Newsroom Scare: Religion Reporter Almost Gets Something Right

“That was a close one,” breathed publisher Amos Schocken.

Tel Aviv, July 1 – Editorial and reporting staff at Haaretz breathed a sigh of relief Wednesday upon discovering that an article on Orthodox Jews did not, as feared, let facts go unvarnished by the bias, disdain, and arrogance of the secular journalists involved.

Israel’s “paper of record” dodged a journalistic bullet, editors reported this morning, following indications that an article covering the Jerusalem Rabbinate’s refusal to continue certifying a certain restaurant as kosher failed to disguise the writer’s dismissal of religious sensibilities, his presumption, and his axiomatic view of adherence to Jewish tradition as Neanderthal. In fact the writer did manage to convey a mangled, immature understanding of the religious precepts involved, and did succeed in painting those who take care to follow those precepts as barbaric, sheep-like reactionaries.

“That was a close one,” breathed publisher Amos Schocken. “I was this close to ordering a thorough review of our editorial process, but it turns out our reporters followed proper procedure and included all the necessary anti-religious – which is to say, anti-Jewish – elements to meet our exacting standards. I still might conduct a different review, though, to determine how we came under the wrong impression.”

Editors, reporters, and columnists expressed their sense of making a narrow escape from potentially unpleasant circumstances. “I’m trying not to think about what would have happened if anyone left an article about Jewish observance go without at least negative or condescending subtext,” admitted entertainment critic Rogel Alpher. “The public, especially our readers of the English-language edition, have come to expect from us a certain detached, which is to say animosity-laden, attitude toward anything that respects Jewish heritage, Jewish practice, or Jewish attachment to the ancestral Jewish homeland. Letting even a paragraph slip by without continuing to hammer this ethos home might convey the mistaken notion that our assumptions have shifted, but in that respect we remain, well, conservative.”

The story in question involved the local rabbinate rescinding its certification of a restaurant who operator refused to adjust a certain cooking procedure to align with a longstanding Talmudic prohibition against eating food cooked in its entirety by a non-Jew. The reporter relied on his incomplete high-school-level exposure to Jewish sources in characterizing the situation, equipment, and arrangement in the most anti-rabbinate, anti-orthodox manner he could manage. However, his presumption and incomplete education rendered him out of his depth in comprehending the case, resulting in a more-garbled-than-usual anti-religious message. A subsequent editorial review found nevertheless that the minimum anti-Jewish threshold of animus still came through.

The incident marks the first time in three weeks that Haaretz staff have faced such tension. In early June, a formatting error led to the deletion in a film review of a phrase comparing Haredim and Jewish settlers to apes, but copy editors caught the mistake before publication and reinserted the content.

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