Editorial Idiocy
Ezzie has a good post up about a editorial in a recent issue of the Jewish Press that he quite rightly calls "sickening". The relevant graf from the editorial (regarding the Abramoff affair) that Ezzie quotes:
I would think the JP owes their readership (as well as those intelligent people who don't count themselves among that group) an open apology for their gross mischaracterizations and twisted stereotyping. Being as it is, however, the Jewish Press, I won't hold my breath.
In the larger sense the story is primarily about those officials Abramoff corrupted and, of course, about Abramoff himself. But we feel a special sense of loss given that Abramoff identified with Orthodox Judaism. Though he wasn’t raised as an observant Jew and thus was not exposed in his formative years to the Torah’s rigorous moral and ethical codes, any time a breach of this magnitude occurs — and, sadly, there have been other similarly disheartening cases involving Orthodox Jews in recent years — it is a matter of great concern. It should trigger a resolve in all of us to work harder to see to it that such things never occur in our community by drawing attention to the risks of modern-day life and the need for strict adherence to theSick stuff. The first, and most offensive, issue I have with the emphasized line - and the one Ezzie has already pointed out - is the fact that with one sentence, the editorial staff of the JP is writing off anyone who wasn't raised observant in his "formative" years as somehow unable to fend off the temptation of corruption. Aside from the the total obnoxiousness of that theory, its actually blatantly incorrect. Does the JP really expect us to buy this bill of goods they are selling? The suggestion that somehow, people born and bred Orthodox have a stronger moral compass when it comes to business dealings? Ha. I will not name names (and I will delete any comments attempting to name names - so don't even go there), but there are plenty orthodox Jews who were "exposed in his formative years to the Torah’s rigorous moral and ethical codes" who have been convicted for fraud-related crimes. Go figure. I have also, in my business dealings, met newly observant people whose ethics when it comes to business are far more well-developed than many I have dealt with who had an observant upbringing. Go figure again.
ethics of Judaism.
I would think the JP owes their readership (as well as those intelligent people who don't count themselves among that group) an open apology for their gross mischaracterizations and twisted stereotyping. Being as it is, however, the Jewish Press, I won't hold my breath.
posted by orthomom at 12:46 PM
34 Comments:
not to mention blaming modernity for the problem rather than the lack of morality.
Jdub
Come on--no one with any seichel takes the JP seriously.
Orthomom....Did you ever hear the one about a yeshiva boy asked his rebbi if someone is allowed to take the Jewish Press into a bathroom? The rebbi responded, You shouldn't really take it in, but if you do, leave it there!
I'm sure that the really, really, really long list of "frum" criminals who were exposed to the rigors of Talmudic study in their formative years can even demonstrate to us, in the most twisted fashion, why their actions were not only correct, but were a mitzvah.
I'd prefer a person with a simple sense of right and wrong over a person who can twist halacha to suit his yetzer hara.
I'm looking forward to the Letter to the Editor in the coming week's Jewish Press. Hopefully the many wonderful Ba'alei Teshuvah will speak up for themselves. That single line was complete motzei shem ra on a group of people that in my experience is on a very high level in regards to proper behavior in business.
What you chose to leave out of your analysis is the part of the sentence immediately following the words you highlighted - -that, sadly, there have been other similar cases in the Othodox community in recent years. So obviously no one was trying to say that this doesn't occur among people who are frum from birth. And are you really claiming that a rigorios grounding in Torah from one's earliest years doesn't make a difference in most cases? Are you implying that most, or even many, Orthodox Jews don't benefit from a yeshiva education? As Orthodox Jews, shouldn't we hold that a rigorous Torah education makes a real difference in the way a Jew is brought up to view the world? Somehow, though, I don't think the your silly observations trouble the people over at the Jewish Press, whose issues overflow every week with advertising (and take it from a retailer -- their ad rates are way higher than Yated, Hamodia, the Jewish Week and the Forward) and whose columnists and writers far more accomplished than some no-name blogger whom nobody's ever heard of other than a handful of her fellow bloggers.
Wow. That was a lovely comment. Well,I can tell you this: I could not care less whether the JP is interested in my criticism of their shoddy paper,as successful an adrag as it may be. Do you think that when I use this blog as my soapbox to criticise elected officials in the highest of offices, I expect them to read or in any miniscule way care about what I have to say about them??? I am quite sure that they don't. Yet, I blog. Would you like to know why, anonymous-with-a-chip-on-his-shoulder-about-the-JP? Because my readers do seem to care about what I have to say, whether they express their disagreement with my writings or not. So feel free to disagree with what I have to say, but please don't troll around looking for a fight. If you don't count yourself among those of my readers who are interested in what I have to say, feel free to find a blog that interests you more. I will not be offended.
To anon-A Torah education should make a difference, but so long as the community either tolerates criminals, supports their actions, or is apathetic about it, there is no chance that the behavior will abate and our children might even view white collar crime as acceptable.
We as a community need to take a a "zero tolerance" stance on criminal behavior! These people are tarring the name of our communities, they are leaving their wife and children in a mess, and the fact that our leaders do not speak out more forcibly makes some think that financial crimes are somehow kasher.
i think that the kiruv organizations who advertise institutions, chinese auctions, etc. should withold advertising until an apology is issued. but as you said, i wouldn't hold my breath. when i lived in the ny metro area i bought this paper (which a relative of mine calls "the jewish mess") for the ads. it's really just a big jewish pennysaver.
Great post, Mom.
Even more incredible than the JP's tin ear on BTs is their silence when a mainstream Orthodox community (i.e., Brooklyn) member is caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Mom, I take it from your comments that you actually haven't READ the JP in years. Agree with it or not, it's hardly a "Jewish pennysaver," and my own experience as someone who meets many frum Jews daily in the course of business is that those who get off on knocking the JP usually do so either because they disagree with the paper's politics or because they have ingrained in them an image of the paper from 10 or more years ago. A JP salesperson I deal with recently told me the same thing, that when she runs into someone who criticizes the paper with sweeping generalities and she asks them to be specific, there's usually an uncomfortable silence and/or a bumbling admission that they hadn't really read the paper in some time or that "people say so." Chip on my shoulder? I think the chip is on the shoulders of those who read into one parenthetical comment an anti-baal teshvah mentality -- in a paper that over the years has been in the forefront of championing the baal teshuva movement.
OM, great post, and thanks for the link.
Anon - Aside from the pointless blogger comments, your first statement is meaningless: The next line only proves that the problematic one was unnecessary. That it was added in shows it to be making a point - and an incredibly stupid one at that.
Leon - As I don't read the JP, and have almost never even seen it, I don't see how I could have any inherent biases: And yet, I read it the same way as OM. I didn't know that so many people were "anti-JP", either.
The "one paranthetical comment" is terrible. I have no idea what they normally say about BT's, or how much they've done for them - and in this instance, I don't really care. That line was clearly not needed and absolutely revolting. Imagine what a BT thinks when they're reading it - isn't adjusting to the frum world hard enough, without being told that you will NEVER be on the same moral level as those around you?!
As a BT myself I am extremely amused - and grateful of the righteous indignation by both Ezzie and Orthomom. Guys, we live with this all of the time!!! Old time FFB's can be extremely snobby when it comes to "yichus". The emotionally stable among BT's shrug it off, and find our friends (and shidduchim) among other BT's or sincere FFB's who are not prejudiced.
Some BT's have a harder time accepting this - but in the long run realize that people are people, and have ignorant stereotypes in their heads. The only thing you can do is try to change the stereotype by your own good behavior.
"Even more incredible than the JP's tin ear on BTs is their silence when a mainstream Orthodox community (i.e., Brooklyn) member is caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "
They were also silent when a MO macher was convicted of fraud.
I wasn't planning on commenting on this until I read Anonymous's comment.
Momof4 was absolutely claiming that a "rigorios [sic] grounding in Torah from one's earliest years doesn't make a difference in most cases." I wouldn't call myself a BT, but I can still feel the slap in the face that that comment implies. Even someone with NO knowledge of Torah should know the difference between right and wrong, between stealing and not stealing. The formative years are important in raising good people. But learning a love of Torah can happen at any age.
And speaking as someone in advertising I can tell you that higher ad rates only translate into a wider distribution of readers - it doesn't mean that more people actually read the columnists or pay attention to those ads. Whereas every reader of this blog actually does read it. That's why media buyers are trying to find ways to break into blogs... there is close to a 100% return on investment, and it's targeted. The JP can't touch that by a long shot.
Meanwhile, maybe you should have had a better grounding in Torah during your formative years - perhaps it would have taught you not to insult people just because you don't like their blog.
OM, as always, you have a flair for clearly communicating your opinion on an issue. And you write well, while making a point. I think your point is well taken. As is Ezzie's. But I also have to say that it's easy to pull one sentence from an entire publication and condemn it.
More so, I believe that as disparaging a comment as this might be to BT's, it's equally disparaging to FFB's. You have to look at it from both ways. The comment seems to state that anyone who is FFB and was raised "the right way" (if such a way were to exist), that such a person would be perfect. We know that's not the case. Come on. The only difference between Abramoff and every other orthodox Jew who [sadly] cheats in business (or in any other mode of life) is that he got caught. So should I read the comment to believe that all FFBs are solid to the core when it comes to ethics and business? Oh do I have stories to tell....
And finally, let's remember the source of the comment. The Jewish Press. No, I'm not here to bash the JP. But the JP is a newspaper. A business. Sure, most people read it for the ads (if you want to read articles, get Mishpacha magazine, or Penthouse of course), but a controversial statement means more readers, and more ad dollars. I remember when the 5TJT once published an article about talking in shul (and how it's not such a bad thing)... man, I was UPSET about that article! I wrote to the Editor and gave him a piece of my mind and his response was "Bravo! It worked!" I was like, huh? And he responded that he knew publishing such an article would invoke a response. And then I found myself reading the paper to see what other krum ideas would appear.
Bottom line, chalk up the Jewish Press as a winner for getting people to advertise for them. And StepIma, the advertising expert, it looks like the JP found a way to infiltrate the blogworld, courtesy of Ezzie and OM.
Sephardilady hits it on the head. We aren't necessarily more corrupt than other groups, but the fact that people in our community are so open about their corruption suggests that we tolerate it pretty well as a community.
Besides hearing about how "ba'alei teshuvah" didn't benefit from the fine ethical upbringing that a yeshiva gives you, you hear a lot of shtuss and/or shetut in the opposite direction, about how "ba'alei teshuvah" are ***more*** ethical than people who are "frum from birth". I came to this O"J stuff in my forties, and I find it kind of patronizing--find someone else to pat on the keppeleh, please.
(BT"W, I find "ba'al teshuvah" and "frum from birth" ridiculous phrases. When the Rambam wrote about ba'alei teshuvah in Hil. Teshuvah, he wasn't talking about people who moved to West Rogers Park and started trying to speak English as though Yiddish was their native language. And "frum from birth"? Is it a genetic thing?)
Curmudgeonly and nonanonymously,
Mike Koplow
I think you're all wrong. The point is that Torah is ideally supposed to be absorbed and have a lasting impact on a person's ethical personality. The fact that many people grow up frum and don't absorb it, or the fact that a person who didn't grow up frum can also be ethical is immaterial. It's an argument from the ideal. It's like saying about and obese person that "even though he didn't grow up in a health concious family..." A person can't have an eating disorder even though his environment was conducive to healthy eating? Obviously that's not true. So too here, the article is just saying that Torah ought to produce the ethical personality if it is taken seriously and if a person didn't grow up with that ethical idea, then there's alittle excuse for that person. After all, people in the secular world have no ideal which they are trained to live up to. Yes some people come upon it anyway, but it's not an official ideal because it is artificially generated. So one could maybe excuse a person who was never told that cheating and lying is bad, but... That's all the article is saying. The reality on the ground may unfortunately be different, but the reflects and sociological and religious problem in the Orthodox community and not an inherent lack of ethics in the Torah. The fact that when we see an orthodox jew getting caught for this we all cringe, as opposed to some secular person, is full evidence that we all here tacitly share this article's explicit assumption : frum people should ideally be effected by the torah and be outstanding examples of ethical behavior.
"After all, people in the secular world have no ideal which they are trained to live up to. Yes some people come upon it anyway, but it's not an official ideal because it is artificially generated. So one could maybe excuse a person who was never told that cheating and lying is bad,"
"a person who was never told that cheating and lying is bad": I was brought up in the secular world, and gosh, I think (I may be mistaken about this), but I think I heard somewhere that cheating and lying "is" bad. Where was that? Oh right, now I remember, that was every day in the early years of elementary school (the public kind).
If the secular world doesn't teach that cheating and lying are bad, why do secular newspapers, pundits, and politicians get upset about it (even if some of the upsetness is bogus)? I mean, could it be that they learned somewhere that cheating and lying are bad, even if Miss McNotzri at the public school forgot to tell them about shatnez?
So one could maybe excuse a person who was never told that cheating and lying is bad, but... That's all the article is saying.
Well, Mike already covered this, but I was just going to say that that was exactly the point. That insinuation is what's revolting.
It is quite obvious that anon above has never lived amongst the so-called "secular" public. In a country made up heavily of Christians there are plenty of messages that lying, cheating, and stealing are incorrect because G-d says so.
While you average American might not have a detailed understanding of halacha, at the minimum there is a simple understanding of the Bible and American Law.
I agree that Torah study that is undertaken properly should give a Jew a firm moral and ethical basis. It is a shanda that so many of our breathern who have been steeped in years and years of Torah study are so callous and calculating in their business dealings. The illegal behavior that I heard about in my public high school pales in comparison to the dishonesty that we all know goes on in our very own communities. Maybe it is time to stop turning a blind eye and take back our communities from the behavior that is killing us.
Unfortunately, corruption is rampant in the FFB world--just look at how much dirt you dig up on Brooklyn online camera stores. And there are ganovim whose names are plastered all over shuls and yeshivas across Crookl--sorry, Brooklyn--and no one says a word because after all, they're using their treif money to support Torah! No one objects because if they do, they'll simply lose out on the money they're getting and someone else will gladly take it and ask fewer questions. The implication that simply because someone wasn't raised in a religious environment means that he is more susceptible to corruption is not only insulting, it's just plain WRONG.
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