Ami Magazine Uses Nazi Imagery Implying Obama, US Government Are Antisemitic

Ami Magazine's editor-at-large, Avi Shafran, who is also Agudath Israel of America's spokesperson, wrote a column in Ami two months ago calling anti-child-sex-abuse activists and bloggers Nazis. Now, less than two weeks after Israeli haredim used Nazi imagery including yellow stars and concentration camp uniforms in an anti-Zionist, anti-government demonstration that drew worldwide condemnation, Ami Magazine festoons its cover with storm troopers marching in front of a White House covered with Nazi flags.

The Jewish Week has insipid coverage of this story that fails to mention Ami's past transgressions and lets them off the hook for this one.

When a newspaper has an underendowed staff, it produces underendowed reporting, and Stuart Ain doesn't do anything to prove that contention wrong.

Gary, if you can't hire out these pieces to reporters who know the haredi community and know what they're writing about, then write the damn pieces yourself.

Here is Shafran's earlier smear of the activists and bloggers:

Comments

[jancsipista]

This is the kind of mentality we have to deal this is the ultimate despicable repugnant gratitude theese characters show to a nation that revived jewidism and save the jews from ultimate destruction sick and getting sicker

[Yosef ben Matitya]

jancsipista got it right.
these idiots are suicidal like beaching whales and like moth flying into a flame to get consumated. trouble is, they are pulling us with them into their self immolation.

[Not Simple]

If the topic is "the return of antisemitism" then what better imagery then those of the Nazis?

[mark]

thanks shmayra for pointing out the real ami and their use of nazi slogans

[jancsipista]

Yosef ben Matitya-abosolutly, pulling us with them into the abyss

[ah-pee-chorus]

If the topic is "the return of antisemitism" then what better imagery then those of the Nazis?

Posted by: Not Simple |

is the topic anti-semitism at the white house , you simpleton apologist?

[jancsipista]

Not Simple- wrote to you stop being so simple try to learn science and math and not so much gemore,youre contemplating too much on the gemara makes you dummer then dummn

[Waiting4Moshiach]

When the Rabbenim warned everyone what was coming in the forties did anyone listen? The Munkacs Rebbe warned everyone what would happen if they failed to keep shabbos and instead followed the seculars with their goy schools and modern ways and what result? Churban. But today it is different. We have very healthy communities here now strong enough to warn everyone who will listen, including seculars, about what is really happening in the Obama whitehouse. Torah Yidden need a way of grabbing the attention of the secular who give money to Obama and gay weddings and if this sort of cover works, then it is a mitzvah. But remember, no matter who you are, this is not our country. We will have our country when Moshiach comes and then everyone will want to be our servant in business. Until then remembe, keep a bag packed, Yidden!

[Friar Yid]

Not simple-- better imagery would be just about anything relevant to the actual topic of neo-Nazism, which is apparently what the cover article was about. For instance, crime scene pictures of neo-Nazi crimes, or photos of prominent neo-Nazi leaders. Bringing the White House and storm troopers into it makes zero sense and obscures the actual focus of the article.

The sad part is when you read the comments by the Ami editor, you realize he has no understanding of why their cover has nothing to do with neo-Nazism.

“The swastika is the present day symbol of Nazism and we did it to make a journalistic statement about the spread of neo-Nazism,” explained Rabbi Yitzchak Frankfurter, the magazine’s publisher and editor-in-chief. “The White House was used as a symbol of the U.S. and not to suggest anything about the present administration or its occupants.”

The only ones that think there is any serious similarity in organization, threat level, or even values between the Nazis of WWII and the present-day clowns running around with shaved heads and bad tattoos are the neo-Nazis themselves. Not only is Ami's cover in terrible taste, it also demonstrates that its writers and editors fundamentally misunderstand the topic, immediately jumping to doomsday scenarios where neo-Nazis suddenly become organized, disciplined and united enough to not only dominate US politics, but actually recreate the Third Reich. (In whose universe?)

Frankly, this gives neo-Nazis way too much credit. But whatever, it'll sell issues, so who cares?

[taylor]

People should stop buying this magazine and tell the advertisers to stop advertising in it.

[rebitzman]

and tell the advertisers to stop advertising in it.

Excellent idea - their online edition has one, and only one advertiser - Manischewitz.

Their PR person is Deborah Ross, and she can be contacted by.....

Phone: 201-553-1100 x2505

or

E-mail: deborah.ross@manischewitz.com

[Ban Ami]

It's high time the general Jewish community expressed its outrage at these unethical sophists.

A boycott of all advertisers in Ami Magazine and a "ban" of the publication would be refreshing.

[Not Simple]

Not Simple- wrote to you stop being so simple try to learn science and math and not so much gemore,youre contemplating too much on the gemara makes you dummer then dummn

Posted by: jancsipista | January 14, 2012 at 07:52 PM

In mathematics/logic the statement

If "P" implies "Q" is true

The the truth of "P" implies the truth of "Q". However if "P" is false the validity of the statement is still true i.e. "P" false implies "P" true (or false) does not invalidate the truth of the original statement.

So when I saw the story all I saw was "the return of antisemitism", everything else was fuzzy and I saw the Nazi imagery hence my statement

IF the topic is "the return of antisemitism" THEN what better imagery then those of the Nazis?

A logically consistent statement given the defined input parameters.

http://people.hofstra.edu/Stefan_Waner/RealWorld/logic/logic3.html

... and yes, I did study mathematics and physics at an ivy league university.

[A. Nuran]

Not Simple - It's because they aren't Nazis, you lying cock-socket. But that's "toireh" Judaism for you. Slander? As long as it's someone I don't like. Lies? As long as they're aimed at anyone outside our little bubble.

[moshy]

ami magazine and all other magazines have almost no advertisers the advertisements you see are free ads to lure one or 2 business to mabe advertise did you think that someone would pay $10,000 for a page when a few hundred people read on shabbat?

[taylor]

Rabbi Frankfurter's email is eic@amimagazine.org. He is the editor in chief of Ami Magazine. Send him your angry letters.

[fyg]

20 (or more) grocery stores in williamsburg stopped selling Ami due to their badmouthing of the Frum people in Israel.

[Sol]

Tell frankfurter to take his uneducational magazine and shove it up his ass! What a moron as if we are lacking reading material, wtf!? Is he seriously comparing this dumb 23 year old gestetner from skver to rush Limbaugh ?? Someone call rush to let him know to whom he is compared to ! He will shoot himself ,or in the best case scenario resign ....

[Mendy Hecht]

Shmarya,

You write, "who know the haredi community"

Translation: "Who see the community from my narrow point of view and who march in lockstep with my thinking."

In other words, if you believe the Haredi community are a bunch of bigots, fanatics and criminals, then and only then are you a true journalist who "knows" the Haredi community. If you don't, you're just ignorant.

Arrogant. Just arrogant.

And, by the way, did any of you small-minded people even read the article? Doubt it. It was written by John Loftus, who is not even Jewish--yes, the same Irishman Loftus who quit his U.S. gov't Nazi-hunting job when he discovered that the U.S. gov't was HIDING Nazis. Don't believe me? Go out and buy the mag and read it yourself. Loftus knows what he's saying--and the cover was just meant to complement the article.

[Rebitzman]

Mendy, you are generally more thoughtful than this. There is no justification for the image. None - nada. Don't care if the pope or the rebbe wrote the article, the image is vile.

And, yes I have read the article.

[Mendy Hecht]

I actually agree, Rebitz. The cover image was at best tasteless.

But I was commenting not on the cover, but on the comment of our Almighty Knower of All Thing Orthodox here, who reminds of the old saw, "What's the definition of a bigot? Anyone who wins an argument with a liberal."

Same thinking here: If you're with me and foam at the mouth like me, you're a journalist. If not, why, you're simply unendowed.

[Shmarya]

Mendy, you are generally more thoughtful than this. There is no justification for the image. None - nada. Don't care if the pope or the rebbe wrote the article, the image is vile.

And, yes I have read the article.

Posted by: Rebitzman | January 15, 2012 at 01:53 PM

I think you're giving Mendel far more credit that he deserves.

He's a troll, and not a very good one at that.

And, Mendel, people who do KNOW the haredi community, who know the behavior of Frankfurter that precedes this latest outrage, would have reported the story a lot differently.

This wasn't Frankfurter's first "mistake" moron. It's the latest in a long line of similar "mistakes."

And quite frankly, no honest journalist would have written that story without citing some of them.

That Mendy Hecht whose entire family is full of dishonest, unethical hacks for Chabad doesn't understand this is part nature, part nurture – and part trollkeit.