AJN hypocrisy

Charming to see the AJN commenting that the Age's irrelevant mention of the Leifer affair.

This is from the same newspaper that beat up the original story into a appalling and lurid sensation. And long after the rest of the Australian media stopped mentioning it, the AJN continued to rehash it week after week – ad nauseum.

Pity that there isn’t a Walkley Award for hypocrisy – the Jewish News would be the front runner.

No comment necessary

Stick to what you know, Adam

Remember young Adam’s terrifying warning on “Watching the Watchers”, ( see: http://ajnwatch.blogspot.com/2009/07/adam-kamien-gets-nasty.html ) about keeping an eye on AJN Watch?
While we have been quivering in our boots, in trepidation of his next salvo, it seems that he has approved of our blogposts since that time - as there hasn’t been another peep from him.

We, on the other hand, cannot allow his above piece to go by without a comment.

In that feeble and unbecoming attempt at sarcasm and tabloid reporting, Kamien appoints himself as both judge and posek regarding those organ transplants.

Our advice to Adam: Stick to tittle-tattle and gossip about the dreckerati and leave matters of halacha and law to rabbis and judges.

"As Kosher as the AJN..."

A reader sent us this cutting from the AJN adding:

I was surprised that you hadn't mentioned this piece from last week's AJN. Seems that the ignorami employed by the Jewish News haven't got a clue about Kashrut matters. Nothing! Don't they realise that Kosher meat cooked in a Treif pot is basically Chazir treif?
And even when cooked in a Kosher pot but by irreligious or non-Jews the result is just as Treif?

Where are the 2 KA's?

Why haven't we heard any comment from them?

PJM

Thanks PJM for that. You make some excellent points.
Hopefully the KAs will now take some action.

Unfortunately our community has become hardened to the upsetting occurrence of Treif food establishments being publicised by the AJN.
Treif, Chametz bePesach, Chilul Shabbos are all regulary advertised in the so-called "Jewish" newspaper.

However,free publicity for a purely Treif cafe trying to attract "kosher" consumers may be a new low.

Meanwhile your words "Kosher meat cooked in a Treif pot is basically Chazir treif" seem like a great analogy to Divrei Torah published in the AJN...

Mail from "Frum Bundist"

Hi AJN. I have been following your blog with interest.
May I ask you to post the attached ad which appeared in the AJN - placed by unhappy Bundists. - Frum Bundist
AJN Watch is sure getting around! Bundistn reading us?
Who would've thunk?

(Maybe it's time for a Bundist AJN Watch?)

And we thought that this headline was referring to us...and themselves!

Now we are "outright liars"!

"Melbourne Yid" - the AJN's defender - replies on Jewgleperth:

Melbourne Yid Says:

While the posting of the front page photo was abhorrent to all Jewish and other fair minded people the charge of mesira against the Jewish News is completely false. If you had bothered to read other news reports the AJN just reported what had already been reported in other news media. Unfortunately, as has been seen in other frum communities, we are not immune from breaking the law. How it is reported is another matter and the front page photo was wrong.

Two more final points:
- Your comment “How many frum people do you know?” just emphasises my point that you are are nasty person who cannot listen to anyone who has a different point of view.
- I do not believe for one minute that “in the 3+ weeks of our existence we have had approx 1800 “unique visitors” and almost 4000 page loads”. I posit that that statement is either an outright lie or that your web counter is faulty.

It was clear mesireh. The AJN’s sensationalist style and it’s repeated ad nauseum articles on the story eventually forced the SA Police to investigate. Had the AJN behaved responsibly there would have been a fair chance that the police would have overlooked or ‘forgotten’ about it all. They certainly aren’t seeking to tangle with rabbis or the Jewish community. The AJN, with some help from a few ‘nice’ Adelaide people ensured that there was a full investigation which led to the charges.

In any case we areglad to see that finally you too recognize that the front page report was wrong.

Of course you still haven’t explained why the AJN doesn’t report on financial skullduggery and other scandals when it involves rich non-frum Jews.

You say that we are nasty!? Us nasty? Why? Because we questioned your respectful comment that “most frum people think they [AJN Watch] are a joke” ?
And then you publicly accuse us of being liars! Yet WE are the ‘nasty’ ones!

For the record, we have absolutely no problem with other points of view. We believe in “live and let live”.
What we are here for is to ensure that we no longer passively turn the other cheek when this country’s Jewish newspaper offends and upsets religious Jews. You obviously disagree with our aims and that is your privilege.

Finally, despite abusive insult saying that we are lying regarding our visitor numbers, we do wish to thank you for confirming our suspicions that the figures are pretty good. They must be - if they upset you.

We assure everyone that they come from the Stats Counter people who we hooked up to sometime after the blogs inception. The only ‘faulty’ hitch we have had is that for approx 3 half days – for some unknown reason the counter was disabled and we missed out on some figures.

"Melbourne Yid": "Frum people think AJN Watch is a joke"

In reply to our response on the Jewgle Perth blog to his earlier comments, the same person has tried again. Our reply follows.

Melbourne Yid Says:

AJN Watch’s comments are, as usual, rambling and long winded. Rather than talking to the point they attack the individual. This has become standard form of argument among those who are so insecure in their Yiddishkeit that they cannot abide anyone with a different view.

I don’t think anyone in the frum community likes everything about the AJN. I have heard from members of the “Liberal” community that they also feel that they are not given a fair go. Reading this blog it is apparent that Perth residents are also dissatisfied with the coverage of that city in the AJN. One size does not fit all. The reason that there are so many shuls and shtieblach in Melbourne is that we need variety in our lives.

If the AJN Watch people toned down their righteous indignation and hatred for anyone who does not think like they do then maybe they would have more supporters. As it stands most frum people think they are a joke.

To Melbourne Yid:

Our comments are ‘rambling and long-winded’ only to those who don’t like the fact that your AJN now has a site keeping a close watch on it and unafraid to comment stridently.

We should tone down our ‘righteous indignation and hatred’? What hatred? Denouncing your newspaper's nasty reporting style and their repeated (insinuated and open) smear campaigns against a sector of the community?

If that is called hatred, we plead guilty.

As for your comment that "most frum people think they are a joke" - how would you know?
How many frum people do you know?

For your information, all of us at the AJN Watch blog have no previous blogging knowledge or experience, thus had/have no idea what kind of readership figures we could expect. (After all, how many frum Jews are there in Australia? How many of them ever buy the AJN?)

So we are more than pleased to report that despite Melbourne Yid's opinion that we are a 'joke', in the 3+ weeks of our existence we have had approx 1800 "unique visitors" and almost 4000 page loads. Far, far better figures than we ever dreamed of.

And may we take this opportunity to remind Melbourne Yid that he did not respond with a single word to our earlier charges:

"...the case of Rabbi Engel...the way they sensationalized the original story - which forced the police investigation. This was nothing less than pure ‘mesireh’..."
"Following that... the outrageous front page “Charged” poster."
"...[AJN] never mentioned anything about the massive scandals involving rich and famous irreligious Jews. .."

We await your reply.

From Jewgleperth's comment section

In response to the Jewgleperth blog post we copied here:
http://ajnwatch.blogspot.com/2009/07/jewgleperth-talks-about-blogs.html the following comment was made. [Our reply follows]

Melbourne Yid Says:

I must admit that I didn’t have the patience to read this very long blog post. Maybe I am a victim of the internet generation with my short attention span

In any case I must object to you mentioning the AJN Watch blog as a “good example” of a blog “which help to deliver a new style of media for Australian Jews”. This blog is entirely dedicated to bashing the Australian Jewish News and has no other redeeming qualities. While there are many negative things to say about the AJN it is not necessary to invent grievances or to argue with every comment that may hint at something positive about the paper.

That blog is obviously written by the extreme right-wing of Melbourne Orthodoxy who do not recognise the Jewishness of anyone but their own community. Nothing that the AJN can write will pacify them. Saying that they are not above using the Jewish News to publicise their own community.

AJN Watch Says:

Melbourne Yid, let us guess you are an employee of the AJN - moonlighting as a Yid.
After all, no reasonable impartial person would write quite like you.

In any case, maybe due to your short attention span, you have completely missed the reasons behind the creation of AJN Watch. These are stated quite clearly on our masthead:

“AJN Watch observes and comments on prejudice, misrepresentation and monopolistic abuse of power in the pages of the Australian Jewish News - especially regarding the observant community. ….. It is this blog’s mission to spotlight errors, expose misrepresentations and vigorously respond to items that malign or defame the Orthodox community.”

Thus while you may consider this as “bashing”, fair and reasonable people are grateful that for first time in memory this not insignificant sector of Australian Jewry has a voice where it can forcefully respond to the biased and unjust treatment handed out to frum Jews for decades.

Plans to create such a blog have been around for a number of years but have for various reasons been suspended. However, the case of Rabbi Engel was the final straw. First in the way they sensationalised the original story - which forced the police investigation. This was nothing less than pure ‘mesiroh’ - dobbing a fellow Jew it to the authorities. As you, Melbourne Yid may or may not know, halachically and historically the ‘moser’ is/was considered to be the lowest form of humanity in Jewish life - reviled and despised by all.

Following that, they came up with the outrageous front page “Charged” poster. When that happened the entire spectrum of Jewry should have risen up in arms against these hypocrites - who never mentioned anything about the massive scandals involving rich and famous irreligious Jews. But what happened? Besides a few letters to the editor - nothing. Where was Melbourne Yid then? If you did comment about it, we haven’t heard it.

But those behind AJN Watch, did take action and decided that no longer will we sit by passively and allow our community to be smeared and besmirched by Australia’s only national Jewish newspaper. Most of the reaction has been highly positive. But if the defense of observant Jews offends you - we apologize and suggest that you don’t read our blog.

We, on the other hand, hope that the Jewish News- knowing that it is now facing continuous scrutiny (as per that nasty piece in last week’s Shmooze page) - will think twice before denigrating, attacking and offending our community.

By the way, your comment: ” That blog is obviously written by the extreme right-wing of Melbourne Orthodoxy who do not recognise the Jewishness of anyone but their own community…” almost confirms that you are one of the AJN’s anti-frum gang. Slandering hundreds of good Jews - because they won’t take it any more from your beloved newspaper. Shame on you.

In any case, what difference does it make who the bloggers are? Why don’t you try and respond to the charges of prejudice and unfairness - rather than write lies about religious Jews?

As for your comment that “… they are not above using the Jewish News to publicise their own community….” which community are you referring to? Or have you also fabricated that fact?

To our knowledge since the arrival of the Hamodia, “right-wing” organizations have almost stopped using the AJN.

Jewgleperth talks about blogs

Blogging changes the Jewish community

We live in the age of information technology. The evolvement of blogging over the past few years has been a phenomena that has developed a status and culture of its own. Blogging preceded some the more advanced forms of social networking that we have seen develop over the past year, but I believe it will also outlast some of the more abbreviated forms of communication. This is because of integrated media opportunities it offers.

Some people use blogging as an online diary, others as a reference depository. In some cases there is a cause to advance, and in others it is merely an occupational pastime. Our JewglePerth blog was established to provide a medium of communication and awareness for the Orthodox Jewish community in Perth.

There are many blogs appearing around Australia that provide a direct line of communication between those people that want to access the views and opinions of Australian Jewry, and those people who want to measure what the issues and attitudes are, and general pulse of the community is.

Here are just three of many good examples of other blogs, all of which help to deliver a new style of media for Australian Jews in their own unique way:

Aussie Echo

AJN Watch

Galus Australus (a successor blog to the Sensible Jew, and we wish them all the best, especially in light of the recent signoff post by their predecessor, that articulates the need for an alternative community forum in much the same way that we do)

The social change that blogging represents is worth thinking about. Many articles have been written from a Rabbinic perspective that discuss blogging formats from a halachic perspective. The laws of Lashon Hara, the isssues of bittul zman, matters of general respect, anonymity, and the controlled use of the internet itself are serious issues that are addressed from a Jewish perspective. I am not qualified to comment on this, but I am conscious of the positive and negative level of influence that blogging can create.

In an age of ever increasing scrutiny, the accountability and responsibility of publishing anything is becoming more important. The responsibility of a publisher is an awesome one. All publishers should welcome inquiry and critique, provided that it is appropriately directed. This is especially so for bloggers.

From a sociological viewpoint, I believe the traditional structure of the Jewish community will be transformed by the form of free speech that blogging delivers. Most of this I suspect will be for the good, but it will also sadly come at the expense of many things, including traditional community models and structures.

The blog delivers a forum that allows views to be expressed outside the scope of the editorial control of an organisation or the Jewish media. Suddenly the freedom of expression is not limited, and issues and perspectives that were not within the scope of discussion before (or stifled by the community leadership) are suddenly within the public domain, whether or not that is desired.

More here: http://www.jewgleperth.com/?p=976

Rabbi, you're a sport!

From our sports reporter:



Nice of the AJN to report on Melbourne's rabbis and their sporting feats despite the fact that they weren't held on Shabbos...

"The Jewish News isn’t a newspaper based on circulation"

Forging a new identity
Editor's Blog ASHLEY BROWNE

THE doomsayers will tell you that the clock is ticking on newspapers, and that within 10 years, newspapers might be obsolete. These doomsayers tell us that we will be consuming our news on the internet and increasingly on our Blackberrys, iPhones and other cool devices. Convention now tell us that young people don’t read newspapers at all and the blogosphere is full of a story about a 15-year-old intern at Morgan Stanley’s London office, Matthew Robson, whose report on teenage media habits spelled further gloom for the newspaper industry.

It is in these challenging times that we at the AJN launch our new website. It is more visual than before, gives more prominence to our multimedia content and engages in social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter like never before. The challenge here at the AJN is how to grow our brand in the online space without compromising our 115-year history as a newspaper.

The Jewish News isn’t a newspaper based on circulation - we like to talk about readership here because we know the paper gets passed around. Three families might read one copy of the paper, particularly during Shabbat. Using that statistic, a significantly large percentage of the community read our newspaper.

So what to do? We are planning to break more news on our website and in most cases, we won’t be won’t be waiting for the print edition of the newspaper to publish our main stories. But the news component of the paper will remain strong because we know we have many elderly readers for whom newspapers remain their their first and most trusted source of news from our community and Israel.

And we’ll save some of the best features, opinion and analysis for the newspaper and then online. And the whites and blacks (simcha and death announcements) will appear first in the newspaper for the considerable future. But we’ll be working hard to engage Gen Y and Gen Z (yes, my 14-year-old daughter tells me her generation now has a label) through Twitter, Facebook and other emerging social media. Now and as always, we want you to tell us how we can make the AJN talk best to you. And send us your photos, your stories, your tweets and your updates.
http://jewishnews.net.au/2009/07/15/forging-a-new-identity/

The future doesn't look too promising, does it?
AJN is not based on circulation? Yeah, try and tell that to savvy advertising agencies and see how far you'll get.

Years ago, when they had more respectable readership figures, the AJN circulation was voluntarily audited by an organisation still used by other publications. These days, of course, it would quite rash to reveal how low the figures have really sunken to.

As we've mentioned previously, the cut and paste jobs from the Jerusalem Post website isn't going to encourage anyone to spend $3.50. Nor the regurgitated media releases supplied by Jewish organisations and neither the PRW, which arrives - free -in everyone's letter box weekly - together with the rest of the junkmail.

Looks like it's up to the "whites and blacks" to save the AJN.

We'll be watching with interest.

Sam Lipski - more goyish than the goyim

Guest post:



This post was submitted by one of the rabbis who attended the recent Victoria Police Jewish Community Dinner – as reported in the AJN (top).

Dear AJN Watch,

The Jewish News article failed to mention one very important fact, ie, that the 'featured speaker' - former AJN editor-in-chief - Sam Lipski, was virtually the ONLY man in the crowd who did not cover his head. All the non-Jewish policemen and irreligious Jews attending were wearing yarmulkes. But the 'community icon'? No way. Lipski showed how to out-goy the goyim.
This obviously had the gentiles wondering why they were supposed to wear kipot when the so-called Jewish icon was not.

The discussion amongst the attending rabbis was if Lipski’s behaviour was an embarrassment, a Chilul Hashem or both.

All I can add is: “shame on you Sam, shame”.

Chilul Shabbos emails from jwire # 2

In response to the Aussie Echo blog post re AJN Watch (reproduced here:
http://ajnwatch.blogspot.com/2009/06/aussie-echo-post.html ),
the editor of J-wire wrote:
"There is an alternative source [to the AJN] which does cover ALL communites [will be at the Yeshiva next week for the G-G's visit]... http://www.jwire.com.au/ "
AJN Watch's comment:
Yes, we are subscribers. And while you do not publish - as far as we know - biased anti-frum material, we are quite disappointed that your site is Mechalel Shabbos bifresiyeh by sending your daily email at 3.00 pm on Saturday afternoons. Why not show some respect for Shabbos and Shabbos-observers by waiting a few hours until after dark? http://tinyurl.com/n4nlrn

The above post has received the following comment:

Milhouse said...
If, as you say, this is a daily mailing that goes out every day on the dot of 3 o'clock, then it's obvious even to blind Freddie's dog that it's an automatic job. No human sends out a message at exactly 3:00:00 every single day. Nor is it in the nature of a news site for someone to type up a single "daily update"; such messages are always an aggregation of whatever stories have been entered in the last 24 hours. If you don't realise this then you have no business commenting on anything that goes on on the net. For you to use this as the basis of an accusation of chilul shabbos is outrageous. You need to substantiate that charge, or withdraw it and apologise. Hotzo'as shem ra is also an aveira.

OK, so now Motzoei Shabbos we checked today's email from JWire.

From: noreply+feedproxy@google.com On Behalf Of J-Wire
Sent: 2009-07-18 15:04
Subject: {Disarmed} J-Wire
J-Wire
________________________________________
• Melbourne Film Festival ignores activists
• No to Toben
• Gold for Roy

Melbourne Film Festival ignores activists
Posted: 17 Jul 2009 10:01 PM PDT
The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) has rejected calls by Palestinian activists not to accept “blood money” from the Israel Government. MIFF chief executive Richard Moore said that films for the festival, which begins next week, are not...

For more on this story and other breaking news click on the story title to visit J-Wire

No to Toben
Posted: 17 Jul 2009 09:45 PM PDT
Holocaust-denier Dr Fredrick Toben has been barred from visiting a Courage to Care exhibition in country Victoria.Federal Court judge Anthony Besanko responded positively to an application made by Jeremy Jones, a former president of the Executive...

For more on this story and other breaking news click on the story title to visit J-Wire

Gold for Roy
Posted: 17 Jul 2009 09:22 PM PDT
Roy Vandersluis has finally won a Gold Medal at his own record-breaking ninth Maccabiah. The Australian team won Gold in the Seniors Golf tournament with Vandersluis taking Silver as well for second best personal score. The 62-yr-old golfer from...

For more on this story and other breaking news click on the story title to visit J-Wire
****
At first glance it looks like the posts were added at around 10.00 pm Friday night. However upon rechecking we noticed the tag 'PDT' which obviously refers to the blogs origin on the USA west coast - Pacific Daylight Time. Then we went to Time Zone Converter to confirm what 10.00 pm PDT on the 17th July was in Australian time. Here's the result for you:

The World Clock – Time Zone Converter
At the specified time, local time in Melbourne was 17 hours ahead of Los Angeles

Location LA (USA) Local time Friday 17 July 2009 at 10:00:PM PDT
Melbourne (Australia) Saturday, 18 July 2009 at 3:00PM

AJN letter-writers re the paper’s “role to report the news”

Mr Zukerman – despite being a teacher for 37 years - obviously has much to learn. Comparing the story of Bernie Madoff’s conviction (which, BTW, we don’t recall taking over the entire front cover of the AJN) and the case of Rabbi Engel - who has never been convicted of anything (and very possibly may never be) shows that he simply doesn’t get it.

That is without even considering the fact that while the Engel case involves some tens of thousands of dollars, with Madoff it is tens of billions.

Zukerman’s comments also indicate that he has already found Rabbi Engel to be guilty - even before he has spent a single day in court. Nice.

But our main question to him and “HD” is, where were you when a number of leading figures in the Australian Jewish community were charged, convicted and even imprisoned for crimes involving not thousands, but millions of dollars?
We can’t recall ever hearing your concerns about the AJN’s “role to report the news”.

Or are you too happy with the AJN’s policy that it is only imperative “to report the news“ when it is negative about rabbis and other religious Jews,but not when regarding rich mates and family members of AJN staff and management?