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August 03, 2007
The Protocols of Noah Feldman
Noah Feldman's recent attack on Modern Orthodox Judaism was built on a platform of half-truths, and cherry-picked scholarship designed to place halacha, Jewish law, in the worst light possible. As we pointed out, the motivation for the article was a personal bitter experience.
But as it turns out, Noah Feldman was lying about this experience. Not only did he lie, but the New York Times knew that he was lying — and went with the story anyway.
We observed that in writing this unfair attack in Torah Judaism Feldman was acting as judge, jury and executioner; some said we were too harsh, that our remarks were unwarranted ad-hominem attacks. We also accused the New York Times of Jew-hatred for they refused to run the Muhammed cartoons "out of respect for Islam" yet they ran Feldman's outrageous attack against Orthodox Judaism with no counter argument to balance out Feldman's venemous and untruthful screed.
It seems that our remarks were not only precise — but far too generous.
Noah Feldman and his non-Jewish girlfriend were not cropped out of his class photo as he self-righteously claimed in The New York Times Magazine. Feldman knew it before the article went for publication, and so did the editors of the New York Times.
The journalistic breach of ethics is monumental. The slander against Maimonides Academy is infamous. And Feldman's libel against Judaism will, no doubt, be an invaluable resource for future protocols of anti-Jewish propaganda, especially in the Arab/Muslim world.
When confronted with his lie and asked why he didn't rewrite his story before publication Noah Feldman's response/explanation/excuse/justification is a classic of academic deconstruction:
“When I first wrote it I was doing it from memory. When [the photographer] turned up the contact sheet there was no contradiction at all, as far as I could tell. They had several photos to choose from and they chose one that I wasn’t in. There’s no question that one could offer other explanations for what happened,” other than that it was intentional. “It’s not as if [the photo] was an outlying event. It fit right in with the other things [refusing to print his lifecycle notices]. This was a memoir of my experience.”
Got that?
Of course not. It's the nonsense that passes for intellectual discourse in the halls of academia.
Let me add subtitles to Feldman's gibberish: “There is no objective truth. Truth is a subjective experience, thus my memories are as valid as any other memory of the event.”
The road to moral relativism made crystal clear.
There will be no apology from Noah Feldman or The New York Times. Remember: being on the left means never having to say you're sorry.
Noah Feldman, who ignited a firestorm of criticism last week with his pointed attack on Modern Orthodoxy in The New York Times Magazine, admitted this week that he learned before publication of his article that he in fact was not intentionally cropped out of his reunion photograph.
In the article, “Orthodox Paradox,” Feldman, a Harvard Law School professor, asserts that he was erased from a newsletter’s photograph by his former yeshiva, the Maimonides School in Brookline, Mass., because he was standing alongside his non-Jewish girlfriend. The reunion anecdote led off the story in a dramatic way and the image of Feldman and his wife allegedly being stricken from the photo appeared central to his feelings of being left out.
The photographer, Lenny Eisenberg, told The Jewish Week Monday that he had difficulty capturing as many as 60 reunion participants within a single frame. Eisenberg ended up taking several shots from one side, then the other, and several people on the far side — not just Feldman and his fiancée — happened to be out of the picture when it finally appeared in the newsletter.
To read the entire article, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Kishke
Karen and I wish all our Seraphic Friends a lovely and meaningful Shabbos.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at August 3, 2007 01:06 AM
Comments
Seraphic Secret is private property, that's right, it's an extension of our home, and as such, Karen and I have instituted two Seraphic Rules and we ask commentors to act respectfully.
1. No profanity.2. No Israel bashing. We debate, we discuss, we are respectful. You know what Israel bashing is. The world is full of it. Seraphic Secret is one of the few places in the world that will not tolerate this form of anti-Semitism. That's it. Break either of these rules and you will be banned.
The anecdote about the photo was the single most powerful image one took away from the article, which is of course why he kept it even knowing it was false. How ironic that the accusation of dishonesty was itself dishonest.
Posted by: kishke at August 3, 2007 07:40 AM
Feldman is clearly in the wrong place at Harvard Law School... with his factual acrobatics, he would really make a wondeful criminal defense attorney. Maybe he can get Michael Vick off.
Posted by: Jake at August 3, 2007 07:53 AM
"cherry picked"
Last time I heard that term being used was between Dr. Gupta (CNN) and Sicko (Michael Moore). Guess it's going mainstream, way to go Robert; hip.
Posted by: Simon at August 3, 2007 09:56 AM
Fits right in with the NYT's credo: Fake but Accurate.
Posted by: ralphie at August 3, 2007 10:40 AM
"My Neighbor Isn't Friendly"
Second in a Continuing 'Disgruntled' Series from the New York Times Magazine
(Bellmore) Several months ago, my beautiful 4-year-old daughter and I were strolling outside our home when our neighbor pulled up in his car.
I smiled and waved at him, and my daughter did her usual super-friendly "hi, neighbor!" routine and poured on the charm.
To my surprise, he gave us just a cursory wave and went inside. No "hello," no stop and chat, not even a comment on how gorgeous my child is. In short, I have never felt less validated and recognized as a human being in my life. It was like I was intentionally cropped out of this man's mental picture of the world.
Sure, I actually knew that the man is hard of hearing and has a little trouble staying outdoors because in 95 degree heat.
Sure, I knew he's 98-years-old and deserves the benefit of the doubt. But there's still no denying, that my neighbor may not like me.
Of course, one reason he may not like me is that I deliberately chopped down one of the trees on his property despite the fact that he warned me against hurting his prized maple from the first day we moved in... but that still doesn't excuse him.
And he still hasn't openly thanked me for chopping down that tree, that I thought was ugly by the way, in a manner in which I thought was right.
Yep, my neighbor... for no good reason... doesn't like me. And all of this is probably because he's an Orthodox Jew.
I looked it up. Apparently, the Talmud, a Medieval text that Orthodox Jews value, explicitly forbids the willful destruction of a neighbors property. So that's it, some old book says something and that means my neighbor can be mean to me. What kind of value is that to teach our children?
In conclusion, I'd like to say that I'm not bitter. I have a wonderful job as the Ward Churchill Professor of Anti-American Studies at the University of Colorado, and a wonderful family. I just question a person, and a community, that so casually goes about shunning those who could be such an asset to them.
Posted by: Jake at August 3, 2007 10:57 AM
Jake, you're spot on. But make not to mention the fact that you lied about cutting down the tree!
Posted by: Shayne at August 3, 2007 12:52 PM
TOP 10 NEW NOAH FELDMAN COMPLAINTS
by Jake Novak
10) Orthodox Jews put annoyingly high value on little
things like truth, facts, veracity, etc.
9) Shabbat laws clearly biased against people who love college football.
8) El Al specifically refused to seat him next to Qatari princesses, just because they weren't booked on El Al in the first place.
7) Observant neighbors didn't serve pork loin he brought to the pot luck dinner.
6) Grandparents rudely didn't show up to his wedding just because he scheduled it on Yom Kippur.
5) Orthodox female classmates at his high school showed blatant bigotry by refusing to sleep with him.
4) Harvard Law School colleague Alan Dershowitz makes bigger salary, just because of arbitrary things like having more experience, and more publications.
3) New York Times published his story, but didn't print the picture featuring his "good" side.
2) High school teachers rejected his repeated pleas for free condoms, birth control pills, and a copy of the mythical "Talmudic Tips on How to Pick up Girls."
1) No one ever knitted him a yarmulke with his name on it.
Posted by: Jake at August 3, 2007 01:52 PM