Kudos to Naomi Zeveloff for the article in the Jewish Forward on the training of rightwing pro-Israel journalism at the Shalem Center, which, if you didn’t already know, is funded by the likes of Sheldon Adelson and Roger Hertog of the Tikvah Fund. Once again, we read about the attempt to marshal the power of big money to shape agendas and the way strategic duplicity is an essential part of the process. Say what you want to say, guys, but at least be honest about it.
As explained by Zeveloff, The rising Middle East commentators include several alumni of Columbia University’s quarterly journal, The Current. Armin Rosen, for instance, is a fellow at Atlantic Media, where he recently penned an article attacking the anti-Zionist blog Mondoweiss for having the “appearance of an anti-Semitic enterprise.” David Feith, son of George W. Bush Pentagon appointee Douglas Feith, is an assistant editor at The Wall Street Journal, where he has inveighed against the Palestinian Fatah party, Israel’s negotiating and security partner in the occupied West Bank. Jordan Hirsch is an editor at the prestigious quarterly Foreign Affairs and recently defended the legacy of right-wing Zionist ideologue Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky in Tablet, an online Jewish magazine. And Bari Weiss, a senior editor at Tablet, has written for The Wall Street Journal about the Middle East and Israel.
All of this is part of a takeover of Jewish content at blue-chip U.S. universities by neoconservative dollars pushing conservative intellectual content. Over a four-year period, Shalem alumni began publications at Columbia, the University of Toronto, Brandeis University, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University and others. The Yale Israel Journal, which was already in existence, served as a model for the Azure Student Journals Project.
About this I’ve been writing a lot in relation to the Tikvah Fund, the Jewish Review of Books, and Tablet. It’s all interconnected.
What gets me, over and over again is the complete dishonesty, the complete non-transparency. They don’t want you to know who’s behind all this. We are supposed to believe that all of this is non-partisan. Zeveloff gleaned these gems:
The first is a from Bari Weiss, at Tablet, who is quoted as follows. “From my experience, I think it’s always best to be transparent,” Weiss, who was starting The Current at the time, wrote in one e-mail. But then she contradicted herself: “Also, from now on, better not to bring up the Shalem name. Tell them its [sic] coming from Azure — from a grant given by Hertog, who also owns half of The New Republic.” Aharon Horwitz, an adviser for the Azure Student Journals Project, replied that the editors must be “totally, totally transparent” about Shalem. “Explain that there is no, absolutely no, editorial control on the journals,” he said.
Hertog may own half of the New Republic, it’s true. Alas, it’s the rightwing half. I’ve written before about Hertog and his strategic thinking about philantrophhy, which you can read here.
As for the thoughts expressed by David Hazony, they beggar belief: In an interview with the Forward, David Hazony also stressed that the journals were run independently, with the student founders soliciting and editing the work of their peers. “The mandate was that there needs to be an Israel focus or a Jewish focus,” he said. “We put no restrictions or limitations on the content, and we did not involve ourselves editorially.”
As is always the case, there is never any need for editorial control when the editorial deck has already been stacked. Is this really what Ahad Ha’Am was talking about?
unfortunately, this really comes down to a question of money. where are the super-wealthy liberal jews? why are they not funding jewish studies departments, magazines, intellectual projects, etc.? Or, if they are, why is it that the things they fund are far less prominent than comparable things stemming from the right wing?
And why would the right wing specifically label their products? It’s bad marketing. If you want people to adopt a certain viewpoint it is more effective to use superb rhetoric and give them as few external handles (like overt statements of party affiliation) for them to grasp at as they fall into your net. It is self defeating to do otherwise, especially if your aim is not neutral intellectual exercise (is there even such a thing?) but heavily ideological.
If moderates and the left wing do not like this then they should come out with their own content and make sure it is equally or more engaging.
It’s the same problem I see with democrats in congress. their biggest problem is that the party tends to have a genuinely moderate mode of operation and they are dealing with opponents who are not at all moderate and who shamelessly exploit any advantage they can get their hands on. republicans are far better strategists. Obama’s biggest failure was in his first three months when he tried to compromise with the republicans, ended up getting nothing done and consequently lost control of congress.
I wish it was not this way, but I really think that if moderates and the left wing wishes to have their voice heard we need to be far more aggressive than we have been because that is the nature of the competition. this is true, in my opinion, both politically and culturally.
Good comment, Hayyim, its fair. I like your questions. Stop pointing the finger; point it back at yourself: “where are the super-wealthy liberal jews? why are they not funding jewish studies departments, magazines, intellectual projects, etc.? Or, if they are, why is it that the things they fund are far less prominent than comparable things stemming from the right wing?”