When the planes hit the Twin Towers a quarter century ago, the New York Jewish Week’s offices were in Times Square, just a few miles away. But, even as the paper focused on the shock and toll in its own backyard, its frame of reference was thousands of miles away.
“America: The New Israel,” the extra large headline screamed across the front page of the Sept. 14, 2001 issue. The subhead underneath read: “As fear and vulnerability grip U.S., will empathy with Jerusalem increase?”
Five years ago, in an essay marking the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Gary Rosenblatt reflected on “one of the most controversial — and tone-deaf — front-page headlines to appear in The New York Jewish Week during the 26 years I served as editor.
“How did Israel somehow take center stage in this American tragedy?” he asked, quickly adding: “I can criticize the headline and those words because I wrote them.”
Gary and the Jewish Week weren’t alone. Sitting at my desk at the Forward, in the shadow of the Empire State Building, I wrote a very similar lead story for that venerable paper. The difference is Gary’s the one who followed up with a masterclass in mea culpa, illuminating without dodging in an essay that everyone would do well to read to get into the proper Days of Repentance mindset. (The only oversight: He never explained why Elie Wiesel’s guest essay was buried on p. 71!?!)
For the 25th anniversary, readers can now check out the entire Jewish Week issue from that fateful week (including James D. Besser’s lead story and Wiesel’s contribution) – and all of the other Jewish Week issues dating back to May 1971. They are now available on the Historical Jewish Press archive. The digital treasure trove, a project of the National Library of Israel in partnership with Tel Aviv University, hosts more than 900 publications spanning nearly 500,000 issues in 26 languages.
Here are several of the other headlines from that week’s issue:
- Terror Hits Home (front-page editorial)
- ‘Nothing To Do But Pray’: A Jewish community on edge wonders how to deal with indescribable tragedy (Eric J. Greenberg)
- Helping In The ‘War Zone’: Veteran police chaplain, Hatzoloh volunteer heal in their own ways (Steve Lipman)
- Heartache in the Holy Land: Anxious participants on solidarity mission to Israel watch disbelievingly as tragedy unfolds back home (Stewart Ain)
- ‘Asleep At The Switch’: Experts call for international effort against terrorism, improved airport security (Eric J. Greenberg)
- Minutes From Disaster: Trip to the farmer’s market saved the wife of Jewish Week sales rep (Steve Lipman)
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