In two earlier posts, here and here, we reported on the fallout from Tikkun’s decision to publish on its website an article by an antisemitic writer who uses the name “Israel Shamir.” The article has now been removed from the website. Nonetheless, Karl Pfeifer, a Holocaust survivor and veteran anti-fascist based in Vienna, persisted in asking Tikkun to establish the facts of what happened. Karl’s last email to Michael Lerner, the editor of Tikkun, is republished below, as is Michael Lerner’s response.
We publish this unedited correspondence as a service to our readers.
- Pfeifer to Lerner, September 23, 2008
Kvod Harav Lerner,
Mr. Zagoroff your assistant wrote a week ago:
Mr. Pfeifer,
I’m forwarding your questions to our Editor-in-Chief, who posted “Shamir’s” article. I can however confirm that an Editor’s Note preceded the article before our communication, as it was there when I checked the piece (immediately after receiving your correspondance).
Unfortunately a week went by and I received no answer to my following questions, so here they are again:
2) Did you knowingly publish an article of the Swedish-Russian antisemite Adam Ermash (who is writing under the name Israel Shamir)?
3) If you did not check, whom you publish, will you inform your readers about this friend of David Duke, Horst Mahler and other Neonazi?
4) You imply that Ermash’ views are representative of many secularist Jews. Do you have any representative opinion poll on which you relied? How many secularist Jews share the views of this antisemite?
I am surprised, that you did not care to answer simple and polite questions of an 80 year old Holocaust survivor who fought in the War of Independence in Israel. I am interested in this matter also because I have published in Austria and also abroad (f.i. in the antifascist London magazine Searchlight) several articles on Adam Ermash (Israel Shamir)
Of course some times there are “errors” and an article finds its way into a magazine, without the knowledge of an editor. In Austria this happened a few years ago, when the extreme right weekly Zur Zeit published the article of a freelance contributor, who wrote an article denying the Holocaust. In Austria the denial of National-Socialist crimes is a punishable offence. The author of the article was condemned by a court. But Austrian police and justice could not find out who saw this article before publishing. Could it be that such an “error” happened also in your office and nobody knows how the article was published by you?
I trust that you will answer my questions after all you declare to strive for a better world (tikkun olam). And how can the world become a better place if a rabbi is not answering simple questions.
RAMBAM said: Haemet jaaseh et darko, Truth will make its way.
And in Mivhar Hapninim it is written: Dvar emet Tov mehashtika mimeno THE TRUTH SPOKEN IS BETTER THAN THE TRUTH WITHHELD.
Awaiting your reply
Karl Pfeifer
- Lerner to Pfeifer, September 23, 2008
The reason I do not wish to engage with you is that you have already publicized this incident on your website and obviously have some agenda with me and Tikkun that has nothing to do with this specific incident. Unfortunately, this summer when we had approximately ten new interns, somebody put this up on our web site. I do not recall being involved, though someone in a meeting may have, without reference to Shamir in particular, asked me what our stance was on putting up pieces by people with whom we disagree, and I said something to the effect of, even a broken clock is correct twice a day and that if the actual content of the piece was something unlikely to be heard elsewhere, that our policy should be to put it on our website along with disclaimers that remind people that our website Current Thinking category does not reflect our own views necessarily. That iss my best recollection of how this thing happened. I happen to have met Shamir, found him an extremely unpleasant and hateful person, and while some of his articles are in my view correct in their perspective or analysis, others are in my estimation overtly hateful toward Judaism (I may have said something like that too). In any event, I surmise that this is how the whole thing got up there, and when it was pointed out to me last week, I ordered it removed. I do not want to give this more attention and publicity, because I am certain that Shamir will be able to transform this whole question into a “free speech debate,” and on that issue he will have many supporters who do not know about his particular history. Why give him a free ride in that way? So I have removed the article, but I do not intend to make any public statements about it unless Shamir himself starts to attack on those free speech grounds.
He does not want to engage with Karl Pfeifer, but he does anyway.
He does not recall being involved, yet is able to quote almost verbatim a conversation that may not even have taken place.
Just an example of the sort of muddled, incoherent, and sanctimonious thinking that characterizes Lerner’s enterprise.
This reminds me of this dialogue in the 1995 movie “Sabrina”:
“Patrick Tyson: That’s not a wedding, it’s a town.
Mrs. Ingrid Tyson: Stop, it’s going to be wonderful! Elegant but simple, lavish but tasteful…
Patrick Tyson: Cheap but expensive.”
There is one point where Karl Pfeifer exaggerates. I mean “Kvod Harav”. It is not exactly “kavod” I feel toward this character.
Karl Pfeifer is a very courteous person. And “kvod harav” is a figure of polite speech, like you would start any official letter to an IRA officer with “Dear Sir” though you hardly consider such a person in any way dear to you, except on paper…
• I used the term Kvod Harav because I thought that Michael Lerner not only pretends to be a rabbi, but is one. Reading his letter I doubt that. Because usually rabbis know Derech Erez and behave accordingly. Michael Lerner does not.
• Lerner wrote to me about “Shamir”: “while some of his articles are in my view correct in their perspective or analysis”. So not secular Jews identify with the Swedish-Russian anti-Semite Adam Ermash (Israel Shamir) as Lerner postulates but he himself is in agreement with at least part of what this friend of Neo-Nazi says. This is projection, the attribution of one’s own ideas, feelings or attitudes to other people; the externalization of blame, guilt.
• Lerner pretends to strive for Tikkun ha-olam. Mi pnei tikkun ha-olam means “For the benefit of society”. This tannaitic term deals not only with enforcing legal norms but also with non-punishable injurious behavior.
Lerner understands as Tikkun ha-olam, that every one but he has to change his/her way. My questions were asked explicitly for the benefit of society. And I have told Tikkun that I am a journalist and could publish everything not marked “confidential or off record”. He writes, that he does “not wish to engage with” me because I have published something. This is just a pretext. As a matter of fact:
Michael Lerner is just not able to answer my questions.
• In my eyes he is a hypocrite, his sanctimonious agenda seems to be based on deceitfulness, duplicity, falsity and insincerity.
“In my eyes he is a hypocrite, his sanctimonious agenda seems to be based on deceitfulness, duplicity, falsity and insincerity.”
Congratulation, Karl. I think you finally met the real Michael Lerner.
Personally, I would like to ask him if he wrote the self aggrandizing description of Michael Lerner on Wikipedia? The article sounds like an exercise in creative writing as well as resume enhancement.
What’s the point in continuing to attack Lerner? He acknowledged the mistake and took down the article. Karl did a great service pushing this issue, and the right thing was ultimately done. Should Tikkun have refused to print the article in the first place? Of course. Might Michael’s “explanation” been crafted differntly? Perhaps. So what?
Z Word should be a vehicle for engaging people on the left on issues of antisemitism and zionism, including pointing out mistakes. But if we villify people with whom we disagree (especially when they engage the criticism and do the right thing) then we’ll end up only speaking with people we deem to be sufficiently pure, in which case Z Word will become useless.
Ken I see no vilification. Z has published the exchange of letters without any comment. The fact that Michael Lerner did not reply to my relevant question speaks for itself.
It is not a case of “speaking with people we deem to be sufficiently pure” but a case of moral and political hygiene not to publish a raving antisemite, a friend of Neo-Nazi.
To quote is a mizva: Kol haomer davar beshem omro mewie ge’ula le-olam “Who says a thing in the name of the speaker brings deliverance to the world.”
Pirke Avot
So Z behaved according to the moral code of Jewish tradition.
There are mistakes which consist of erring from a normally acceptable standard and there are mistakes which show what one is really about.
I am curious to know who the editor was, then, who posted the editor’s note before Shamir’s article on the Tikkun website. I assumed that it was Michael Lerner when I wrote about this incident on my blog (http://mystical-politics.blogspot.com/2008/09/tikkun-magazine-publishes-vicious-anti.html). No name was given - so who was it then? He *is* the editor of Tikkun.
Rebecca–
Yes, Lerner is the editor of Tikkun. And one of the jobs of the editor is to take responsibility for messes.
If you read Lerner’s letter, he does not seem to be too eager to do that part of his job. He should therefore (IMO) take about a 75% reduction in pay.
Regards,
Inna