“Only losers, if you’ll pardon my frankness, who can’t think for themselves must depend on the likes of Rogel Alpher for regular doses of self-loathing, pessimist weltschmerz, and can’t generate it on their own.”
Tel Aviv, April 19 – The Jewish State celebrates its seventieth anniversary today, an occasion that the writers, editors, and publisher of the country’s most prestigious daily take as yet another impetus to find fault with anything they can about the society, but one area resident disdains those who rely on that publication for identifying shortcomings, problems, crimes, and other negative traits.
Nimrod Grinchman, 50, told reporters today that while he appreciates Haaretz for some of its reporting and commentary, anyone who cannot come up with the least charitable interpretation of events regarding Israeli government and society without reading the paper – whether its online or printed forms, Hebrew or English editions – remains an intellectual lightweight and not worth his time.
“I appreciate what Amos Schocken and company are trying to do,” he stated, referring to Haaretz’s publisher. “But it doesn’t take a genius to choose the worst possible characterization of Israel, its leadership, and its dominant religion without reading what this group pf writers has to say first. I, certainly, don’t need to read Gideon Levy before asserting that Jewish sovereignty in our ancient homeland is a mistake and a crime against Palestinians. Only losers, if you’ll pardon my frankness, who can’t think for themselves must depend on the likes of Rogel Alpher for regular doses of self-loathing, pessimist weltschmerz, and can’t generate it on their own.”
Grinchman nevertheless subscribes to the publication, as he has no other convenient avenue for remaining apprised of cultural or political events not couched in unacceptably patriotic terms. “The tabloids are for hoi polloi,” he sniffed, dismissing Yediot Aharonot, Maariv, and their online sister publications. “What Haaretz does have going for it is a market share under four percent, which is on the high side for my tastes, bordering on the mainstream, but still low enough to remain within the bounds of acceptability.”
The humanities professor grieves at the decline of genuine intellectuals in Israeli society over the years. “I fear that outside my academic circles and among a handful of High Court judges, few of us remain,” he lamented. “It takes a mind of a certain caliber to appreciate how much greater it is than everyone else, and that lesser people should bow before our superior ability to comprehend important issues and develop policy. In the early days of the State people still recognized that, but fewer and fewer intellectuals can now formulate a respectable argument in favor of surrendering half the world’s Jews to the mercy of a society that educates its children to dehumanize and slaughter us, without first reading one in Haaretz.”
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