Whats up with Modi'in?!

Let me preface this post by saying, I have lots of friends in Modi'in. Relatives as well. I think it's a relatively well-planned modern Israeli city. Rent and housing prices are on the expensive side, but it seems like a nice place.

I've blogged about Modi'in before:

1. School refuses to allow a student to daven with tefillin in a closet (or anywhere in the school)

2. The Sefer Torah that fell in Modi'in -- and the communal fast day afterwards.

3. Jews from Modi'in who enjoy signing Christmas carols in the public park.

Hmm, were those all negative posts? I didn't mean for them to be. A Torah could fall anywhere...besides, keep reading. I'm not done yet with Modi'in.

Normally, Modi'in is not part of my daily schedule -- I pass by it sometimes if I chose to drive that way to work. Its simply on the map.

I posted earlier today a Public Service Announcement on behalf of a group of parents forming to create a religious hostel to care for autistic children in Israel. I also contacted people to please forward the message to different community email lists around Israel as well -- Efrat, Kfar Saba, Raanana, Nof Ayalon, Modi'in, etc., as this is an important issue -- especially for families that have autistic children.

[Note: If you haven't seen this PSA on your local Israel email list, please send submit it. Thanks]

Every list I contacted, posted it.

Imagine my surprise at the response from the Modi'in email list's moderator:

From: <modiin-owner@lerner.co.il>
Date: Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 11:31 AM
Subject: Request to mailing list Modiin rejected
To: (name of submitter removed)

Your request to the Modiin mailing list

Posting of your message titled "religious hostel for autistic children"

has been rejected by the list moderator. The moderator gave the
following reason for rejecting your request:

"While a worth cause, the Modiin list is not the proper forum for this
posting. The Modiin list is only for postings that specifically have
to do with life in Modiin. Thank you for your cooperation."

Any questions or comments should be directed to the list administrator
at: modiin-owner@lerner.co.il

EXCUSE ME?!

Tell me, if you are religious, live in Modi'in, and have an autistic child -- you wouldn't find this information, important and timely? You wouldn't want to know about options like this?

Modi'in people:

Do you know that your email list is so seriously censored moderated, that a generic request to parents of autistic children is rejected for distribution because "The Modiin list is only for postings that specifically have to do with life in Modiin."

What a blessed town Modi'in must be, that there are no autistic children living there, and they are not part of "life in Modi'in."

Are there handicapped parking spaces in Modi'in? We wouldn't want to interfere with the idyllic life of Modi'in, by wasting parking spaces on handicapped people, would we?

I know...we need to modify the email for it to get posted! Possible subject headlines include:

Tonight at the park -- Christmas Caroling Choir for autistic children!

You too can prevent autistic children from wearing tefillin at Modi'in's mamlachti schools!

Seems like Christmas caroling in the park is ok -- a message about a religious hostel (that won't even be in Modi'in, but can be USED by children from Modi'in) for autistic children is off-limits and inappropriate.

Tell me Mister Modi'in List Moderator -- that's rather unChristmaslike of you, wouldn't you say?

I expect that Santa will be leaving you a lump of coal this year.

Lurker thought this should be posted as well:


Going to Israel?
Now get 2 phones for the price of 1 (and free calls too) with Talk'n'Save.

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד

CNN's memory hole

A guest post by Lurker:


What does CNN do when they get caught lying?

They try to erase the evidence that they lied; that's what.

A couple of days ago, CNN's Drew Griffin interviewed Sarah Palin. During that interview, Griffin tried to humiliate Palin by citing an article from the conservative National Review that supposedly trashed her viciously. The only problem was that the article in reality did no such thing -- in fact, it did the exact opposite. The article, by conservative journalist Byron York, actually praised and commended Palin. Here is the relevant context:

Watching press coverage of the Republican candidate for vice president, it’s sometimes hard to decide whether Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt, backward, or — or, well, all of the above. Palin, the governor of Alaska, has faced more criticism than any vice-presidential candidate since 1988, when Democrats and the press tore into Dan Quayle. In fact, Palin may have it even worse than Quayle, since she’s taking flak not only from Democrats and the press but from some conservative opinion leaders as well...
...
Yes, there are legitimate concerns about Palin’s lack of experience. Who wouldn’t, at the very least, wish that she had more time in the governor’s office on her résumé? But a look at Palin’s 20 months in power, along with interviews with people who worked with her, shows her to be a serious executive, a governor who picked important things to do and got them done — and who didn’t just stumble into an 80 percent job-approval rating.

And here is how CNN's Drew Griffin cited the article in his interview with Palin:

Governor, you've been mocked in the press. The press has been pretty hard on you, the Democrats have been pretty hard on you, but also some conservatives have been pretty hard on you as well. The National Review had a story saying that, you know, I can't tell if Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt or all of the above.

Palin probably hadn't read the article, but she clearly was suspicious. "Who wrote that one?" she shot back with a smile. "Who wrote it? I'd like to talk to that person." Griffin, unprepared to have the tables turned on him, sputtered back, "That - that was in the National Review, I don't, have the author". Then he changed the subject.

The big problem, of course, wasn't that Griffin didn't "have the author", but that he had completely inverted the message of the article so as to present it disingenuously as an attack on Palin, instead of a support piece.

Or, to be a bit more accurate, the problem (for Griffin and CNN, at least) was that he got caught doing that. Because within hours, the right-wing blogs were all talking about it.

So back to our question: Now that CNN's gross distortion of the truth was exposed, what did they do? They did something that would make the party hacks in Orwell's Ministry of Truth proud: They tried to toss that part of the interview down the memory hole:

The above quote, containing Griffin's deceptive misrepresentation of the NR article, used to be in CNN's transcript of the interview. You can still see it here in Google's cache. But if you look for it in the current version of that page, you won't find it. CNN snipped out the entire paragraph.

And they didn't only delete it from the transcript -- they even deleted it from the on-line video. (The video link is near the top of the CNN page; the snip happens at 11:06.) You can see the part CNN would rather you didn't see here, starting at 1:24:


Why do you suppose they did that, hmm?

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד

JPost acknowledges, defends censorship

Guest post by Lurker:

To David Horovitz [Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief]:

I am disappointed that you have chosen not to respond to my query below, regarding the Jerusalem Post's censorship of Edwin Bennatan's blog article.

Today, I found a new notice* posted on this same blog, which surprisingly acknowledged that "the Jerusalem Post found nothing improper in Mr. Bennatan's article itself". In spite of this, the notice says, the article "was removed from this site last week in resolution of a legal dispute concerning 'talkback' comments posted in response to his article".

If there were indeed defamatory or libelous talkback comments, then I can certainly understand why the Post would remove them. I can even understand why the Post might pay Mr. Freedman damages for libel. But what legitimate explanation can there possibly be for removing the article itself, which, according to Post's own statement, contained "nothing improper"?

It is painfully clear what happened here: Mr. Freedman obviously threatened legal action, and blackmailed the Post. Removal of the offending talkbacks along with an apology was not enough for him, and neither was an offer of a cash payment. No, Freedman wanted more, didn't he? He wanted the Post to censor an article that contained embarrassing criticism of his political opinions. And the Post cravenly complied.

The Post's capitulation to extortion raises serious questions about your paper's commitment to fundamental journalistic ethics: If a little-known two-bit extremist blogger is somehow capable of forcing the Post to completely censor an opinion piece that politely criticizes his opinions, then who is to say that powerful political figures cannot – and do not – force the Post to do the same thing, or worse? What reason is there to assume that the Post is not refraining from publication of criticism, or embarrassing information, regarding individuals far more important and powerful than Seth Freedman – people who might blackmail the Post into hiding things they don’t want the public to see, just as Freedman has?

If you have a legitimate explanation for your paper’s behavior in this matter, I’d certainly be interesting in hearing it.

In a related matter, I ask you once again: To which "charity", exactly, has the Jerusalem Post contributed money at Mr. Freedman's behest?

Want to let the Post know what you think, too? Send an e-mail to David Horovitz and/or their blog administrator.

UPDATE: This morning, the notice was at the top of this page. But apparently, the Post had second thoughts, and removed the notice a few hours later. However, they seem to have forgotten to remove it from this other page containing the same blog article. I changed the link above to use the page that still contains the notice. And I've saved a copy, of course, in case the Post removes the notice from the second page as well.

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד

Censorship in the Jerusalem Post

Guest post by Lurker:

Thanks to JoeSettler for bringing to our attention the Jerusalem Post's recent outrageous act of censorship. I sent the following letter tonight to the Post's editor-in-chief, David Horovitz:

To David Horovitz:

Why has the Jerusalem Post censored this blog article by Edwin Bennatan? (The link is a snapshot from Google's cache.)

The entire article has disappeared, and has been replaced with this apology.

I understand from the apology that there were some user comments to the article that were deemed “defamatory, threatening, and inappropriate”, and I can certainly understand why the Post would delete such a comment.

But why was the article itself taken down? Did it contain something that you find to be “defamatory, threatening, and inappropriate”? If so, then what was it, exactly? And if it did not contain anything “defamatory, threatening, and inappropriate”, then why has it been deleted and replaced with an apology?

I would point out that the Post's censorship of this article has already become a subject of discussion in the blogosphere. (See here for an example.) This action calls into question the Post's journalistic standards, and its commitment to freedom of speech.

Mr. Horowitz: In the past, I have admired you for your defense of Israel against egregious media bias against Israel. The article by Bennatan was very similar to many such defenses that you yourself have presented in the past. His article was well-written, reasoned, and free of any ad hominem attacks or anything even remotely inappropriate. I am shocked that the newspaper under your editorship has chosen to censor it. I would not have expected this from you.

I (along with many others) am interested in an explanation of why the Post has done this.


P.S.: I am also quite curious to know which charity Mr. Freedman has selected for the Jerusalem Post to make a contribution to.

If you are also disturbed by the Post's censorship of this article, why not tell them? Here is David Horovitz's e-mail address.

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד