Palestinian journalist gets jail term for Abbas insult

Published on March 28, 2013

A Palestinian Authority court sentenced a local journalist to a year in jail on Thursday over a picture posted on Facebook that was deemed insulting to Mahmoud Abbas.

More than 500 journalists cover Obama’s Israel visit, only small number will attend events

Published on March 20, 2013

Israel’s Government Press Office is working overtime. At Ben Gurion International Airport, a special counter has been set up to issue temporary press cards to the 300 journalists flying in.

Can journalists really be objective?

By Noga Gur-Arieh
Published on February 20, 2013

Hamas forbids local journalists from working with Israeli media

Published on December 26, 2012

The Hamas government in Gaza has forbidden local journalists from working with Israeli media outlets.

Hundreds of journalists arrive in Israel

Published on November 19, 2012

Hundreds of journalists and television crews have arrived in Israel to cover the conflict with Gaza.

A journalist’s perspective

By Karmel Melamed
Published on October 10, 2012

Why are you asking so many questions and wanting to write about our community in the newspaper? Why do people care about Iranian Jews in Los Angeles? Do you really think you’re accomplishing anything by writing about our triumphs and failures in the newspaper?

I remember Pete Steffens

By Tom Tugend
Published on September 19, 2012

Jonah Lehrer resigns from The New Yorker after admitting fabrications

By Danielle Berrin
Published on July 30, 2012

Israel to prosecute Haaretz journalist

Published on May 30, 2012

Israel will prosecute the journalist who allegedly accepted classified documents from a soldier.

Urban legend coming true?

By Noga Gur-Arieh
Published on May 1, 2012

Journalist Gal Beckerman wins Rohr Prize

Published on February 15, 2012

Journalist Gal Beckerman has been awarded the 2012 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature for his first book. Beckerman will receive the Jewish Book Council's first prize award of $100,000 for "When They Come for Us We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry." The non-fiction book is a comprehensive chronicle of the history of the Soviet Jewry movement.

Journalist: Netanyahu told me Israel’s biggest enemies are N.Y. Times, Haaretz

Published on January 18, 2012

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s two greatest enemies are The New York Times and Haaretz, the editor of The Jerusalem Post said in a speech.

Veteran Israeli journalist Yair Lapid enters politics

Published on January 9, 2012

Veteran Israeli journalist Yair Lapid has left his job as a television news anchor to enter politics

Polish journalist Leopold Unger dies

Published on December 21, 2011

The Polish journalist and commentator Leopold Unger has died at the age of 89.

Detained in Cairo

Published on December 19, 2011

I had been abused and beaten and had my camera confiscated all in the confines of the cabinet building, the headquarters of Egypt’s nascent democracy. Now, for the better part of an hour, I was languishing in a makeshift holding pen somewhere at the entrance of the building.

Dan Rather is a major gift to the Jewish Federation

By Lauren Bottner
Published on November 24, 2011

Helen Thomas tells Playboy she was ‘fed up’ with Israel

Published on March 20, 2011

An unrepentant Helen Thomas said in an interview with Playboy magazine that she knew exactly what she was doing when she said on camera that Jews "should get the hell out of Palestine."

Marilyn Henry, journalist and reparations authority, dies

Published on March 2, 2011

Journalist Marilyn Henry, an authority on German reparations and the recovery of Jewish properties looted and displaced in Europe during the Nazi and communist eras, has died. Henry, of Teaneck, N.J., died of cancer on Tuesday, four days before her 58th birthday.

Pearl’s passions: magnet honors slain journalist

By Rachel Heller
Published on February 15, 2011

Ask anyone who knew him: Daniel Pearl loved music. He joined bands in Atlanta, Paris and Mumbai, relishing the way a good melody can draw people together. So imagine how the slain Wall Street Journal reporter, killed by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002, might have felt watching the second-period choir class at Daniel Pearl Magnet High School as its members stand, roll their shoulders back and belt out a lilting rendition of “Seasons of Love” from the musical “Rent.”

N.Y. Times apologizes for pro-Palestinian writer

Published on February 9, 2011

The New York Times apologized for allowing a writer who has attended pro-Palestinian rallies to co-author a story claiming that Jewish criticism of Israel has grown in the San Francisco region. The Feb. 3 article, headlined "A Jewish Group Makes Waves, Locally and Abroad," covered tensions among Jews in the area. It focused particularly on Jewish Voice for Peace, which is noncommittal on whether Israel should become a binational state.

Pearl’s real murderer was 9/11 mastermind, probe says

Published on January 20, 2011

Four men were wrongfully convicted of the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl nine years ago, while the actual killer is the suspected mastermind behind the 9/11 terror attacks, a new investigation alleges. The revelations, which include the allegation that a dozen terrorists involved in the killing are still at large and operating, are based on a three-year investigation by the Pearl Project conducted by journalism students and faculty at Georgetown University and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Heading the probe was a Asra Nomani, Pearl’s colleague, from whose house in Karachi, Pakistan, the reporter left on the day of his 2002 disappearance supposedly for an interview with a high-level terrorist source.

Journalists’ group considers dropping Helen Thomas award

Published on January 4, 2011

Helen Thomas’ decision to take her disparagement of Zionists from off the cuff (last May) to on the record (last month) has led a journalists' group to consider dropping her name from a lifetime achievement award. The Society of Professional Journalists is revisiting its decision last summer not to change the name of its Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award after Thomas, 90, told an Arab-American group in Dearborn, Mich., last month that Congress, the White House, Hollywood and Wall Street “are owned by the Zionists.” Thomas, a 67-year-veteran of Washington reporting, resigned from her job as a columnist at Hearst last June after remarking to a video blogger that Jews “should get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home” to Poland, Germany and the United States. She later apologized, but her remarks in Michigan on Dec. 2 have raised fresh concerns about the sincerity of the apology.

Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg changing the world one story at a time

By Danielle Berrin
Published on October 27, 2010

“It was Shabbat yesterday,” Jeffrey Goldberg said as explanation for why he had delayed an interview with a Jewish newspaper. But his next line pretty much foiled the excuse: “I had a lot of soccer games to go to.”

Shin Bet details efforts to bring Blau back to Israel

Published on April 12, 2010

Israel's security service wants to question a Ha'aretz journalist about the whereabouts of 2,000 classified documents.

PA subpoena for reporter’s testimony shelved

Published on March 17, 2010

A federal magistrate ruled that the Palestinian Authority cannot force a reporter from The Atlantic magazine to testify in a terror-related lawsuit, Politico reported.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, was subpoenaed recently by the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which demanded that he testify about his relationship with Moshe Saperstein, a Jewish settler suing over a terrorist attack in the West Bank in 2002.

Now Anyone Can Have ‘Fifteen Minutes’ of Fame

By Danielle Berrin
Published on April 23, 2009

Among Hollywood’s most sought-after publicists, Howard Bragman, 53, has a celebrity clientele that includes Stevie Wonder, Ricki Lake, Mischa Barton and Ed McMahon. In 1989, he founded Bragman Nyman Cafarelli Public Relations and Marketing (BNC), which became one of the premier PR firms in the country before it was sold in 2001. In 2005, he founded Fifteen Minutes, his own boutique agency, where he specializes in entertainment, crisis management and the gay/lesbian market.

A clash of two birthdays

By Judea Pearl
Published on September 17, 2008

In sharp contrast to the birthdayof Kuntar, next month will witness another birthday celebration closerto my heart: the birthday of our late son, Daniel Pearl, who would have turned 45 on Oct. 10

Books: Oren ‘Tempts’ Israeli readers and defies critics

By Avner Hofstein
Published on November 1, 2007

Profile of Israeli novelist Ram Oren who has written 16 titles, sold more than 1 million copies in Israel and set up his own publishing house (Keshet).

Q & A with investigative journalist Seymour Hersh

By Brad A. Greenberg
Published on September 20, 2007

Another reporter freed? Nothing new under the Palestinian sun

By Uri Dromi
Published on July 12, 2007

Targeting journalists has long been a common practice in the Arab Middle East.

Tashbih Sayyed, friend and fighter, dies at 66

Published on May 31, 2007

Obituaries.

Briefs: Journalist: West Is losing ‘War of Ideas;’ Daniel Pipes comes to Pepperdine

Published on January 25, 2007

Community Briefs

Radical right resents judges and juries

By Bill Boyarsky
Published on November 2, 2006

These days no judge is safe from the assault of the religious right, anti-government crusaders and law and order zealots.

Iconic Italian journalist, Oriana Fallaci, 77

Published on September 21, 2006

Obituary for crusading Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci.

That’s What I Do

By Keren Engelberg
Published on June 29, 2006

If you're a single 24-year-old gal looking to meet a preferably Jewish single guy in Los Angeles, you'd think a good pick-up line might include the words "I work for The Jewish Journal." After all, what better way to convey to the guy-of-interest that you're a fellow MOT? But you'd be wrong.

Quartet of Movies to Tell Pearl’s Story

By Tom Tugend
Published on June 1, 2006

Filmmakers are currently wrestling with four different projects to document or dramatize the story of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter beheaded by Islamic extremists in Pakistan in early 2002, leaving behind a pregnant wife.

Laugh at Death the Buchwald Way

By Dov Burt Levy
Published on May 4, 2006

Art Buchwald is living and dying in a Washington, D.C., hospice. If you don't know his story, you could be forgiven for thinking this is a very sad time for the 80-year-old Jewish columnist. Just the opposite, Buchwald says. "I am," he announces, "having the time of my life."

Bialystock and Bloom Tell the Truth

By Tom Tugend
Published on December 15, 2005

Formerly high-riding New York producer Max Bialystock is on the ropes after a series of flops. When meek accountant Leo Bloom comes into his office to inspect the books, Bloom makes a discovery: If a producer raises a bundle of money to put into a show, but it closes immediately, he can reap a windfall.

Nathan Takes a Bite Out of Boring Fare

By Keren Engelberg
Published on December 8, 2005

"I never think of food as something that's stationary," Nathan said on a recent book tour stop in Los Angeles. "Things change, neighborhoods change, food changes, we get new ingredients, people get ideas. And when you come to a country you adapt what you knew to that country."

AIPAC Is Guilty—But Not of Spying

By Michael Berenbaum
Published on October 27, 2005

Rosen recognized that he ruffled too many feathers to be out front. So he groomed protégés to assume that role. He mentored one so well that he became the head of AIPAC; another became the first Jew to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

Truth More Powerful Than Advocacy

By Rona Ram
Published on September 8, 2005

With a copy of "Making the Case for Israel" under one arm and a blue solidarity bracelet on my wrist, I first entered The Media Line's (TML) Jerusalem bureau seeking an outlet for my pro-Israel passion.

Q & A With Richard Z.Chesnoff

By Marc Ballon
Published on September 8, 2005

n his decades as a journalist, foreign correspondent Richard Z. Chesnoff has reported from around the globe, including the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe. Over the years, Chesnoff -- a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report, columnist for the New York Daily News and author of several acclaimed books, including "Pack of Thieves: How Hitler & Europe Plundered the Jews" (Anchor, 2001) -- has chronicled such historic events as the birth of the PLO, the Vietnam peace talks, the 1967 Six-Day War, the fall of the Berlin Wall and, more recently, the rising tide of Islamic terrorism.

Spectator - Hard Truths of ‘Hamburg’

By Sandee Brawarsky
Published on September 1, 2005

Polish journalist Hanna Krall's "The Woman From Hamburg: And Other True Stories" (Other Press, $19) is based on interviews she did that in some way involved the Holocaust. But when one of the 12 stories was recently featured in The New Yorker's fiction issue, an accompanying note explained that her writing is indeed factual.

The 60-something Krall was a reporter for Polityka from 1957 to 1981 when martial law was imposed and her publications were banned. Her award-winning books have been translated into 15 languages, (the English version is by Madeline G. Levine). Yet the boundary between fact and fiction can seem blurred in her work, for Krall writes in an unadorned but intimate style, moving in fractured time, creating a rhythm that might resemble contemporary fiction.

Spectator - Sephardia Secrets

By Gaby Friedman
Published on July 7, 2005

Elaine Romero experienced "a cool fusion of art and life" when she wrote the play "Secret Things."

The play tells the story of Delia, a Latino journalist, who goes to New Mexico to investigate the origins of an anonymous package she received postmarked from there containing articles about Crypto-Jews (that is, descendants of the "Marrano" Jews of the Spanish Inquisition, who openly practiced Catholicism but conducted Jewish rituals in secret to escape persecution). In New Mexico, Delia finds herself mysteriously drawn to the world of Crypto-Jews, and reluctantly comes to terms with her own Crypto-Jewish roots.

When Romero, also a Latino, was writing the play, the same thing happened.

A Long, Hot Summer

By Rob Eshman
Published on June 16, 2005

I caught up with the journalist Yossi Klein Halevi at the home of David and Marsha Nimmer in Beverly Hills, where he was addressing a small group of mostly entertainment industry professionals about the imminent Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

The South African

By Rob Eshman
Published on March 31, 2005

The reason Goodman's words carry extra authority will become clear to anyone who reads his excellent new memoir, "Let Me Create a Paradise, God Said To Himself: A Journey of Conscience From Johannesburg to Jerusalem" (Perseus Books Group). Anyone who equates Israel with an apartheid state should be left in a quiet room with a copy of the book. If anyone can compare the old South Africa with the current Israel, it's Goodman.

History on Trial

By Michael Berenbaum
Published on February 24, 2005

For five excruciating years, from the moment that David Irving sued her for libel in England until the appeals process ran its course, Deborah Lipstadt had to remain silent.

Letters to the Editor

Published on February 17, 2005

Letters to the Editor.

Beverly Hills’ ‘Starr’ Reporter

By Sarah Price Brown
Published on December 2, 2004

Zager started out as a reporter, working for a short stint after college at a community newspaper in her hometown, Detroit. After getting married and having children, she turned to comedy. She spent 14 years as a stand-up comedian, entertaining at clubs in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

But being a journalist was her lifelong dream.

Liberal Academics Blind to Terror Threat

By Avi Davis
Published on October 14, 2004

"Come on, Mr. Davis," he said with an edge now in his voice. "You should know better. You're a journalist. That neocon crap is just as easily disproved as Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. It's clear fabrication -- used by Bush and his cronies to justify an unjustifiable war. Better to check the terrorism coming out of Washington before looking elsewhere."

Loud and Proud Mizrachi Voices

By Sandee Brawarsky
Published on May 13, 2004

"The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage," edited by Loolwa Khazzoom (Seal Press, $16.95)

On the last night before her family would flee Libya in 1967, Gina Bublil Waldman recalls that she had to choose between taking her only warm sweater or a photo album with the words "Souvenir of Libya" on the cover. Its hand-painted image of a peaceful seascape was in absolute contrast to the political turbulence and danger her family faced. She packed the photos, remnants of a life she wouldn't know again.

Her essay is included in a compelling collection, "The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage," edited by Loolwa Khazzoom.

Community Briefs

Published on April 29, 2004

"Arafat is a powerful symbol. But today it's very difficult to say that he has control over what's happening on the ground."

A Walk in Rick Orlov’s City Hall

By Catherine Seipp
Published on April 8, 2004

Rick Orlov of the Los Angeles Daily News, long known as the dean of City Hall reporters, is that rare media type who has no enemies. That's because he's long had a reputation for being an old-fashioned straight shooter who honors secrets not only in print, but also in hallway gossip.

"He's a person you can trust," Richard Riordan remarked once when he was mayor. "He's not some young person trying to prove himself with a gotcha."

Essays Reflect on Pearl’s Last Words

By Sandee Brawarsky
Published on February 26, 2004

Three words, among the last uttered by journalist Daniel Pearl before his murder two years ago this month (on Feb. 21, the public learned of the murder), have become a nucleus for thoughtfulness and creativity. "I Am Jewish," edited by his parents, Judea and Ruth Pearl (Jewish Lights), is a collection of brief essays by almost 150 noted contributors who tease out meaning from these words and compose personal statements of Jewish identity.

Writer Displays Keen Eye for Israeli Life

By Sandee Brawarsky
Published on February 12, 2004

The Israel that Donna Rosenthal depicts in her new book, "The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land" (Free Press) can sound like one very crowded apartment building, filled with interesting, passionate people from many backgrounds, often shouting in the hallways, sitting on the stoop, offering advice out their windows, sharing tragedies. But the tenants don't know much about those neighbors who aren't like them.

Irv “Kup” Kupcinet

Published on November 20, 2003

Irv Kupcinet, the legendary Chicago Sun-Times columnist for 60 years, died Monday, Nov. 10 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

Community Divided Over Hillel Rabbi

By Marc Ballon
Published on November 13, 2003

The UCLA Hillel rabbi who allegedly lost his temper and kicked a freelance journalist who called him a derogatory name could be required to undergo anger management training, counseling or worse for his reported actions.

On Dec. 1, Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller and Rachel Neuwirth will meet separately with a city attorney hearing officer in Los Angeles to try to sort through the facts of his reported physical assault on her. Afterward, the hearing officer will mete out the appropriate punishment to Seidler-Feller, if merited, said Eric Moses, the city attorney's director of public relations. It is possible the hearing officer could recommend that criminal charges be brought against Seidler-Feller.

Journalistic Fake-Out Before Blair

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on October 30, 2003

In spring 1999, filmmaker Billy Ray asked Charles Lane to retrace one of the strangest treks in modern journalism.

Pearl’s Life, Articles Inspire Jam Session

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on October 2, 2003

"Danny's sister, Michelle, asked, 'What would Danny have liked for his birthday?" his father said. "And the answer came naturally; he would have liked a jam session with all his friends. And where were all his friends? They were all over the world. So we began making phone calls."

Walk Your Dog

By Rob Eshman
Published on September 11, 2003

The question is not if we are we safe, but what can each of us do to be safer? The idea is to find the balance between alert and alarmed, between giving in to our fears (and to fear mongers) and giving up.