LOOKING AROUND: We are who we are
By Barbara Sofer
February, 28 2002
We Jews have always recognized the importance of reporting and recording events, be they the Exodus, the giving of the Torah, or the turnabout of events in the Persian empire. The telling counts so much that we are commanded to pass on our history to our children, the more commentary the better.
Little wonder that in modern times so many of us have become writers, correspondents, commentators, newscasters and film makers.
The late Daniel Pearl, 38, born in New Jersey, first-generation American, son to Israeli immigrants, educated at Stanford, worked his way up to become the South Asian bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, one of the world's most esteemed newspapers. At the time of his murder, Pearl was researching an important story. By interviewing Sheikh Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani, he hoped to understand the mindset of those who seek to destroy our modern world. This is what we have relied on our best journalists to do, to ferret out the truth and improve our comprehension of the events around us.
Those who routinely scorn journalism should imagine a totalitarian society without the checks and balances of reporting, imperfect as it is.
When you become a journalist like Pearl, being Jewish isn't supposed to matter. Professionalism requires neutrality, so that you ask hard questions of those you admire as well as of those you detest. Even in "new journalism," when reporters are encouraged to bring their own sensibilities into their stories, this usually precludes a strong Jewish stance. Especially when interviewing those with no affection for Jews, we pretend that they don't know we're Jewish. That's part of the job.
In a dramatic moment in the Scroll of Esther, Esther reveals the plight of her people to her husband King Ahasuerus without actually using the word "Jew." I've always wondered how she could have kept her identity a secret in the palace, given her ties to Mordechai, and Shushan intrigues. Jewish identity has a way of catching up with public officials.
But there's a difference between "guessing" someone is Jewish and making that identity public.
Most Jewish journalists work, too, not denying their Judaism but not emphasizing it, either. In a recent article about Hamas in Gaza, New Yorker editor David Remnick went as far as reporting that he was asked if "David wasn't a Jewish name," but not about how he felt being asked such a question. This week, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote about walking out of a session in Saudi Arabia when he was told that the Jews ruled the US government, but he didn't say if this was an expression of his general abhorrence of bigotry or because he is a Jew.
In my own experience interviewing anti-Semites in rural Idaho, the story had to focus, not on how they saw me, but on why they thought we Jews were going to steal their forests. How often have we observed Jewish reporters, so concerned about strictly adhering to these rules of impartiality that they have strayed to the side of those who hate Jews in order to demonstrate their even-handedness?
"Danny's death is a terrible reminder, like so many others since last September 11, that evil still stalks this world," said the memorial editorial in his paper. How these words resonate this week, when we are commanded both to remember Amalek and to celebrate the events of Shushan, not far from Pakistan.
"His death reminds us that journalism is dangerous work, but his life reminds us that it is also noble and vital work, all the more so in this complex age where different faiths and different parts of the world are trying to understand each other."
What a magnanimous description of modern times for a news organization whose headquarters were destroyed by Muslim terrorists in the World Trade Center.
In the many articles about his death, little mention is made of Pearl's being Jewish, just on the dangers of modern reporting. Indeed, 10 journalists have died covering September 11 and its aftermath. But let us not forget that the others were killed randomly, in gun battles, shootings and a robbery.
None of the others was targeted as was Pearl.
Nor was Pearl killed by an amorphous stalking evil. He was murdered by those who blame their problems on the Jews. Suspect Fahad Naseem told a Karachi magistrate that the kidnappers were hunting specifically for "anti-Islam and a Jew."
These enemies of modern civilization, those who sent planes into the World Trade Center and those who dip bolts in rat poison before loading them into a human bomb, have nothing to gain by revealing their hidden motivations to journalists. They aren't interested in having their photos in newspapers they wouldn't read if they could. The Western press is just one more tool to be manipulated in the war against the democratic civilizations they want to destroy.
They are not interested in learning about different faiths by taking part in weekend retreats, in what the Journal calls "different faiths trying to undersand each other."
In the end, Pearl's professionalism didn't count, nor his newspaper's status nor his own humanity.
"I am a Jew," said Danny Pearl like so many martyrs before him, before his death.
Condolences to his family. May his memory be for a blessing, and a tragic
lesson about the world in which we live and the evil of the enemy we face.
