By COLlive staff
Brian Rosenthal, the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter behind the New York Times’ critical coverage on Chassidic Jews, has lied about special ed usage and numbers in Chassidic yeshivas, a new expose reveals.
Rosenthal also lied about his sources, hiding serious conflicts of interest with both anonymous and named sources, claims Tony Kinnett, an Investigative reporter for The Daily Signal website.
Kinnett has uncovered a series of shocking “journalistic, ethical [and] empirical flaws” in the Times defaming article titled, “How Hasidic Schools Reaped a Windfall of Special Education Funding.”
Rosenthal “plays fast and loose with the facts, relies on innuendo, and repeatedly violates its own professed journalistic standards, such as failing to disclose its sources’ conflicts of interests and inappropriately anonymizing sources that it had previously named publicly,” Kinnett wrote.
It doesn’t take an expert to know that the New York Times does not like Orthodox Jews or their lifestyles, but on Sept. 11, 2022, the Times took its long-time animus to new heights when it launched what has become an all-out assault on the Chassidic community.
While the target at the moment is New York’s yeshiva system, the strategy of attack has been a comprehensive one. The story the Times tells is a convenient one: strange Jews in funny clothing who are both “impoverished” and “flush with public money,” a shadowy “political force in New York” with armies voting in a “unified bloc,” but also backward hillbillies who “wear the same modest dress as their ancestors did, and most live in largely insular enclaves devoted to preserving centuries-old traditions.”
The Times has since September churned out an overwhelming 18 pieces (and counting) against yeshivas and the communities that build and support them, and the parents who send their children there.
For example, the Daily Signal found that in the case of Chabad Girls Academy, a small Crown Heights school with a one-to-one student/teacher ratio, the anonymous mother quoted was Beatrice Weber herself, the executive director of the anti-Chassidic yeshiva group YAFFED.
Kinnett wrote: “The Times granted the mother anonymity on the grounds that ‘openly criticizing Hasidic leaders can lead to being shunned by family and friends.’ But the mother, Beatrice Weber, has left the community and openly criticized it in the pages of the Times, both with an opinion essay and as the lead example in a story published three weeks earlier. (The piece begins: ‘Beatrice Weber wakes up most mornings afraid that her son’s Hasidic Jewish school is setting him up to fail.’)
Kinnett says that “The Times violated its own ethical guidelines to not anonymize a previously named source, which obscured the fact that its anonymous mother was the director of YAFFED, a nonprofit that has been highly critical of yeshivas and pushed for additional state regulation…”
The full expose can be read at the Daily Signal
As reported on COLlive.com, Agudath Israel of America called on the Board of the Pulitzer Prize to refrain from granting the award to The New York Times for what it called a deeply offensive and flawed series of articles attacking religious Jewish communities.
The September 11, 2022, New York Times article is incredibly misleading and slanderous. From the headline, it is clear that the article is nonsense. The headline reads: “In Hasidic Enclaves, Failing Private Schools Flush With Public Money.” The NYT explains that yeshivas are “flush with public money” because “New York’s Hasidic Jewish religious schools have benefited from $1 billion in government funding in the last four years.” $1 billion does seem like a lot of money. However, if you wade into the numbers a little closer, they tell a very different story. $1 billion over four years divided by 100,000… Read more »
Journalism usually is full or holes and sometimes outright lies. The printed word has consistently, for whatever reason, been put by people on a higher pedestal of truthiness, simply because its printed. Tell someone something, response could be “nah. don’t accept it.” Same, in printed form, “Hm, I guess it must be true.” (A light example of this, is seen today when ridiculous fictional things, [Bill Gates will send you $5 if you pass this email on] received by text or email, get swallowed whole as real and passed on to others as real. Not enough room here or time… Read more »
Before repeating the often slanderous accusation that Chassidic yeshivas don’t provide sufficient education, why don’t you do some research yourself? What are the unemployment numbers in the Chassidic community? Is it lower than the general public? The answer is, it is not! The Chassidic community enjoys high levels of employment and even earns a higher than the average American income! The myth that members of the Chassidic community are uneducated and unemployed is an outright lie that continues to be peddled in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. Just like the blood libels of yesteryear. The fact that… Read more »
You mean the graduates of Yeshiva who these anti-semites are jealous of because they are SO SUCCESSFUL? You mean the graduates who are 80 or 90% less likely to be involved in drugs, crime, or confusion about about their gender? You mean those graduates who, if they do not wish to go into business, become quality teachers, Rabbis or shluchim who can change the world? You mean the graduates who go on to raise beautiful families and who are crowned with honor and great grandchildren in their old age? This is all jealousy and dissatisfaction with their own lives. They… Read more »
The fact is that the frum community likely has more organizations that are privately funded than any other community in the world. We need to publish a full report about that. In Crown Heights alone, off the top of my head, there’s Hatzalah, Shomrim, Shmira, Chaverim, Ahavas Chessed, CSSY, CSCVK, Friendship Circle, Bikur Cholim, Yad V’ezer, Gemachs, not to mention the numerous schools and shuls that serve as community centers that are completely privately funded, and the many shluchim around the world that receive support from our community. The fact that this narrative that we are an impoverished community is… Read more »
The NY Slimes isn’t worth the pages it’s printed on. It’s not fit for a bird cage; it would make the bird brain dumber. They are an antisemitic outfit, hiding the holocaust, hiding the crimes of the USSR with the Pulitzer prize winner Walter Duranty, and are virulently anti-Israel. Truth is, who cares what this rag says?
Not surprising! I do not believe 70% of what I read these days, including on news sites. Pretty disheartening.
The New York Slimes, I mean Times lie? How shocking… not. Lest we forget they buried Auschwitz on page 17. Wake up. They epitomize Fake News.
I don’t see why it’s a conflict of interest to out the annoymous person who said these things. She is giving her expiernce and that’s her history. Why is that considered a libel and conflict of interest if that’s what she feels or says? Not everything is always so rosy and what abouit the other 99 things mentioned in the article? Are those blatent lies? Prove it
Because this is a person that is openly outspoken against the Chassidic communities. Anonymizing her to make it seem like some random concerned mom of a child in a Chassidic school creates the impression that 1) Random mothers are concerned enough to speak to reporters about the issue, and 2) They are afraid of their community’s reaction to the action of speaking to reporters about it, making the community seem hostile and potentially dangerous. When you realize that the “anonymous mother” is actually a person who has left the community and publicly spoken against it, then 1) It lessens the… Read more »
If a prosecutor names an anonymous witness, who happens to be a fellow prosecutor, that is a conflict of interest. A (journalism) witness is supposed to be someone who is otherwise impartial. Weber is at the forefront of the crusade against the yeshivas. To quote her as an anonymous witness, which suggests that she has no skin in the game, is completely deceptive and unethical, according to any journalistic ethical code. There have been numerous articles that have debunked many of the NYT claims over the past few months. Search ‘yeshivas’ in the WSJ, The Sun, Washington Examiner, and Mosaic,… Read more »
It’s interesting that they chose September 11 to post this story. Seems like it’s an auspicious day to use nefarious means to attack people’s liberties.
so are we saying that the NY Times piece is 100% lies and total antisemitism ?? or that we my have a few problems that need fixing ?? I guess ignorance is bliss
I wonder if it is possible to sue a media company for libel and slander against an entire community? We should definitely look into it. Even if it’s only to force them to apologize for their lies against our community. .
This mother,Mrs Weber, is one of the chief honchos at “Yaffed.” Most of us know Yaffed represents and it isn’t anything positive about the Chassidic community. The NYT sought to obscure her name in their report. Their reason for doing so smacks of unobjective reporting. Does this not indicate a reason for calling her reported point of view a “conflict of interest” right there?
Truth is this conflict will never be resolved because as they say about the two dominant points of view “ne’er the twain shall meet.”
NY Times has been more of a tabloid that a ‘news’ paper for many many years. A bunch of petty bullies trying hard to push a vindictive narrative that their self-described journalists are too cowardly or greedy to contradict.
can someone explain the quote below, I don’t fully understand
Kinnett says that “The Times violated its own ethical guidelines to not anonymize a previously named source, which obscured the fact that its anonymous mother was the director of YAFFED, a nonprofit that has been highly critical of yeshivas and pushed for additional state regulation…”
This Content Was Published at https://staging.collive.com/new-york-times-reporter-lied-in-the-anti-chassidic-expose/
Everyone should read the excellent article by Rabbi Baruch Werdiger “Why a yeshivah education is what I want for my children.”
It is the cover story of the Current issue of Lubavitch International Magazine.
Puts the NY Times to shame.
I purchased it at the Kehos store.
They said it was also available at the office of the magazine at 770.
In the whole history the biggest moisrim are always from the fellow jews.