The JTA presents itself as the news service of the Jewish people. The butt of the oft-repeated joke, yesterday's news tomorrow, the JTA has many problems. And as a story released today shows, lack of honesty when it come to Chabad could be one of them.
The JTA presents itself as the news service of the Jewish people. The butt of the oft-repeated joke, "yesterday's news tomorrow," the JTA has many undeniable problems. And as a story released today shows, lack of honesty could be one of them.
More than a month after the Jewish divorce extortion scandal involving France's top haredi and Chabad rabbis broke, the JTA has finally done a write up on it.
But that write up fails to mention that the charity the alleged bribe was ordered to be paid to is a Chabad school, and that write-up also fails to mention that at least two of the rabbis involved in the alleged extortion are Chabad.
Instead, the JTA's story only focuses on the role of co-acting-chief-rabbi of France Michael Guggenheim, who is not Chabad. That Chabad rabbis were in the room with him and that one of them was caught on tape suggesting that the bribe be laundered through this Chabad charity?
That the JTA doesn't bother to mention.
In fact, the JTA's story fails to mention Chabad, Chabad-Lubavitch, or Lubavitch at all. Like Pravda in the days of Stalin, the truth is simply wiped away, and only those in the know realize it is missing.
The picture chosen to run with the story is a file photo of Guggenheim speaking at that very Chabad school. The caption reads in full: "An interim chief rabbi of France, Michel Gugenheim, attending the opening of a charitable institution, March 11, 2014. (Courtesy of Consistoire de Paris)" [emphasis added] Again, no mention of Chabad.
Several times since Ami Eden took over as the JTA's editor-in-chief, JTA stringers have taken stories FailedMessiah.com broke and reported them as if FailedMessiah.com didn't exist. (This is most common from its Australian stringer.)
When I've raised this issue with Eden, Eden has not corrected those JTA reports or apologized.
But perhaps Eden will correct the inept and misleading story on the Paris get (Jewish divorce) scandal.
Then again, perhaps not.
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