Some in the Mainstream Media are trying to figure out how to deal with the growing issue of violent antisemitic attacks against Jews.
On July 5, The Guardian reported, ‘Torrent of abuse’: Jewish man targeted twice in an hour in London:
A Jewish man subjected to antisemitic abuse twice in an hour in central London was physically threatened because of his appearance, his family have said.
The man, named only as Yosef, was on his way home when he was subjected to a “torrent of abuse”, with threats made to his life.
Footage showed the researcher from north London travelling on a bus to Oxford Street just before midnight on 3 July when another passenger got up and began to verbally assault him.
Later the same evening while walking down an escalator at Oxford Circus tube station, he was subjected to further antisemitic abuse by another male.
The article goes on to note that according to the brother, Yosef received “ugly racist remarks and death threats” and that there British Jewish groups reported a “horrific surge” in antisemitic attacks:
The Community Security Trust (CST) recorded 351 antisemitic incidents between 8 and 31 May, more than for any single month since records began in 1986.
The CST said the rise was fuelled by antisemitic reactions to the escalation of violence in Israel and Gaza. It called the situation “utterly predictable and completely disgraceful”.
o A Jew was attacked verbally and almost physicallyo There were death threatso The attack followed the Israel-Hamas war the previous month
o One of the things the perpetrator yelled was “Free Palestine”
o According to the recording, this person threatened “I’ll slit your throat for Palestine”o The journalist mentioned the CST report without noting that CST pointed out that there were “several incidents of individuals shouting ‘Free Palestine’ with abusive or threatening language or gestures at random Jewish people, who are selected for abuse because they are Jewish”
The CAMERA article concludes:
So, the reporter had the information to properly contextualise the antisemitic incident in question by noting that it fits a pattern of racist behavior – as well as attitudes – towards Jews by pro-Palestinian activists in the UK. But, by omitting this crucial information about the perpetrator’s Palestine-related verbal abuse, she failed to do so.
While the media has not been shy to describe attacks on Jews when they can be tied to “right-wing” racists, when the perpetrators are left-wing or Muslim, the attackers are often faceless and vague.
In The Algemeiner, Ira Stoll reported on Tuesday, Stabbing of Chabad Rabbi in Boston Is Not ‘Fit To Print’ in New York Times:
Rabbi Shlomo Noginski was stabbed repeatedly on July 1 outside a Jewish school building in Boston. A rally the next day organized by Boston Jewish community groups drew Boston’s acting mayor, the district attorney, and a member of Congress. An individual, Khaled Awad, was arrested in connection with the attack and pleaded not guilty to assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon and assault and battery on a police officer. People who knew Awad in Florida described him as violent and “antisemitic.”
A national, even international news story? Plenty of news organization thought so.
…But for the New York Times, the news wasn’t fit to print.
It’s at least the second time recently that the Times has skipped covering news of an attack on a Jewish target. In May, rock-throwing attacks against four synagogues in the Bronx attracted coverage from CNN, the Daily Mail, the Washington Post, the Arizona Republic, and the Wall Street Journal. Then, too, the Times apparently found the news not fit to print, and the metro editor failed to respond to an Algemeiner inquiry about why the Times thought the attacks weren’t newsworthy. [emphasis added]
Yet the New York Times — which has as part of its name “New York,” the city where the attacks happened — hasn’t found the news fit to print.
A search on the Times website for the name “Jordan Burnette,” the person arrested and charged on 42 counts, including hate crimes, for the attacks, produces no results from 2021. A search for “Riverdale,” the Bronx neighborhood where the synagogues were targeted, turns up no results about these synagogue attacks, either. [emphasis added]
Writing for The Washington Examiner, Melissa Langsam Braunstein notes the obvious spike in antisemitic attacks in New York City:
Since the NYPD regularly updates hate crime data, let’s review New York’s statistics. Of the 238 hate crimes reported in the nation’s largest city from Jan. 1 through May 30 of this year, 86 targeted Jews. This marked a 37% increase over January to May 2020.
Another possibility is that the Times does not want to consider its own role in the increase in antisemitism and anti-Jewish attacks:
Perhaps at least part of the reason the Times can’t bear to share the news of violent attacks on synagogues in New York or a rabbi in Boston is because a fair-minded, thorough investigation into such attacks might eventually force the newspaper to examine unflinchingly the role that the Times’ own coverage has played in inciting the violence. For anyone who makes the mistake of actually believing what the Times writes about the Jews — killing innocent children in Gaza in a possible war crime, spreading the coronavirus via skullcaps — attacking Jews might actually be a logical step. That’s not a legal or moral excuse for the perpetrators of violent antisemitic acts. But it is a call for the Times to reckon honestly with its own role in stoking hatred of Jews. Or, if that’s asking too much, at least to stop suppressing the news of such violent attacks from the newspaper’s readers. [emphasis added]