Pittsburgh and the responsibilities of the press
It has been humbling in the days since the attack to see the good that my profession can do, in helping people to process, commemorate, and unify.
IN millions of homes across America, the sound of Kaddish echoed last Friday. It came from the television: NBC closed its news broadcast with the traditional mourning prayer, and pictures of the Pittsburgh victims.
It was remarkable. In a mostly Christian country, a national broadcaster invoked words of ancient Aramaic to mourn the dead in their own tradition.
This showed what the positive power of media can be at a time of crisis: not only providing news, but also helping a nation work through its emotions, mourning with the people, paying tribute, and being inclusive.
The television channel was following the lead of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette which featured Kaddish on its front page.
Both of these media outlets were saying loud and clear that they were mourning the victims as their own, while also giving this moving embrace to their identity as Jews.
I have been thinking a lot since the horrific attack about the role and responsibility of people in my profession at times like this.
It’s not an easy topic. The media is programmed to seek out drama; after such an attack we are overloaded with drama.
The American media got a lot right, and even had some lessons for journalists here in Israel, where we are so experienced at reporting on terror.
The morning after the attack Yossi Elituv, editor of the ultra-Orthodox Mishpacha magazine tweeted: “There are no humiliating photos from the scene. There are no leaks of the names of those murdered.”
To this Israeli editor, it was surprising. “Where are we compared to the Americans?” he asked. It was certainly, as he put it, “food for thought”.
Instead of plastering pages with graphic photographs, after Pittsburgh, media pushed themselves with their reporting and found dignified and creative ways to communicate the scale of the tragedy and to memorialise.
The front page of this newspaper last week, paying tribute to the “tragedy at the Tree of Life” with a tree and the names of victims, did exactly this.
Jewish newspapers in America also did themselves proud. Putting aside their commercial rivalries and political and religious differences, 19 senior editors signed a joint statement reacting to the attack.
They voiced their concern for America, condemned the “climate of hate” that has been building, and called for “solidarity and respect” in the community.
But media conduct after the attack hasn’t all been laudable. There have been journalists in America who used the attack to score political points for one cause or another.
And in Israel, the desire for a strong story went too far.
As we reported last week, Israel’s chief rabbi faced intense criticism for his comments.
An interviewer talking to this Orthodox leader about the attack on a non-Orthodox synagogue wasn’t satisfied with his declarations of pain at the attack and his general message that it doesn’t matter at this moment of sadness what religious ideology the congregation followed.
He wanted to know whether Rabbi David Lau considers the place to be a synagogue. Rabbi Lau wouldn’t say yes.
He responded: “Jews were killed in a place that was a place of clear Jewish character for the killer. A place with Torah scrolls, Jews in tallits, there are prayer books, there are people who went there out of their need be closer to God.”
This prompted a firestorm of criticism, with even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu taking a dig at him.
But let’s rewind and see how his comment came about. He was critical of those in Israel who were starting to talk about rivalries between different Jewish movements at a time of tragedy.
He caricatured them by saying that Jews had been killed “and what is the question? What synagogue or liturgy are they praying in?”
The interviewer wanted more. Rabbi Lau had summarised, disapprovingly, a divisive conversation that some Israelis were starting to have, yet he was forced to also address how he categorises the Tree of Life congregation.
“But is it a synagogue?” the interviewer asked, prompting the answer that sparked so much anger.
Much as we may dislike the fact that this question is controversial, to some people it is. Israel’s chief rabbis, taking the view that a building is a “beit knesset” only if it meets certain criteria in their interpretation of Jewish law, don’t call non-Orthodox houses of prayer synagogues.
This may change, following dialogue and discussion, but did the interviewer really expect Rabbi Lau to change his stance on the hop?
The interviewer put Rabbi Lau in an impossible situation where he was trying to react to a tragedy and he was left with no option but to cause outcry in one sector or another.
If he suddenly changed his lexicon and replied that Tree of Life is a synagogue, there would have been a backlash among Charedim and all news would have been focused on this.
On the other hand if he declined to call it a synagogue, as he did, it was bound to cause outcry from Conservative Jews and others.
Either way, the question was going to back the Chief Rabbi into a corner and focus everyone on intra-Jewish arguments instead of tragedy.
We can argue about the stance of the chief rabbi on non-Orthodox congregations.
We can question religious leaders about this, and debate the issue – but not by sparking an outcry in the aftermath of an attack.
What this journalist did was to focus a nation that should have simply been grieving for its brethren in America on divisions between Jews, by catapulting a longstanding controversy to the forefront of the news agenda.
Looking back on my article from last week, I think that it did a better job than most, though I regret not penning a couple of extra paragraphs giving context on the issue and summarising Rabbi Lau’s other comments.
I don’t take the view that we were wrong to cover it. This is because while I wish that the interviewer hadn’t sparked the controversy, once he did, it was at the centre of the national conversation in Israel.
It is my job to report this Israeli discourse as it is – especially on the rare occasions that Israelis are talking about the Diaspora – not to construct it as I want it to be.
It has been humbling in the days since the attack to see the good that my profession can do, in helping people to process, commemorate, and unify.
And it has been disturbing to see the major impact on the mourning period when a journalist asks a good question, but at the wrong moment.
He didn’t need a journalism textbook, just the sound wisdom of Ecclesiastes: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” Now is most definitely the “time to heal”.
NATHAN JEFFAY is The AJN’s Israel correspondent.
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