Posted on 06/02/2016 5:10:43 PM PDT by SJackson
The New York Times takes issue with women-only hours at a public swimming pool in Brooklyn. Photo: Wikipedia.
The latest salvo in the New York Times campaign against Orthodox Judaism is an editorial condemning the New York City Parks department for accommodating religious swimmers — and, for that matter any other women who prefer not to be gawked at by men while bathing — by providing women-only hours at a public swimming pool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The Times complains of what it calls a “strong odor of religious intrusion into a secular space.” The classically nasty antisemitic trope of accusing Jews of emitting a distinctive odor has been in the news recently as the result of a Harvard law student asking a visiting Israeli lawmaker why she was so “smelly,” drawing a condemnation from the dean of the law school. The Times didn’t see fit to cover that story; if it had, perhaps the editorial writers would have been more careful in their word choice.
But poor word choice is only the beginning of the trouble with this editorial.
It also displays alarming ignorance of the political geography of Brooklyn. The editorial refers to Dov Hikind as “the local assemblyman.” But Mr. Hikind represents Borough Park and Midwood, not Williamsburg, which is miles away. It’s almost as if those Times editorial writers can’t tell one smelly Jewish neighborhood, or politician, from another.
Additionally — and not least — the Times editorial is massively hypocritical. Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger, the grandmother of the publisher of the Times, was from 1937 to 1968 a board member of Barnard College, a women-only institution. We’re waiting for the Times editorials calling on the federal government to cut off research funding and Pell Grant availability to Barnard, on the grounds that its doors are closed to male students. The Times complains that allowing women-only swimming for a few hours a week at one of the city’s many public pools renders the pool “unmoored from the laws of New York City and the Constitution, and commonly held principles of fairness and equal access.” What about a man who wants to attend Barnard?
The Times, in a 1997 editorial, even acknowledged, albeit grudgingly, that “it is possible that offering quality single-sex education as part of a diverse menu of voluntary choices available to all public-school children could pass muster under Federal civil rights law and the Constitution.” So single-sex math and gym classes can be acceptable, at least in theory, but if a New York woman wants to swim some laps in her bathing suit without the male gaze, the Times declares that it is prima facie unconstitutional? It’s almost enough to make a person imagine that what the Times is against is not taxpayer-funded single-sex environments, but anything that Orthodox religious Jews — most of whom, by the way, are paying taxes for public schools that they do not use — might find useful or enjoyable.
There’s one final way in which the Times editorial is hypocritical, which is its rejection of what it calls “a theocratic view of government services” or the “odor of religious intrusion into a secular space,” and its preference, instead, for what it calls “public, secular rules.” There are at least two recent instances where the Times itself pleaded for religion to influence public policy.
There was the June 2, 1962 editorial, headlined “Guilt,” in which the Times reacted to Israel’s execution of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann by concluding, “The statesmanship that might help us today is found in several of the great religions. It is known to many of us as the Sermon on the Mount.”
And, as Adam White astutely pointed out on Twitter, there was a September 2015 editorial, “Pope Francis’ Challenge to America,” in which the Times delighted in the Pope’s pressing Congress to abolish the death penalty, save the environment and fight income inequality.
In other words, when it’s liberal Christian ideas influencing public policy, the Times seems to be considerably less absolutist in its opposition to theocracy. It’s only when Orthodox Jews are around that the Times turns up its nose at the “strong odor of religious intrusion.”
If anything stinks around here, it’s not the Jewish swimmers, but the ignorance and double standards of the Times editorialists.
In a crowded NYC subway on a hot summer day, the garlic and curry odors were overpowering.
That said, if I had eaten garlic, curry, or other strong spice for lunch, those odors were undetectable.;-)
Didn’t the same source promote women only hours for moslems a couple of years ago? I guess that was different. These are Jews.
I believe there have bee articles indicating that , at least hours which require muslim garb. Should note that despite the Time’s outrage should focused on women rather than Jewesses, since there are women’s hours, not Jewish women’s hours.
Better than that you only have to identify as a woman, not necessarily a Jewish woman. Then you can reidentify after swimming.
Sex-segregated hours have been the rule at the pool since “sometime during the 90s,” according to a spokesman for the parks department. The policy was instituted at the request of Orthodox women, apparently without any serious community objections.But a recent anonymous complaint led the city’s Commission on Human Rights to notify the parks department that the policy violated the law. Then a new pool schedule was issued, with the women’s hours removed. That alarmed female swimmers, who alerted politicians, including the local assemblyman, Dov Hikind.
Leaving aside the fact that Dov Hikind, Jews all look alike, isn't their assemblyman, this has apparently been the policy for several decades with no complaints, depriving the Times of a reason to complain.
It does appear to be against city ordinances, also longstanding. Seems to me the solution would be to change the ordinance.
The solution is to ignore anonymous ANYthings
Consider;
A bored lefty "reporter" has nothing to sell his editor, and while surfing porn on the company computer finds this obscure ordinance .... considers it for a while ... and makes a phone call
Think it doesn't happen ?
The way the Times whines about it you'd think that it only applied to Jewish women. What about Muslim women, Catholic nuns and lesbians who'd also prefer a male-free environment while swimming?
When has Pravda on The Hudson NOT been all about double standards? Never.
Who uses the word “Jewess” in this century? Sounds so Nazi-ish.
Jewess Jeans
Torn here. I feel for my Jewish sisters but I don’t think public places need to change their rules for various religions. The shuls there could pony up and start their own pool. They could put the pool on the campus of a school / camp and let women have one or two afternoons a week.
Muslim women do swim, with long dress and Hijabs on. I see this in Orange County at a mothers beach.
So, maybe if they’re ‘landlocked’, they might like some safe swimming-pool time, just like the Jewish ladies do?
I just don’t see why the Times is so ‘wee-wee-ed’ up about this...I guess it’s just another bias issue of whose ox is being gored.
-JT
The Jews have tremendous clout in the area-—they will prevail,and good for them.
The NYT is a rag.
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