Young Journalists and Budding Intellectuals

Young Journalists and Budding Intellectuals

Eric Alterman reveals, "I went to a forum for Jewish student journalists last week ... Ruth R. Wisse said quite a few things I found amazing. One was instructing these young journalists and budding intellectuals that they should think of themselves as a kind of adjunct to the Israeli army and ignore all intellectual distinctions, issues of personal honesty, moral complications, etc., and just defend Israel against its attackers. It reminded me of the time that Norman Podhoretz insisted, years ago, that "the role of Jews who write in both the Jewish and general press is to defend Israel," period. Talk about your dual loyalties. Talk about your intellectual dishonesty. ... Scary that these kids were hearing this stuff from a Harvard professor.

... Also amazing, I thought, was Wisse's contention that Commentary is the most influential Jewish magazine in history. ... Take a look at the magazine right now. ... last month it published Amir Taheri, here, who is the guy who made up that false report about Iranian Jews being forced to wear yellow stars. I don't feel like going into all the arguments these articles imply and the terrible things they imply about a group of Jewish propagandists-posing-as-intellectuals, but given the fact that for literally decades, Commentary was probably the single best magazine in America -- I read every issue of every good magazine from the 1945-50 period for what was going to be a doctoral thesis, and it certainly was then -- it's beyond sad. More significantly, however, isn't this just the kind of thing anti-Semites accuse Jews of saying and doing? If I were the kind of person to attribute the actions of a few to an entire ethnic group -- and were not a member of that group myself -- I swear, this kind of thing would get me thinking unkosher thoughts about the people that the racist Murray insists are God's Chosen People. " - Eric Alterman