[ha-Safran]: Thomas Friedman donates prize $ to synagogue library

[Ann Abrams]

FROM www.nextbook.com
January 20, 2004
Columnist Rapped For Supporting Synagogue Library
In handing out its inaugural Opinion Awards, The Week asked winners to
donate their $2,000 prizes to a library of their choice. New York Times
columnist Thomas L. Friedman chose the library at Kol Shalom
, a Conservative egalitarian synagogue in
suburban Maryland. The Village Voice's Cynthia Cotts thinks there's
"something especially freighted
 about giving journalism
award money to a religious library" and says other winners donated to "less
controversial institutions." But with Op-Ed page antagonist William Safire a
fellow founder, how could Kol Shalom be an ideological monolith? Through a
Times spokesman, Friedman told Cotts he was "offended" by her line of
inquiry


Ann Abrams, Librarian
Temple Israel
477 Longwood Ave.
Boston, MA 02215
617-566-3960
www.tisrael.org

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Re: [ha-Safran]: Thomas Friedman donates prize $ to synagogue library

[malka9]

What huztpah! (let alone anti-semitism) Perhaps Friedman's choice will help 
refute charges (by Jews/Zionists) that he is against Israel and Judaism. 
I'm quite pleased  -- and I guess surprised by his choice.

Madeleine Cohen Oakley
Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy
Rockville, MD


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Re: [ha-Safran]: Thomas Friedman donates prize $ to synagogue library

[Erika Zeitz]

Shalom all--this is very disturbing--but not surprising-- coming from
the Voice.
Cotts really doesn't criticize Friedman that much--after all--he can
donate his money to whomever he chooses. She seems to especially take
issue with Kol Shalom's rabbi and his relationship to financial
matters, but she doesn't even begin to look deeply at where the other
prize winners designated their awards. One of the winners is sending
his to his former prep school. Bet there's something controversial
there--

Erika Zeitz
MLS student & anxious mother of a soon-to-be Bar Mitzvah



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Re: [ha-Safran]: Thomas Friedman donates prize $ to synagogue library

[goldman]

Hello:

It seems to me we live in America and one can donate his/her money to anyone.

Why don't they get off Friedman's case? He's damned if he does and damned 
if he doesn't.

Shabbat Shalom!

Elaine Goldman

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Re: [ha-Safran]: Thomas Friedman donates prize $ to synagogue library

[Joshua Sharf]

I wish I could agree, but the target of the piece is clearly Friedman.  But
the path by which she gets to her conclusion is so tortured that whatever
"freight" she sees has been dumped by the roadside long before then:
Friedman donates to a shul library; that shul is Conservative; it's part of
the Masorti movement; religion and politics are mixed in Israel; so the
Masorti movement has taken political positions, maybe even on Israeli
foreign policy; Friedman has written nice things about Israel.  Voila!
Friedman is really giving his money to support political causes in Israel.

Hers is a media column, so from time to time she looks at journalistic
ethics.  I looked through her columns on Lexis-Nexis, although they're all
available on line at the Village Voice site.  I couldn't find anything
criticizing black journalists for belonging to churches that hold political
rallies on the Sunday before election day.  By her logic, which of course I
don't accept, Krugman's money, going to a public library, probably helps
support a librarian who belongs to the ALA, whose annual resolutions have
already been discussed at length here on this list.  Such criticism would be
absurd.  So is this.

Joshua Sharf
Site: http://www.viewfromaheight.blogspot.com



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