And the extremely devout who have rapidly the newspaper: sweat your piskelekh. Work on your own problems for which you make in March troubles for the rest of us. If you want to sell all homosexualistn of Judaism, lift with your own community because you know full well how are between tree!posted by jedicus at 7:28 AM on October 5, 2010 [8 favorites]
Maybe you’re afraid that you will lose majority of your readers, but what ever happened to integrity? What ever happened to doing the right thing despite what people will think? To being stronger than the weak and narrow-minded. To promote tolerance and love. To be a leader instead of being a victim to your ‘numbers’.A few years from now, the editors of this newspaper are going to look upon themselves and their decision with great regret, embarrassment, shame, and remorse -- just like any business in the 1960s that used to cater to racism out of fear of losing money or rocking the boat.
The Jewish Standard has always striven to draw the community together, rather than drive its many segments apart. We have decided, therefore, since this is such a divisive issue, not to run such announcements in the future.Right, so they will drive the gay Jewish segment apart. Or, I suppose, they rather have stated implicitly that they agree with the Orthodox segment in their belief that the gay segment isn't really part of the community so thus there is no need to worry about driving them out. Bravo.
We ran the wedding announcement because we felt, as a community newspaper, that it was our job to serve the entire community — something we have been doing for 80 years.We did not expect the heated response we got, and — in truth — we believe now that we may have acted too quickly in issuing the follow-up statement, responding only to one segment of the community.We are now having meetings with local rabbis and community leaders. We will also be printing, in the paper and online, many of the letters that have been pouring in since our statement was published.The issue clearly demands debate and serious consideration, which we will do our best to encourage.And this may be off the record, but the editor tells me "Oy".
James Janoff, Publisher
NJ Jewish Standard
I would submit that anyone who reads a news story like this one and sees that as an appropriate or relevant question to ask in response may be overreacting in the service of their own personal agenda.taken out of context you may be right, which is why I said "in this thread" referring to here and above which happens to be where the discussion landed.
The editor was forced to write an editorial that she totally disagrees with or risk losing her job.posted by Tin Man at 7:53 AM on October 6, 2010
She is absolutely heart broken over the entire situation.
Members of the local orthodox Jewish community are acting like the Taliban and have threatened the staff with closing down the paper and relieving them of their jobs if they don’t tow the line and print what they are instructed to print regarding this issue.
The clout of the local orthodox rabbis and some of the more vocal and obnoxious members of their flocks is such that the paper, the oldest Jewish newspaper in NJ, feels threatened.
However, our informant writes that if they can be pursuaded that they will be supported in their fight, their intention is to retract the bigoted policy and fight the hatemongers.
chapter2 says:This makes total sense. They control the Va'ad, and there's ample precedent (in NY at least) of kosher restaurants that had served the Orthodox community but went under once the hechsher was removed.
Oct 6, 2010 at 10:31 AM
It is my understanding that the Jewish Standard was basically being blackmailed. The RCBC, the Orthodox Rabbinate threatened to take away the hechsher, the certificate of kashrut, from any restaurant that continued to advertise in the Jewish Standard if they did not announce that they would never publish another gay wedding announcement. This would effectively put the Standard out of business, as it is advertising and not subscriptions that keeps their doors open, and it would have put the Kosher restaurants, caterers, and other Kosher food providers in the position of having to find another hechsher, which in Bergen county would be hard to do. It would alienate the Orthodox community from all of the liberal Jews who keep Kosher and it could cause financial havoc in the Jewish community. RCBC should be ashamed.
One single RCBC rabbi, who has been consulted by the Jewish Standard on a number of occasions in the past about issues relating to the religious sensibilities of the Orthodox community, did go, with the approval of the RCBC leadership, though not representing the RCBC, to meet with the executive staff of the Jewish Standard. The meeting was characterized by calm, civility and mutual respect. The rabbi communicated that there were a significant number of Orthodox Jews who felt that the Standard had crossed a line by publishing this wedding announcement, and that if the leaders of the paper are concerned about the opinions of these members of our community, they should reconsider their position on this matter for the future.
- At no time did this rabbi or any other RCBC rabbi express any threat whatsoever, financial or otherwise, to the newspaper.
- At no time did anyone representing the RCBC ever contact any proprietor of a food establishment under RCBC Kashruth supervision regarding anything to do with this matter or with the Jewish Standard.
- At no time did anyone representing the RCBC advocate any kind of boycott of the newspaper or force, urge, encourage, coax or cajole anybody else to do so.
Any reports, allegations or accusations implying the contrary are outright lies. They remain outright lies regardless of how loudly they are proclaimed or how often they are repeated.
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Don't wanna cause the Orthodox to have any second-hand anguish, so cause these two fellows some first-hand anguish. Classy.
posted by notsnot at 7:21 AM on October 5, 2010 [12 favorites]