A highly distorted presentation of the condition of Syrian Jewry which appeared in the April issue of the “National Geographic” magazine will be corrected in its November issue, it was announced by the American Jewish Congress which conducted a five-month protest against the article and the magazine.
Phil Baum, associate executive director of the AJCongress, who coordinated the protest which included the first picketing of the magazine’s headquarters in Washington, said he received a letter from Joseph R. Judge, the magazine’s assistant editor, stating that the AJCongress’ concerns about the article “will be amply demonstrated and acknowledged in our November issue.”
Baum said he did not not know what the “National Geographic” would say, but noted that its agreement to modify the original article was “a victory for the cause of Syrian Jews, whose fight for freedom was gravely jeopardized by the distortions in the April article.”
DISTORTIONS IN ARTICLE CITED
In its protest, the AJCongress charged that the magazine article by Robert Azzi, a free-lance writer, “left the clear impression that Jews in Syria are treated decently and that the Syrian government maintains a tolerant and even benign attitude toward them.”
The article also claimed that “the city of Damascus still tolerantly embraces significant numbers of Jews” and quoted a Damascus rabbi as saying Syrian Jews “have rights like any other citizens.” The AJCongress commented that “surely even the ‘National Geographic’ editors must be aware that a rabbi in Damascus under the menacing surveillance of the Syrian government can do nothing other than to laud his captors.”
Baum also stated that Syrian Jews have been attacked by Syrians and Palestinians and that life for the 4500 Jews still in Syria is “so fraught with harassment, restrictions, terror, torture and even rape and murder that the ‘Geographic’ article was shocking in the magnitude of its distortions.”
Baum said thousands of American Jews and other readers of the magazine wrote to the editor threatening to cancel their subscriptions unless a correction was printed.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
