NEW YORK (Yaakov M / VINnews) — An email has surfaced, sent by a NY Times reporter who authored the recent hit pieces against Chassidim, which exposes the newspaper’s antisemitic agenda.
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A screenshot of the email from Brian Rosenthal was posted on Twitter, with users pointing out that it clearly demonstrates the newspaper manufactures a fake narrative about Jews, then cherry-picks only facts which support it.
An excerpt from the email, sent as a request for personal testimony to be used in articles, reads: “We’ve heard that in recent years, some boys schools and girls schools in the Hassidic community (and in the larger Orthodox community too) have been increasingly pushing to classify their students as special education in order to obtain more government funding, but have not been providing students with high-quality services. We’ve also heard that many schools have high rates of students in special education.”
One would expect the email to be more innocuous and vague, and not “lead the witness”. Rosenthal does not say that he is looking for information about yeshivas and special ed programs. He quotes unconfirmed, anecdotal rumors and conjecture which is critical of yeshivas.
In context, when you consider the many stories Rosenthal and the NYT have composed attacking Chassidim, it is quite clear that he is not looking at the facts objectively, rather he is starting with a conclusion, and gathering facts which support his narrative.
The @nytimes comes up with a story, then works backwards to find any info that fits their narrative.
They look for that 1 parent that has left the community, & then they write the story around that ONE persons experience as if it’s reflective of the 500,000 Orthodox Jews in NY. pic.twitter.com/7qxvqPm6rg
— Yaakov (Jack) Kaplan (@JackKaplanNY) January 1, 2023
In response to the email, Yaakov Kaplan, Vice-Chair of Community Board 12 in Brooklyn, tweeted: “The @nytimes comes up with a story, then works backwards to find any info that fits their narrative. They look for that 1 parent that has left the community, & then they write the story around that ONE persons experience as if it’s reflective of the 500,000 Orthodox Jews in NY.”
Another Twitter user wrote: “Bingo..Its like the Archer who shoots his arrow at a target and then paints circles around the arrow and screams “Bullseye!” Its all smoke and mirrors when dealing with the @nytimes”
The reality is, leftist Democrats have expanded programs such as Special Ed, Student Loans, Medicaid, and Covid relief, making it highly lucrative and beneficial for people to qualify. They are practically begging people to enroll in these programs.
If the bogus narrative of the NY Times were in fact correct (and there is no basis to believe it is), the real story is the incompetence of the government in administering these programs, allowing people to “game” the system and defraud the government of hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars.
Or perhaps the government intentionally makes it easy for low-income people to qualify for these programs, as a means of redistributing wealth to minority communities?
I don’t see a deviation from standard reporting practice here. He said that they heard some things, and are trying to find out if they are true, by doing some research.
Did you want him to report it before looking into it further?
Seems like a standard approach. You hear about something and u look to verify. Not saying they aren’t slanted but this email doesn’t suggest much.
You want to blame the government for not catching people who are gaming the system and so “defraud the government of hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars”?
That’s like blaming a merchant for not managing to prevent theft. The responsible people are the THIEVES.
The real anti-semites here are the guys registering all their pupils as Autistic to get funding, this guy is just taking on the inevitable scoop, if we were doing everything in our power to avoid chillul hashem then you could have a taaneh…
All these giveaway programs are designed to grow government into an uncontrollable
monstrosity, First they hire hordes of people to manage these new programs, Than after the giveaways are finished the investigations start on those who gamed the system and the government hires additional thousands of investigators.
The Federal government never fires people it’s designed to increase the voter base of the democRATS.
You could research the history of every government program and you will see the same results.
The real question isn’t if it’s easier to get money from the government programs the real question should be are yeshivas lying and doing this
Are other communities doing this. Joe many children are branded as special needs because
There’s money to be made by all
Sounds like he heard what could be an interesting or newsworthy story & he’s reaching out to those that may have info.
In the real world it’s called “Journalism”
In the Frum world it’s called “Having an Anti-Frum agenda”
Don’t see how this is different than usual journalism if I want to report about heart attacks I’ll go to talk cardiologists not dermatologists right? In this case the times has a point. What college did kaplan finish ?what does he do? What affiliation does he have to special ed industry?
It’s time to pull a Project Veritas on this alleged reporter.
It seems that the reporter was looking for truth.
Given that the Agudah pushback and has been to argue motivation “anti-semitism,” kinda tells you that Agudah is pretty much conceding that they cannot dispute the NYT data.
Both could be true: NYT motivation was anti-frum bias, but their data is solid data.
This is an old email that was published a month ago. The reporter heard a rumor and decided to investigate it. This email tells us nothing.
If people know how to fill out the forms and qualify for services rendered, that’s not called gaming the system. It’s called taking advantage of government programs that are put in place for people who need the help.
Because a person wears a Kippa or doesn’t have a darker skin complexion, it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t qualify for services that are created for a purpose.
If a person has a wealthy great grandfather but doesn’t do well on his own, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t qualify. If he honestly fills out the forms and is approved that’s fine.
I am reminded of an old legal saying that goes something like this:
If the law is on your side, argue the law. If the facts are on your side, argue the facts. If neither is on your side, holler.
There are some people that seem to have a knee-jerk reaction to anything that implicates Chasidim in monkey business, to scream gevald, as the saying goes, and make a big stink about it, alleging discrimination and the like.
Instead of defending such crookedness, they should follow people like the late Agudah leader Rabbi Yaakov Perlow, who was a Chasidic Rebbe himself, in strongly condemning such shenanigans, and standing squarely on the side of honesty and integrity.
The more you scream and yell about the NYT, the more you confirm their story…..more often than not, if you keep screaming that you didn’t do something – chances are that did it……
How about a real investigations how mcuh money our colleges waste on nosense. Whether its degrees that don’t bring to meaningful employment or their general waste to the tune of billions
There are no 500,000 orthodox Jews in NY. That’s fake news.
The only thing I see wrong here is publishing the reporter’s email and phone number.
You write
the real story is the incompetence of the government in administering these programs, allowing people to “game” the system and defraud the government of hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars.
In this case no one is gaming the system. The city made a program where you get an enhanced rate. Instead of getting $41an hour you can get quadruple. So why can’t we take advantage of that? In addition any child that qualifies for any service. Is evaluated by the BOE. So no one is getting services if they don’t qualify. In addition in order to be a provider you have to approved by the BOE. So the Times sees some smoke and make it sound like a 5 alarm fire.
“Special Aid, Student Loan, Medicaid” by leftist Democrats. I don’t get his ,point. Sounds to me that any Orthodox Jew (with Bli ayin Hora lots of kids) have a good reason to vote Democrats. Avg salary with collage education is less than 100.000/year . We could not survive without most of this help. This article sound like a Democrats Ad to vote for a Democrat.