What do you think?
Rate this book
Print to Fit: The New York Times, Zionism and Israel (1896-2016)
After Adolph Ochs purchased The New York Times in 1896, Zionism and the eventual reality of the State of Israel were framed within his guiding principle, embraced by his Sulzberger family successor, that Judaism is a religion and not a national identity. Apprehensive lest the loyalty of American Jews to the United States be undermined by the existence of a Jewish state, they adopted an anti-Zionist critique that remained embedded in its editorials, on the Opinion page and in its news coverage. Through the examination of evidence drawn from its own pages, this book analyzes how all the news “fit to print” became news that fit the Times ’ discomfort with the idea, and since 1948 the reality, of a thriving democratic Jewish state in the historic homeland of the Jewish people.
322 pages, Paperback
Published February 26, 2019
10 people are currently reading
32 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 29, 2023
This books proves that the New York Times has a Jewish problem. In great detail the author steps through history beginning in 1896 and ending in 2016. With each event discussed in detail from a historical perspective as well as how the NYT reported the event. Time after time the NYT sided with the Palestinians and criticized Israel.
The crux of the matter: the owners of the NYT did not believe that Israel should be a nation or people of Jews, rather - their preference was that Israel / Jews were a religious community. Adolph Ochs identified with “ that very large school of Jewish thought in America that think that the greatest heritage of the Jew is his religion, and that as a distinctive race the Jews need no place in modern civilization.”
This was echoed by the majority of the NYT readership and the American Jewish community in the early 1900’s, when Zionism was laying the foundations for Israel. They pushed hard on the idea that American Jews were Americans first - and that there should not be dual loyalty to the State of Israel. There was no need for refuge in Israel by American Jews. “Jews would suffer the most from such efforts and were likely to confront a separation between them and the rest of their fellow Americans, with whom it is their earnest desire to associate themselves in every patriotic sentiment and national aspiration.”
According to rabbi Jonah Wise, America was the New Jerusalem for American Jews.
Ochs did not want the NYT to be seen as a Jewish news paper, he guided its resolute affirmation of the patriotic loyalty of American Jews to the United States.
Natan Sharansky wrote an article in Tablet Magazine title “The UnJew” after I wrote this review. It posits that too many Jews separate the Jewish homeland and the Jewish religion from each other. This book is an example of Jews who did this, with horrible results.
The crux of the matter: the owners of the NYT did not believe that Israel should be a nation or people of Jews, rather - their preference was that Israel / Jews were a religious community. Adolph Ochs identified with “ that very large school of Jewish thought in America that think that the greatest heritage of the Jew is his religion, and that as a distinctive race the Jews need no place in modern civilization.”
This was echoed by the majority of the NYT readership and the American Jewish community in the early 1900’s, when Zionism was laying the foundations for Israel. They pushed hard on the idea that American Jews were Americans first - and that there should not be dual loyalty to the State of Israel. There was no need for refuge in Israel by American Jews. “Jews would suffer the most from such efforts and were likely to confront a separation between them and the rest of their fellow Americans, with whom it is their earnest desire to associate themselves in every patriotic sentiment and national aspiration.”
According to rabbi Jonah Wise, America was the New Jerusalem for American Jews.
Ochs did not want the NYT to be seen as a Jewish news paper, he guided its resolute affirmation of the patriotic loyalty of American Jews to the United States.
Natan Sharansky wrote an article in Tablet Magazine title “The UnJew” after I wrote this review. It posits that too many Jews separate the Jewish homeland and the Jewish religion from each other. This book is an example of Jews who did this, with horrible results.
November 27, 2019
When Adolph Ochs purchased the New York Times in 1896, he added a motto that demonstrated his marketing genius. “All the News That’s Fit to Print” became the industry standard and before long the Times became the most trusted newspaper in the country––a status it has enjoyed for more than 120 years. Sadly, the Times has violated that standard continuously in its coverage of the issue most dear to most American Jews––Zionism and the state of Israel.
Readers might have noticed the Times’ unbalanced reporting of certain events in Israel, such as suicide bombings of Jewish civilians where the Times repeatedly tells the bombers’ stories, but not the victims, and readers might have been disturbed by the uneven weight of opinions on the Times’ editorial pages, where regular and guest columnists have for years blamed Israel for the lack of peace. This imbalance is not, however, atypical or new. It has been that way since Ochs assumed the paper’s ownership.
That is the only conclusion one can draw from Jerold Auerbach’s thorough examination of the Times’ reporting and editorial output since Ochs took charge. The question is why? Ochs was part of a (German) American community of Jews attracted to the Reform Movement whose founder gave American Jews permission to divorce Judaism from the notion of Jews as a distinct people. Viewing Judaism primarily as a religion permitted Ochs and his son-in-law successor Arthur Ochs Sulzberger to distance themselves from the Jews who were the victims of decades of pogroms and from Hitler’s final solution. It was also reflected in their opposition to the movement launched at the end of the 19th century for Jews to return to their ancient homeland.
The impact of the Times’ editorial hostility to Zionism turned ugly when the Nazi Party took power in Germany in 1933. Right away, Hitler and his thugs began to limit the rights and freedom of Germany’s Jewish population. Then, as Germany began to conquer neighboring states, the Nazis escalated their campaign by arresting Jews and warehousing them in ghettos and concentration camps. The final step was to convert those concentration camps into death camps. All of the above was known to a degree by reporters in the Times’ European bureaus, and was presented to Sulzberger personally by Jewish leaders. The terrible loss of life was documented in the Jewish press and often featured by the rival New York Herald Tribune. Yet the Times failed to highlight the plight of the Jews throughout this entire period, regularly burying coverage at the bottom of stories on interior pages often days or weeks after the events it was reporting had occurred.
It has been argued that even had the Times’ given those stories better placement or editorialized in favor of some sort of rescue by the U.S. Government, it’s unlikely that would have done any good. That is like saying a doctor should not tell his patient he is dying because he’ll be dead soon anyway. A newspaper’s output should not be judged by whether it has lead to policy changes but whether the subject deserves attention and whether its readers deserve to know what’s going on: “All the News That’s Fit to Print” indeed.
The Times’ hostility to Zionism continued after World War Two when the formation of the state of Israel was authorized by the United Nations and recognized by Harry S. Truman. After its efforts to promote the view that there should not be a Jewish state in the Holy Land, the Times found much to criticize about the new country. Those criticisms escalated after 1967 when Israel pre-empted its neighbors and re-took land it had lost in 1948 as well as territory needed to prevent future attacks.
Uncritically embracing the notion that the Arab population of the region belonged to a distinct “Palestinian” ethnic and religious community, the Times bought into the Palestinian’s claim that Israel was occupying its land and that it was Israel’s intransigence, not their desire to wipe out the state of Israel, that was responsible for the lack of peace between the two peoples.
Auerbach documents the Times’ unequal treatment of Arab attacks against Israeli civilians year by year, decade by decade. Each attack is portrayed as morally equivalent to Israel’s response. Over and over, the Times justified Arab attacks on civilians by attaching them to some action of the Israeli government, as if anyone willing to sacrifice his or her life must have a just cause. One wonders whether failure to label such acts a product of religious indoctrination arises out of fear of criticizing a religion that seeks world domination?
Auerbach documents the consequences of the Times’ imbalanced coverage. It’s Middle East reporters have outdone each other in terms of assigning the blame to Israel and justifyng the Arabs’ behavior. One reporter even doubted the Jewish people’s claim that their ancient temple stood on the Temple Mount and then claimed Zionism was “never the gentlest of ideologies.”
Once you have taken sides in a conflict, there’s little likelihood you’ll take the opposition’s views at face value or try to see the situation from their viewpoint. The bottom line for the Times for the past fifty years has been to view the existence of a Jewish state as an embarrassment to the United States, particularly since the U.S. has provided large amounts of financial aid to Israel. By failing to do what the Times editorialized, Israel has only itself to blame for the loss of civilian life. Less blame is assigned to the Arabs’ demands that Israel allow a ‘right of return’ for the residents of regional refugee camps and cease being a Jewish state.
Sadly, the Reform Movement in America has bought the Times’ ideology of blame. While the Holocaust forced the Movement to amend its’ view that American Jews had no obligation to the Jews of Europe and therefore no necessary loyalty to the state of Israel, the Reform Movement has bought into the view that the Israel is primarily to blame for the hatred and violence perpetuated by the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians. The Times has given the Reform Movement cover and the Reform Movement has blessed the Times’ one-sided reportage with subscription renewals.
Whether Jerold Auerbach’s superbly detailed documentation of the Times’ imbalanced reporting will have an impact remains to be seen. His thesis, however, cannot be denied. The Times fit its coverage into an a priori antagonism to Zionism and subsequent antipathy of its manifestation in the state of Israel. We’re still waiting for the day when it will live up to its motto.
Readers might have noticed the Times’ unbalanced reporting of certain events in Israel, such as suicide bombings of Jewish civilians where the Times repeatedly tells the bombers’ stories, but not the victims, and readers might have been disturbed by the uneven weight of opinions on the Times’ editorial pages, where regular and guest columnists have for years blamed Israel for the lack of peace. This imbalance is not, however, atypical or new. It has been that way since Ochs assumed the paper’s ownership.
That is the only conclusion one can draw from Jerold Auerbach’s thorough examination of the Times’ reporting and editorial output since Ochs took charge. The question is why? Ochs was part of a (German) American community of Jews attracted to the Reform Movement whose founder gave American Jews permission to divorce Judaism from the notion of Jews as a distinct people. Viewing Judaism primarily as a religion permitted Ochs and his son-in-law successor Arthur Ochs Sulzberger to distance themselves from the Jews who were the victims of decades of pogroms and from Hitler’s final solution. It was also reflected in their opposition to the movement launched at the end of the 19th century for Jews to return to their ancient homeland.
The impact of the Times’ editorial hostility to Zionism turned ugly when the Nazi Party took power in Germany in 1933. Right away, Hitler and his thugs began to limit the rights and freedom of Germany’s Jewish population. Then, as Germany began to conquer neighboring states, the Nazis escalated their campaign by arresting Jews and warehousing them in ghettos and concentration camps. The final step was to convert those concentration camps into death camps. All of the above was known to a degree by reporters in the Times’ European bureaus, and was presented to Sulzberger personally by Jewish leaders. The terrible loss of life was documented in the Jewish press and often featured by the rival New York Herald Tribune. Yet the Times failed to highlight the plight of the Jews throughout this entire period, regularly burying coverage at the bottom of stories on interior pages often days or weeks after the events it was reporting had occurred.
It has been argued that even had the Times’ given those stories better placement or editorialized in favor of some sort of rescue by the U.S. Government, it’s unlikely that would have done any good. That is like saying a doctor should not tell his patient he is dying because he’ll be dead soon anyway. A newspaper’s output should not be judged by whether it has lead to policy changes but whether the subject deserves attention and whether its readers deserve to know what’s going on: “All the News That’s Fit to Print” indeed.
The Times’ hostility to Zionism continued after World War Two when the formation of the state of Israel was authorized by the United Nations and recognized by Harry S. Truman. After its efforts to promote the view that there should not be a Jewish state in the Holy Land, the Times found much to criticize about the new country. Those criticisms escalated after 1967 when Israel pre-empted its neighbors and re-took land it had lost in 1948 as well as territory needed to prevent future attacks.
Uncritically embracing the notion that the Arab population of the region belonged to a distinct “Palestinian” ethnic and religious community, the Times bought into the Palestinian’s claim that Israel was occupying its land and that it was Israel’s intransigence, not their desire to wipe out the state of Israel, that was responsible for the lack of peace between the two peoples.
Auerbach documents the Times’ unequal treatment of Arab attacks against Israeli civilians year by year, decade by decade. Each attack is portrayed as morally equivalent to Israel’s response. Over and over, the Times justified Arab attacks on civilians by attaching them to some action of the Israeli government, as if anyone willing to sacrifice his or her life must have a just cause. One wonders whether failure to label such acts a product of religious indoctrination arises out of fear of criticizing a religion that seeks world domination?
Auerbach documents the consequences of the Times’ imbalanced coverage. It’s Middle East reporters have outdone each other in terms of assigning the blame to Israel and justifyng the Arabs’ behavior. One reporter even doubted the Jewish people’s claim that their ancient temple stood on the Temple Mount and then claimed Zionism was “never the gentlest of ideologies.”
Once you have taken sides in a conflict, there’s little likelihood you’ll take the opposition’s views at face value or try to see the situation from their viewpoint. The bottom line for the Times for the past fifty years has been to view the existence of a Jewish state as an embarrassment to the United States, particularly since the U.S. has provided large amounts of financial aid to Israel. By failing to do what the Times editorialized, Israel has only itself to blame for the loss of civilian life. Less blame is assigned to the Arabs’ demands that Israel allow a ‘right of return’ for the residents of regional refugee camps and cease being a Jewish state.
Sadly, the Reform Movement in America has bought the Times’ ideology of blame. While the Holocaust forced the Movement to amend its’ view that American Jews had no obligation to the Jews of Europe and therefore no necessary loyalty to the state of Israel, the Reform Movement has bought into the view that the Israel is primarily to blame for the hatred and violence perpetuated by the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians. The Times has given the Reform Movement cover and the Reform Movement has blessed the Times’ one-sided reportage with subscription renewals.
Whether Jerold Auerbach’s superbly detailed documentation of the Times’ imbalanced reporting will have an impact remains to be seen. His thesis, however, cannot be denied. The Times fit its coverage into an a priori antagonism to Zionism and subsequent antipathy of its manifestation in the state of Israel. We’re still waiting for the day when it will live up to its motto.
November 6, 2019
This book is mostly a laundry list of New York Times editorials and op-ed pieces about Palestine/Israel. The thesis of this book is that the New York Times has always been anti-Zionist, starting from when Adolph Ochs bought the newspaper in 1898 and continuing to the present day. The newspaper was in fact anti-Zionist under the leadership of Mr. Ochs and his successor Arthur Hays Sulzberger, until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 rendered that stance irrelevant. It made perfect sense for Messrs. Ochs and Sulzberger to be anti-Zionist before 1948 because they were classical Reform Jews. The most they would countenance for Jews in Palestine was the kind of bi-national state favored by e.g. Judah Magnes.
After 1948 the editorial policy of the New York Times abandoned anti-Zionism and instead followed the line of the extreme Zionist Left in Israel. That line, by definition, is not anti-Zionist. The extreme Zionist Left may be wrong about many things, but it is not opposed to the very existence of the State of Israel. The only true anti-Zionism in the New York Times after 1948 has been that of some of their contributors, such as Anthony Lewis, Tony Judt and Marwan Barghouti.
The author's conceptual problem is encapsulated in a short paragraph on page 221 of the Kindle edition:
No, duh! What did you expect? The New York Times is an American newspaper, not a Jewish or Israeli newspaper. Of course it plugs what its editor thinks is in the interest of the United States. What is good or bad for Israel is irrelevant to that.
After 1948 the editorial policy of the New York Times abandoned anti-Zionism and instead followed the line of the extreme Zionist Left in Israel. That line, by definition, is not anti-Zionist. The extreme Zionist Left may be wrong about many things, but it is not opposed to the very existence of the State of Israel. The only true anti-Zionism in the New York Times after 1948 has been that of some of their contributors, such as Anthony Lewis, Tony Judt and Marwan Barghouti.
The author's conceptual problem is encapsulated in a short paragraph on page 221 of the Kindle edition:
In any disagreement between the United States and Israel, the Times unfailingly supported America first.
No, duh! What did you expect? The New York Times is an American newspaper, not a Jewish or Israeli newspaper. Of course it plugs what its editor thinks is in the interest of the United States. What is good or bad for Israel is irrelevant to that.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews