The New SteveSilver.net

Not Kosher

In a New York Press column that draws a seemingly unquestioned moral equivalence between Bush’s America and Saddam’s Iraq- in addition to being completely based on conjecture- author/managing editor Alexander Zaitchik throws in this little nugget, in reference to what would happen if Arabs invaded America and one of them was captured by a US militia:

Considering the ugly ends met in recent years by some of those in unoccupied America—Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. come to mind—it's a safe bet our young Arab would not receive the relatively quick, kosher slaughter afforded Nick Berg.

“Kosher slaughter”? Kosher slaughter? Excuse me? Not only is Zaitchik, by calling it “relatively quick,” downplaying the suffering of a man who was beheaded, but specifically using the word “kosher” to describe the murder of a Jew. I’m not saying it’s anti-Semitic, but it’s very, very, very close to the line, if not standing right on it.

(It should go without saying that the piece is flanked by a straight-off-the-internet sidebar which alleges that Berg's murder was faked).

For the second week in a row in that paper, no less. Remember that cartoon on the cover of the Rutgers University student magazine awhile back that used the phrase "knock the Jew in the oven"? NYP last week saw it fit not only to defend that vile piece of trash, but to run an op-ed by that paper’s editor, who offered no apologies and regretted only that he had tangled with Hillel, “the most powerful, most well-funded and most media-savvy group on campus”- yes, they’re powerful, rich, and they control the media too! Why doesn't he mention their beards and hooked noses? (Oh wait, the cartoon did).

Now I’m not sitting here and accusing New York Press of institutional anti-Semitism. I’ve read it just about every week for four years, written for it a handful of times, and there’s a lot I continue to love about the paper, especially the film writing, and Jim Knipfel's column.

The larger problem I see is that NYP has sought, either in order to compete with the Village Voice or for other reasons, to adopt a forcefully hard-left editorial stance that is totally incongruous with the paper's history. And such a stance, all too often these days, seems to involve a incredibly high tolerance for the bashing of Jews- something which is, of course, not liberal in the slightest.

The paper’s newish leftism leaves behind the NYP’s long tradition of balanced, diverse material (for years, it had an equally iconoclastic right/left columnist platoon of Christopher Caldwell and Alexander Cockburn). These days, in order to be published in NYP as a conservative you apparently have to have founded the paper (as Russ Smith did).

UPDATE: Alexander Zaitchek has written in to apologize for his use of the phrase "kosher slaughter," which I certainly appreciate; also, in the online version of the piece the word "kosher" has disappeared. Hmm.