Jewish News - 4.25.22 Issue

Page 6

Forever Helping Others

OPINION

Where are the headlines? Jay Klebanoff

W

Architect Bernard Spigel died in 1968, leaving a legacy of homes, schools, and other buildings he designed. Today, Spigel Scholars are designing buildings of their own. A scholarship that Bernard’s daughter, LucySpigel Herman, created at the community foundation to honor him helps future architects pay for their education.

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ords matter. So do images. We see and feel the impact of words and images in cascading form in this age of technology driven social and journalistic media. As we were reminded at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, people, nations, and institutions pay the price when misleading words are spewed as truth or presented in skewed fashion. For too many years to count, Israel has suffered from a media, writ large, that portrays a set narrative regarding the struggle for peace and self-determination in Israel. The country that started out in 1948 as a miraculous story of courage, determination and ingenuity—the little country that could—now suffers from a consistent narrative portraying Israel as the unsympathetic oppressor. Whether overt or subliminal, this long-standing and skewed media perspective has created the kindling often ignited by a movement like BDS or by endemic antisemitism. Media coverage of the current spate of murderous attacks on innocent civilians in Israel provides the latest example. On March 22 in Beersheba, four Israeli civilians were stabbed or rammed to death by a known ISIS supporting terrorist. Five days later in Hadera, two 19-year-old police officers were killed at a bus stop in an attack ISIS has taken credit for. On March 29 in Bnei Brak, a religious suburb of Tel Aviv, five people were killed by an Israeli Arab, including two Ukrainian citizens and an Arab-Israeli police officer responding to the attack. On April 7, in the heart of cosmopolitan Tel Aviv, two 27-year-old Israeli life-long friends and a 35-year-old father of three young children were gunned down and others critically wounded by an ArabIsraeli terrorist. Each of these horrific incidents was reported in our Virginian-Pilot newspaper as part of a cursory “News Briefing” section. Evidently, innocent Israelis getting killed on four occasions over a two-week period isn’t considered headline worthy.

6 | JEWISH NEWS | April 25, 2022 | jewishnewsva.org

Worse, on two occasions The Pilot featured the Israeli reprisal to the terrorism as a headline article; the second of which was titled, Israeli forces kill Palestinian militant in raid. The photo accompanying the Israel Police The shooting attack on Dizengoff Street, April 7, 2022. second headline story shows Israeli military vehicles rumbling down the streets of Jenin, a Palestinian city that is often a hotbed of terrorist planning. There were no photos of Eytam Magini, one of the 27-year-old friends killed in Tel Aviv, who had just gotten Israel Police engaged and was The shooting attack on Dizengoff Street, April 7, 2022. planning his wedding. There were no photos of Barak Lofen, also killed in Tel be peace in Israel—a time when terrorist Aviv, who was a two-time Israeli Olympic organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, and kayaker. There were no photos of the ISIS lose their grip on the population Chesed Shel Emet teams gathering the of the West Bank and Gaza and people bodies in Beersheba, Hadera, Bnei Brak or who want security and economic stabilTel Aviv after the murders. ity can negotiate a peace similar to the No, once again the media—our agreements Israel shares with Egypt and media—chose to downplay the killing of Jordan. Israelis and instead feature Israel as the But as long as the murder of Israelis aggressor. One has to wonder why this is trivialized and Israel’s rightful defense portrayal has become the narrative for The of its population is portrayed as heavy Pilot and for journalists worldwide. Does handed oppression, there will be no incenthis narrative attract more subscribers? Is tive for Palestinians to curtail the rocket there visceral or intentional antisemitism attacks, stabbings, shootings, and vehicle at work? attacks that terrorize the Israeli populaIt is hard to say. What is readily appartion and prompt a necessary reprisal. ent is that this skewed reporting has an Reporting matters. impact. It affects people’s opinions consciously and sub-consciously; especially Jay Klebanoff is a past president of United those who only know the Israel presented Jewish Federation of Tidewater. by the media. We can hope that there will someday


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