I am anxiously awaiting the New York Times’s coverage of Sunday’s Adirei Hatorah event in Philadelphia. Seriously.
For months and months, the Times has sicced its “reporters” on covering every aspect of the Orthodox Jewish community in a bad light, skewing data to align with preformulated narratives, highlighting every transgression by any individual within the community and painting it as a community-wide issue, and practically openly advocating for the dissolution of Jewish educational institutions.
If they are so intent on shining a light on our community, they should at least have the decency to say what happened Sunday night. More than 25,000 people gathered at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia to honor and showcase those that spend their days steeped in the study of Torah.
While the Times ignores violent fights, gang initiations, and uninhibited drug use at New York City’s public schools, it should contrast that with the behavior of the multitude of people – all yeshiva graduates – who were at the event.
How many were arrested at the event? Zero. How many people had to be ejected from the stands due to fighting or rowdy behavior? Zero. How many people blacked out from alcohol consumption? Zero. How much garbage was left in the parking lots from tailgating? Zero.
In a crowd of over 25,000, every single one behaved with dignity and respect. The Times will never find another gathering of that size without a single incident tainting it. If they are so sure that their reporting is not biased against the Orthodox Jewish community, why won’t they cover the Adirei Hatorah event?
We already know the answer.
Yosef G – Lakewood NJ
PS: HERE ARE THE LINKS IF THE NY TIMES WANTS TO READ UP ON THIS:
[HISTORIC: 25,000+ Pack Wells Fargo Center To Celebrate And Honor Adirei Hatorah VIDEOS & PHOTOS]
[FULL REPLAY: Mammoth Adirei Hatorah Gathering At Wells Fargo Center In Philadelphia]
[INCREDIBLE FOOTAGE: New Unique Adirei Hatorah Videos You Won’t See Anywhere Else]
[PHOTO GALLERY 1: Adirei Hatorah Gathering At Wells Fargo 2023]
[PHOTO GALLERY 2: Adirei Hatorah Gathering At Wells Fargo 2023]
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18 Responses
Peaceful, respectful and religious-focused events have zero journalistic appeal. Conflict, violence and anti-social behavior sell ads.
No, the antisemitic pigs of the New York Times will not budge. They would rather go out of business than say anything nice about frum yidden
It’s a terrible Jewish trait where we compare our religious to societies worst. Why not compare apples to apples? How many were arrested or drunk at the Mormon, Amish or Seventh Day Adventist gathering? Zero! How many were arrested at the Reform conference that had thousands of people? Zero!
Acting like 25,000 very religious Jews behaving properly is newsworthy shows how myopic we can be.
From any newspaper’s standpoint, if it bleeds, it leads.
The Adirei hsTorah event was so beautiful that one needn’t engage in hyperbole and exaggeration in order to praise it.
However, other religious groups have done the same, actually on an even larger scale, and with similarly good behavior. J’s Witnesses, Baptists, Roman Catholics, to name a few.
The NYT is interested in Orthodox Jews to the extent that what we do affects others, most importantly tax payers. Our having a beautiful gathering that we’re not asking outsiders to subsidize is neither relevant nor newsworthy.
@Kuvult
You TOTALLY missed the boat!
He’s saying that the NYT claims public school is better than yeshiva.
They probably don’t like other private schools either, that’s not the point
Why do we need the NYT to report on us. Let them leave us alone. Besides they would just lie and make things up like they always do. Or focus on the wrong thing like separate seating etc.
May the day come that all publications appreciate the Torah and its teachings.
We don’t need the NY Slime’s haskama. לא מדבשך ולא מעקצך
This was a beautiful event.
Why draw comparisons to a warped view of secular society? Why do you assume that drug use is higher in PS than Yeshiva HS? I have spoken with professionals who serve both communities, and use ia fairly even overall. Underage drinking (Purim, kiddush) is also fairly even. Obviously not all schools are different, and this cuts both ways.
Do you know how many people pass out drunk at the average sporting event? Given that hard alcohol isn’t served, the number is zero.
We have a lot to admire, and this doesn’t require putting down anyone else. The way to build yourself up isn’t by putting others down. Build yourself up by being remarkable.
This event was remarkable. Let that stand on its own.
To put it bluntly:
The name of the newspaper is “New York Times “ this was not a national story. It should have been covered in the Philadelphia media, if covered by general media.
You complain about the Times, but probably are not a subscriber or daily purchaser.
Would you have expected Pravda to report on gulags, or to write an article about how workers in capitalist countries have a higher standard of living than in socialist countries?
> Kuvult
The topic is the New York Times, the paper that spent edition after edition trashing the Jewish religious schools in order to push the government into forcing these religious Jewish schools to emulate the pubic schools. That is what makes the comparison between the Jewish and public schools relevant. I have never seen any such move to push Amish and the others into the public school system, so that makes them irrelevant to the topic.
> Kuvult
While my part 1 was the main point, as an aside I can point out that a simple web search comes up with such stories (mainly from “conservative” sources such as Fox or only local sources) such as “More than 70 arrests at Amish party” and “FBI arrests 7 in Amish haircut attacks in Ohio” and “Cops arrest Amish man after seizing 25 pounds of weed” and so forth (including stories of sexual abuse of minors).
>>>Why not compare apples to apples? How many were arrested or drunk at the Mormon, Amish or Seventh Day Adventist gathering? Zero! How many were arrested at the Reform conference that had thousands of people?
You certainly aren’t comparing apples to apples.
There were Mormon, Amish or Seventh Day Adventist gatherings with over 25,000 recently? Is the New York Times so obsessed with those groups or with Reform Jews that they should report on much smaller events held by them?
That said, in fairness you can be sure that had the New York Times wanted to cover the event their reporters never would have been welcome there. Because if they would had covered it they would have made a major negative spin on the event it’s participants. So be happy they didn’t
These mega churches fill to capacity with tens of thousands of worshippers every Sunday.
Also, I wish anyone at all would write a story about the Wells Fargo event. We have seen very nice pictures and videos on this site but I haven’t read anywhere what the goal of the gathering was or why it was held at this time. I’m sure the Torah world had a very good reason for spending millions of dollars on such an event but I haven’t heard what that reason is yet.
Whoever wrote this story should remove it. There are definitely too many ways that this story can easily be spun to prove exactly their points when not looking at things through the eyes of torah. Saying that no one vandalized property or got drunk is not the NY times main goal but to show that when masses of people are not educated they can have to rely on public assistance etc…They don’t understand torah learning as a lifestyle.
NY Times would love to post this if they wouldn’t be under the threat of being “cancelled” by the left. If this leaked out on the Times, those leftists who don’t have their brains fried yet would realize that many strait white males – especially those that are frum Jews – aren’t so bad after all. Because that is all against the left’s program, the Times will soon see those activists by their HQ “peacefully protesting”.
My comment: worse things happen then you think don’t want to write about it but they are definitely not with halacha and also you have never been to the Vatican