PURELY COMMENTARY

Bias In Media Selectivity: Serious Admonishments

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor Emeritus

A

verage newspaper readers may
be puzzled by a curious media
dilemma. They will read a brief
news item on an inside newspaper page
about a religious war in Beirut with
scores of innocent civilians murdered.
Then, turning to the first page, the
reader will find a story under a
headline in several columns about the
death of a young Arab in a struggle
with young Israeli soldiers who are
defending selves and country.
Whatever the regrettable losses in
a conflict that is admittedly a state of
war, it at once becomes, in the media,
a mathematical count to multiply
Israeli guilt over a 17-month conflict.
Why the contrast, of a comparative
handful who died in the Israel-Arab
struggle whereas tens of thousands
have lost their lives in the Lebanese
religious war?
The answer is a simple one. Those
who judge Israel and the Jews, in the
press, on television and radio, pay us a
compliment. The morality and ethical
teachings of the Jewish people demand
military restrictions and even
resistance of us who have such high
standards. Therefore the ignoring of the

basic Jewish and Israeli duties to de-
fend themselves, and their country, in
the adherence of an obligatory right to
live and to survive.
Is it to be assumed, therefore, inter-
pretively, that the judgment of the
media is correct, that the religious war
in Lebanon need be contrasted with
something so minute in comparison as
an intifada which finds reply to violence
by those who have no one else to pro-
tect them but themselves? In the public
interest recognition must be invited for
one member of the American media,
the editor of the New Republic, whose
indictment of the press and other news-
spreaders is challenged. What the New
Republic just published is an exception
to the bias otherwise perpetrated in a
contrasting Middle East situation that
ignores Lebanese fratricide and em-
phasizes guilt imposed on Israel. This
is what the New Republic published as
accusation and indictment:
Eyeless in Beirut: If you
depended, as, alas, millions do,
on Peter Jennings for your news
— or, for that matter, on his com-
petitors — you would not be like-
ly to know that Beirut has for
weeks been going through what
Reuters news agency called
"one of the most ferocious bar-

rages of the 14 years of periodic
civil strife in Lebanon." The lack
of interest on the part of Jenn-
ings and others in the media, in-
cluding the prestige press, can
be traced to the fact that Jews
are not the ones doing the kill-
ing. When that happens it pro-
vides opportunities for sustain-
ed and somewhat hysterical at-
tention and accompanying high-
dudgeon outrage, the stuff of
morality plays.

The lack of interest in
the coverage in Beirut is
due to the fact Jews are
not doing the killing.

On these occasions Jennings
musters a peculiarly haughty
sneer, much in evidence since
the intifada began in December
1987 and, of course, throughout
the 1982 Lebanon war. Some
observers sympathetically ex-
plained Jenning's relentless and
unprofessional hectoring of the
Israelis at that time as an ex-
pression of the fidelity he felt for

Beirut, where he had lived for
several years. But his neglect of
that city's recent agonies rather
undercuts this interpretation.
He is an intrinsically in-
terested in the Beirutis as he is
in the Aborigines. His interest,
his hostile interest, like that of
others in the trade, is in Israel.
Which is why when Arabs rain
high-explosive death on other
Arabs, even in mind-numbing
numbers, no one seems to take
much notice, certainly not Peter
Jennings.
Now the question arises whether
the dilemma can be even partially
resolved by such a devasting challenge.
The answer is probably in the negative,
because overwhelmingly the bias keeps
multiplying. The satisfaction is in the
knowledge that bias is not unanimous,
that there is at least one editor who
accuses.
Therefore, in the interest of some
relief from the onslaught on Israel's
defenders, a message of thanks to the
New Republic. There is a measure of
comfort in the exposing of the spreading
bias by challengers to Israel's enemies.
The blinded within Jewry and Israel
have important lessons to learn from
them. ❑

German-Jewish Epic: 'Frankfurt On The Hudson'

A

daptation of immigrants to this
country continues as a topic of
major interest in this welcoming
sphere to settlers from all continents.
The Jewish immigrant has been a sub-
ject of assimilation as well as nearly
total integration. The settler from Ger-
many has a long history dating back to
the last century, continuing through
the early decades of the 20th century
and into the World War II challenges.
The most recent studies date to this
very period and a volume of very great
interest has the enticingly intriguing
title of Frankfurt on the Hudson. It is
subtitled "The German-Jewish Com-
munity of Washington Heights,
1933-1983, Its Structure and Culture."
The author, Steven M. Lowenstein, a
Jewish academician with a distinguish-
ed record of writings on Jewish topics
and as an historian of note, is himself
a product of the environment describ-

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
(US PS 275-520) is published every Friday
with additional supplements the fourth
week of March, the fourth week of August
and the second week of November at
20300 Civic Center Drive, Southfield,
Michigan.

Second class postage paid at Southfield,
Michigan and additional mailing offices.

Postmaster: Send changes to:
DETROIT JEWISH NEWS, 20300 Civic
Center Drive, Suite 240, Southfield,
Michigan 48076

$26 per year
$33 per year out of state
60' single copy

Vol. XCV No. 9

2

FRIDAY, APRIL 28, 1989

April 28, 1989

ed in this most importantly researched
ington Heights among whom I
voume.
grew up seemed very different.
German Jews are not a
To them there was no contradic-
phenomenon here only of the Hitler era.
tion between German language
They were, earlier, among the elite, on
and cultural habits and a deep
a par with the Spanish-Portuguese com-
tie to Jewishness. Traditional
munity. That's when there was the bit-
Jewish religious practice was
terness in strife with East European
quite common and obvious
Jews, especially the Polish; that's when
among them. In fact, the Ger-
the German Jews were called the
man Jews seemed more tradi-
"yahudim."
tional and indeed more Jewish
The very title of the Lowenstein
than the neighborhood
book is an inspired challenge into the
"American Jews" whose
social and religious conditions of an im-
parents had come to America at
portant era in American Jewish life.
the turn of the century.
There is much to be conceded in
In Washington Heights, most
assimilatory factors in this study.
German synagogues were Or-
Nevertheless it is much more important
thodox, not Reform as the
to call the occurrences accommodations
history books would lead one to
to American Jewry and to integration
expect. Though they had certain
rather than assimilation.
feelings of snobbishness about
It is on the score of assimilation that
Jews of eastern European back-
it may be necessary to provide an in-
ground, the German Jews I
dication. In Lowenstein's study of the
knew could hardly have been
German Jews in Washington Heights
considered wealthy members of
there is a most valuable addendum to
the elite.
the testing of the assimilated. It is an
Before fleeing Hitler in the
important observation of attitudes of
1930s most had come from
Jews who integrate into the American
modest backgrounds, grown up
Jewish society. Lowenstein asserts:
in small towns in closely knit
Jewish communities, been small
The almost unvarying pic-
businessmen or white- and blue-
ture of modern German Jewry
collar workers, and could by no
given in history books, and in-
stretch of the imagination be
deed found in the mentality of
called assimilated.
many American Jews, is that of
The discrepancy between
a highly assimilated community
the traditional German Jews I
much more closely tied to Ger-
knew personally and the image
man culture than to Jewish
of assimilated German Jews
tradition, wealthy and elite, and
prompted
my initial research.
looking with condescension on
Jews of other backgrounds.
It is important to go to the com-
The German Jews of Wash-
parison which is not a contrast. Settlers

in the New York area who had the
Frankfurt spirit strengthened the
Washington Heights synagogues. They
were the Orthodox and Conservative,
the few in Reform. To some degree it
was Frankfurt transplanted to the New
Hudson.
They may have retained reason for
having been referred to at times as
"Yekke." This is explanatory:
The stereotype of the Ger-
man Jew has been formulated
(by eastern European Jews,
mainly in Israel) in the often
comical form of the yekke. This
figure has been taken by a
serious student of German Jews
in Israel as a model for studying
the German-Jewish "type."
She formulates the model in
the following terms taken from
Israeli stereotypes: "exaggerted
discipline in daily life, love of
order taken to grotesque
lengths, overvaluing of
humanistic education, pride in
his doctorate, barely speaks
Hebrew, considered assimilated,
closer to German culture than
to Hebrew or Yiddish?'
In their turn, German Jews
frequently steretyped Ostijuden
(eastern European Jews) as un-
cultured, dishonest, slovenly,
and bad mannered. A descrip-
tion of the culture of the Ger-
man Jews of Washington
Heights will show that certain
elements of the "yekke model"
apply to this community, but

Continued on Page 40