shalom y’allbcc1c74680eea04c81eb-134f7ac584bacf88b45f69834ab74d3c.r48.c… · a current events...
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March 2017 • Southern Jewish Life 3 shalom y’all sjlmag.com Read SJL Anywhere Our digital editions are always available at SJLmag.com. You may also choose to go paperless and have each month’s magazine delivered to your inbox. /sjlmag @sjlmag /sjlmag /southern jewishlife sjlmag sjlmag /sjlmag We Help You Focus On Life 1686 Montgomery Highway Hoover, AL 35216 205.979.2020 Comprehensive Eye Exams Complete Contact Lens Services Advanced Medical Testing Lasik Surgery Dry Eye Diagnosis & Treatment Pediatric Department SportsVision Rehabilitation & Performance Eye Disease Management • Glaucoma • Diabetic Complications • Cataracts • Macular Degeneration Quality EyeCare for Your Entire Family 205.979.2020 www.SchaefferEyeCenter.com While Israel as Start-Up Nation has brought the world many amazing advances in a wide range of fields, there are other Middle East exports that haven’t been welcome over the years. When terror attacks started happening against Israel, there were warnings not to explain them away as simply expressions of grievance by the Arab world, or to justify them as a manner of resistance, lest those tactics start ap- pearing elsewhere in the world. Naturally, some of the techniques honed against Israel soon were seen elsewhere in the Arab world and in the Western world. Today, many in the United States are focused on this “new” phenomenon of “fake news.” To that, supporters of Israel say,“where have you been?” Israel has dealt with that for decades in the western press. In high school in the 1980s, we were required to subscribe to Time magazine and had a current events quiz every week. Even then, Time was known to have an extreme animus toward Israel. The Jerusalem Post had a regular “Eye on the Media” column to ferret out media bias and outright falsehoods. The term “Pallywood” refers to manufactured outrage — staged “spontaneous” protests that happen only as television cameras are in the area, fake casualties, accusations of Israeli aggression when a Hamas rocket falls short of its destination and hits Palestinians, using heart-wrenching photos of those maimed and wounded and blaming Israel for the car- nage when the photos are actually from Syria or Iraq... the list goes on. Those advocating for Israel have long complained of a media “template” that assumes a certain narrative in the Middle East, where powerful Israel is a colonial threat to the weak, underdog “natives,” regardless of the facts. Now, all of a sudden, people are concerned about news stories being completely wrong or slanted? Reporters and editors are (mostly) human and do make mistakes. Some come into their positions to advance an agenda and should stick to the editorial or commentary side of the
Transcript of shalom y’allbcc1c74680eea04c81eb-134f7ac584bacf88b45f69834ab74d3c.r48.c… · a current events...
March 2017 • Southern Jewish Life 3
shalom y’allshalom y’all
Larry BrookEDITOR/PUBLISHER [email protected]
sjlmag.com
Read SJL Anywhere
Our digital editions are always available at SJLmag.com.
You may also choose to go paperless and have each month’s magazine delivered to your inbox.
/sjlmag @sjlmag /sjlmag /southern jewishlife
sjlmag sjlmag /sjlmag
SJLSept2015.indd 3 8/29/2015 8:33:57 PM
We Help You Focus On Life
1686 Montgomery HighwayHoover, AL 35216
205.979.2020
Comprehensive Eye ExamsComplete Contact Lens ServicesAdvanced Medical TestingLasik SurgeryDry Eye Diagnosis & TreatmentPediatric Department
SportsVision Rehabilitation & PerformanceEye Disease Management• Glaucoma• DiabeticComplications• Cataracts• MacularDegeneration
Quality EyeCare for Your Entire Family
205.979.2020 www.SchaefferEyeCenter.com
shalom y’all
Larry BrookEDITOR/PUBLISHER [email protected]
/sjlmag @sjlmag /sjlmag/southernjewish
life
sjlmag.com
Read SJL Anywhere
Our digital editions are always available at sjlmag.com. You may also choose to go paperless and have each month’s magazine delivered to your inbox.
Cover Image: Courtesy Haspel
While Israel as Start-Up Nation has brought the world many amazing advances in a wide range of fields, there are other Middle East exports that haven’t been welcome over the years.
When terror attacks started happening against Israel, there were warnings not to explain them away as simply expressions of grievance by the Arab world, or to justify them as a manner of resistance, lest those tactics start ap-pearing elsewhere in the world.
Naturally, some of the techniques honed against Israel soon were seen elsewhere in the Arab world and in the Western world.
Today, many in the United States are focused on this “new” phenomenon of “fake news.” To that, supporters of
Israel say, “where have you been?” Israel has dealt with that for decades in the western press.In high school in the 1980s, we were required to subscribe to Time magazine and had
a current events quiz every week. Even then, Time was known to have an extreme animus toward Israel. The Jerusalem Post had a regular “Eye on the Media” column to ferret out media bias and outright falsehoods.
The term “Pallywood” refers to manufactured outrage — staged “spontaneous” protests that happen only as television cameras are in the area, fake casualties, accusations of Israeli aggression when a Hamas rocket falls short of its destination and hits Palestinians, using heart-wrenching photos of those maimed and wounded and blaming Israel for the car-nage when the photos are actually from Syria or Iraq... the list goes on.
Those advocating for Israel have long complained of a media “template” that assumes a certain narrative in the Middle East, where powerful Israel is a colonial threat to the weak, underdog “natives,” regardless of the facts.
Now, all of a sudden, people are concerned about news stories being completely wrong or slanted?
Reporters and editors are (mostly) human and do make mistakes. Some come into their positions to advance an agenda and should stick to the editorial or commentary side of the
4 Southern Jewish Life • March 2017
commentary
PUBLISHER/EDITOR Lawrence M. Brook [email protected]
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CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ginger Brook [email protected]
SOCIAL/WEB Eugene Walter Katz [email protected]
PHOTOGRAPHER-AT-LARGE Rabbi Barry C. Altmark deepsouthrabbi.com
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Rivka Epstein, Joanie Bennett,
Tally Werthan, Craig Pierce, Belle Freitag, Annabelle Fox,
Doug Brook brookwrite.com
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Southern Jewish LifeFebruary 2017
by Douglas J. Gladstone
From 1995 through 2001, Tony Clark was one of the most productive first basemen in the American League.
Playing for the Detroit Tigers, Clark was one of the players who succeeded Jason Thompson at first base. Similarly, Thompson succeeded another Tigers first baseman by the name of Jack Pierce.
Pierce passed away on Sept. 30, 2012 at the age of 64. Pierce’s last year in “The Show” proved to be his best: he amassed 40 hits in 170 at bats for the Tigers, including six doubles, one triple and eight homers.
He left behind a wife, six children and six grandchildren.
Men like Pierce, who do not receive pensions because they didn’t accrue at least four years of service credit in the big leagues, which is
what you needed if you played in the majors from 1947 to 1979, have instead been receiving nonqualified life annuities of up to $10,000 per year since 2011.
Well, Pierce doesn’t anymore. That’s because, unlike pensions, which can be passed on to a loved one or a designated beneficiary, nonqualified life annuities stop when the player dies.
So Jack Pierce got, at most, two of these payments before he died. Since then, his widow has gotten diddly-squat.
The maximum allowable pension limit under the IRS is $210,000.
The man who could remedy that situation happens to be Tony Clark. But, to date, he’s shown no inclination to do that.
As the executive director of the Major League
business. There are some who want to put out a good story regardless of the context, looking for a pre-determined quote from an interview-ee so they can plug it into a pre-existing idea, regardless of whether the speaker intended it that way.
There are willful distortions and manipula-tions on both sides of the aisle, and that was clearly evident in the past election cycle. One in particular came from the sentiment on the right that celebrities and politicians on the left are hypocritical by speaking out against guns while they have armed security — it’s fine for them but not for the average citizen.
When Trump pointed that out by saying Hil-lary Clinton’s guards should try getting rid of their weapons, he was immediately accused of urging his supporters to assassinate her.
Not that Trump hasn’t used more than his share of hyperbole and extreme extrapolation, but the overwrought umbrage to that remark reinforced a cynicism about politics and the media.
One shouldn’t complain about “fake news” by one side while giving it a pass in instances where it benefits one’s own political leanings.
Of course, none of this is truly new. Thomas Jefferson, who faced slanted and slanderous coverage Trump could only have nightmares about, retorted that “nothing can now be be-lieved which is seen in a newspaper.”
Despite his lamentations over the partisan direction the media had taken in his day, Jef-ferson nevertheless held that given a choice between a government without newspapers and newspapers without a government “I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
An oft-ignored next phrase then says that
is contingent on everyone receiving those pa-pers and being capable of reading them — in other words, an informed citizenry using rea-son to discern truth.
In an age where anyone with a keyboard can go online and spread stories of question-able validity, it is imperative to check multiple sources and see what is credible. Especially when it comes to forwarding an incredible story that came from “somewhere” online.
And that also means being exposed to sources that differ from one’s views and lis-tening to them. Not necessarily agreeing with them, but at least considering where others are coming from.
The polarized echo chamber we see today hampers civil discourse.
In our stories, we strive to make them so the reader isn’t quite sure where we fall on the po-litical spectrum. That’s not to say we always get it right, but we try to follow Mr. Jefferson’s in-struction to follow truth wherever it may lead.
Like so many things in society, this “fake news” dustup will pass, and in another gener-ation, another president will complain about it. Just as anti-Semitism did not suddenly ap-pear because of Trump, fake news did not start with this past election cycle. We’re just more attuned to both right now.
Of course, having four threats against the JCCs in Birmingham and New Orleans thus far this year, we’re ready for that to pass into the rear view mirror as well.
shalom y’all
Larry BrookEDITOR/PUBLISHER [email protected]
/sjlmag @sjlmag /sjlmag/southernjewish
life
sjlmag.com
Read SJL Anywhere
Our digital editions are always available at sjlmag.com. You may also choose to go paperless and have each month’s magazine delivered to your inbox.
Cover Image: Courtesy Haspel
Baseball pension ”curve ball” affected Jewish player from Alabama
continued on page 51
March 2017
