Posted on 01/07/2020 4:10:34 AM PST by Kaslin
If decent people working in mainstream American media want to know why many Americans do not trust them and are willing to use the term "fake news" to describe the mainstream media, I offer one of the most glaring examples of a lie in my lifetime.
Last week, Newsweek headlined the following: "Conservative Radio Host Ridicules Anne Frank: 'I Don't Get My Wisdom From Teenagers.'"
Now, imagine how that must have struck any reader not familiar with the "conservative radio host" or with what he actually said. "Ridicule Anne Frank" -- what kind of terrible human being would do that?
Well, it turns out the "conservative radio host" was me. Yes, me -- a religious Jew who has devoted much of his life to the welfare of the Jewish people, served on the board of the U.S. Holocaust Museum, made the most widely viewed pro-Israel video in the world, written a book on anti-Semitism that is in its third printing, and founded a synagogue and a Jewish day school.
To understand how terrible a lie this is, you need to know what happened: Every week I do a video podcast for PragerU called "The Fireside Chat." In it, I offer thoughts on life and then take questions from around the world (we have received questions from 52 countries). A few weeks ago, I received the following question from Sam in Meridian, Idaho: "On your most recent Fireside Chat, you said that people are not basically good. We've heard you discuss this topic before. Anne Frank is quoted as saying, 'Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.' How do you respond to her quote?"
Here is my response (this is a word-for-word transcription, except for the words in parentheses added for clarity): "She wrote that in her diary, the most famous Holocaust document. (She was) a teenage girl, a Dutch Jewish girl, who hid with her family until they were betrayed by someone to the Nazis, who then shipped them to death camps. And she died, murdered by the Nazis in the death camps. She was about 16 years old, maybe 15. Her diary is very famous. It gives a face to the horror of the Holocaust.
"I know she wrote that, and my answer is it doesn't matter that she wrote it. I don't get my wisdom from teenagers. That she was a wonderful young woman and wrote an unbelievably powerful document that will last forever is beside the point. I don't expect 16-year-olds, unless they grew up in a religious Jewish or Christian home (where it is taught as basic religious doctrine that people are not born basically good). She was a secular Jew. Most kids believe that (people are basically good). But it is not true. So, it has never been an issue for me -- 'Well, you disagree with Anne Frank.' So what?
"And, by the way, to be very serious for a moment, I would be very curious -- I've thought about this a lot -- if I were to be able to visit Anne Frank while in a concentration camp, would she have still believed that? We don't know."
Only someone who deliberately seeks to smear someone would claim that what I said ridicules Anne Frank.
The person who wrote this is Benjamin Fearnow, a deputy editor at Newsweek, who previously worked for the left-wing site Mediaite.
When I looked up Fearnow, I came across this December 2018 tweet from talk show host Mark Levin: "Newsweek's Benjamin Fearnow is a very, very sick person."
And Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, one of the most revered Jewish scholars in America -- author of such Jewish classics as "Jewish Literacy" and "Biblical Literacy" -- called me to say that Fearnow's article saying I ridiculed Anne Frank is "the most despicable lie I recall reading in a mainstream news source."
Yesterday, Newsweek published Fearnow's column headlined, "Top Iranian Presidential Adviser Says Tehran's 'Sole Problem Is Trump,' Not Average American People."
Apparently, Fearnow has chosen to serve as a useful idiot for the Iranian regime, which hates America, not only Trump. (Does Fearnow believe that the Iranian chant "death to Israel" only means "death to Netanyahu"?) The Iranian regime has gathered millions of Iranians to chant "death to America" since long before it ever heard of Donald Trump. It has been wishing death on us and killing Americans (not to mention Iranians) since it came into power in 1979. But Fearnow cites the Iranian dictator, Ayatollah Khamenei, as having said last February that "'Death to America' means death to Trump, (National Security Adviser) John Bolton, and (Secretary of State Mike) Pompeo," as if it were credible.
Meanwhile, multiple left-wing sites have picked up Fearnow's and Newsweek's lie that I ridiculed Anne Frank.
If Newsweek has any honor, it will remove Fearnow's article and apologize to me.
But neither is likely. As I wrote 30 years ago, "Being on the left means never having to say you're sorry."
Next time someone challenges you for using the term "fake news" to describe mainstream media, just cite Newsweek and Fearnow.
I prefer reading toilet paper, but yeah.....
How DARE they compare Ann Frank with snowflake Greta Thunberg. What an INSULT to Ann Frank!
The utter banality of these evil, soulless, leftist propagandists. “Fearnow.” Heh, what a name.
Anne Frank was a kind and loving young girl. Greta Thunberg is the kind of person who would’ve had Anne lined up against a wall.
btt
No way that is the guy's real name, has to be a pen-name to protect himself from physical harm.
The media isn’t just fake. They’re at war with you.
Frankly (no pun intended), I believe they are at war with the people. I know that sounds inflammatory and hyperbolic, and it sounds like the words of someone who fills much much bigger shoes than I do, but they consider it an information war, and if you print (propagate) words consistently that they disagree with, you have a target on your back.
It’s not about being right, more correct, or even more persuasive. These people don’t look at it like a gentlemen’s game. They want you gone precisely because you are more correct and more persuasive.
I heard a rumor that it was Greta Thunberg that dropped a dime on the Frank family. /(is it needed) s
I don’t read the “Phony Ex-Press”.
blank toilet paper contains more printed truth than the major media.
I quit reading Time, Newsweek, etc. back in the 1970’s. I stuck with US News and World Report for a while longer, but it also eventually turned to the dark side.
Wow, quote of the day. Bears repeating. Thanks.
...and that is the entire divide, are people inherently good or bad (before they get outside influence)?
I didn’t need a bible for that answer, all I did was read Lord of the Flies.
And even the Left, who think that people are inherently good (hence reform them, rather than jail them - why do you think we have ‘correctional institutions’, after all), but they of course do not quite think that when it comes to political opponents - they think we’re simply EVIL and need to be disposed of, as the 20th Century proved.
since Newsweak has neither printed Dennis Prager’s original comment in full context nor response to the hit piece, they stand by Benjamin Fearnow and the antisemitic slur against conservative talk radio.
Stalinists lie. Always
My Wife received a one year subscription to the Epoch Times from one of her clients.
On the gift card she wrote: “It’s the paper The President reads.” She knows of what she writes...
It’s a terrific newspaper.
On the gift card she wrote:"
To whom does the 'she' in the above sentence point? Your wife or the client??
52 again.
I don’t read “main-stream” news. Every time I come across some on You Tube and listen for even a few seconds, I’m appalled by the mendacity and the idiocy.
So then Anne Frank said that Nazis are all basically good people?
That’s how that line of thinking works.
And it’s wrong. Dead wrong.
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