as a “central theme of Jewish teachings.” A description of the workshop leads with the question: Is love coincidental, or does each of us have a “destiny to connect to another?” Unfortunately the featured speaker participated in one of the larger demonstrations of hate in recent months; Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie of the North County Chabad Center was photographed carrying American and Israeli flags in protest...

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28 Feb
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At J Street, Attempting to Redefine “Pro-Israel”

By Niv Elis In its second-ever conference in Washington, DC this week, the self-described “Pro-Peace, Pro-Israel” lobby group J Street drew some 2,000 left-leaning Israel supporters. By its very existence J Street, has sparked a conflicted and sometimes angry debate within the Jewish community as to what it means to be “pro-Israel.”  Before J Street, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) held a virtual monopoly in Washington on the term pro-Israel.  For AIPAC, it meant supporting a “strong U.S.-Israel relationship” by keeping disagreements out of the public spotlight and, more broadly, supporting the policies of the democratically elected government in Israel, regardless of who was in power.  But critics, including many J Street supporters, accuse AIPAC of being more sympathetic to the conservative Likud party and promoting its hard-line policies. J Street has its own critics, who...

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