THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE NEW YORK TIMES AND JEWS

The NEW YORK TIMES (NYT) is recognized as one of the most quoted English newspaper in the world.  The modern Times was started when Adolph Ochs, an immigrant’s son of Jewish heritage became publisher in 1896.  Ochs became a prominent figure in New York Society but inwardly he felt his Jewishness left him as an outsider to many.  According to a book published in 1999 called “The Trust” he was determined that his paper was never to be seen as an organ for the Jewish community, which at times numbered as high as 20% of the New York population.  The newspaper was eventually taken over by his son-in-law Arthur Hays Sulzberger.  The family of the Sulzberger’s control the paper to this day.

Arthur Hays Sulzberger was the publisher of the Times throughout the events which encompassed the Holocaust and the birth of the State of Israel, two happenings of major importance to the Jewish world.  But Sulzberger did not give the prominence to these events that was warranted by knowledgeable critics.  It was done to avoid the charge of headlining Jewish events,or pleading to the public on Jewish issues.  In 1944 the Nazis were determined to destroy the Hungarian Jewish community as they had the others.  In July 1944 about 750,000 Jews were killed and the paper citing authoritative sources ran a four column inches article on page 12.  If this had happened to any other group it would have been front page news.  The issues of the holocaust in general was never given the prominence it warranted.  It is a theory that like other wealthy and prominent Jews they did not want to be associated with the “low-cultured Jews” from Eastern Europe.  The paper ran an article about the Warsaw ghetto but neglected to mention it was peopled mostly by Jews.  There can be no excuse for the attitude of the publishers to the Jewish people in this time span.

When the state of Israel was declared in 1948, the Times as other world newspapers favoured its struggle surrounded by Arab enemies. The coverage was mostly favourable but slowly the attitude of the Times changed as well, as the attitude of other papers. The Times implied that the Palestinian refugee problem was due solely to Israel when in fact Israel recognizes that a country in the neighbourhood surrounded by enemies needs peace desperately. The Palestinian refugees have never been accommodated by the other Arab states and it is quite clear that the Arab government in the West Bank uses the refugees and their plight in the camps as a weapon to bring world opinion to their side. When Israel was governed by  the left the Times had a cordial relationship to its leaders but that has changed with Begin and Netanyahu . The NYT is a left-wing newspaper. Don`t the Israelis have the right to choose the government of their choice. To say that the Israelis are perfect in their relationship  with the Palestinians would be a blatant lie. The government spends more money on Jewish areas of the state, on  Jewish Israeli education. This was pointed out to me by Khaled Abu Toamah an Israeli Arab reporter. It may all be changing. But the Israelis are justifiably afraid that they will be attacked again and want secure borders. The NYT makes no effort to see the Jewish side of the problem and blatantly emphasizes in print the Jewish Israeli NGO`s who criticize Israel, sometimes justifiably .

Owned by Jews, in a city with many Jews the Times goes out of its  way criticize Israel whenever possible. It wants the world to know that the Times is not, never was, and never will be a Jewish mouthpiece. I do not want to leave the impression that the SULZBERGERS are anti-Semites or self-hating Jews, but business is business and not having a Jewish identified newspaper makes good economic sense for them.

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