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5-15-98 Dennis Prager mourned the passing of singer Frank Sinatra. Time tests greatness and P believes Sinatra will last in popularity. P would make no pronouncement on Frank's moral character. Then Prager raised his concerns about the LA TIMES…He referred to the front page of today's Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Willes, the 56-year-old chairman of Times Mirror Co., who added the post of Times publisher last year, thinks the flagship paper depends too much on white people, particularly men, as sources in news stories. To better reflect the polyglot nature of Los Angeles and other home cities of Times Mirror papers -- and, he hopes, to lure more readers -- Mr. Willes intends to set specific goals for increasing the number of women and minorities quoted in stories. Editors will be paid based partly on how well their reporters meet those goals. He also wants more stories about minorities and women; to attract women, he says, Times Mirror must offer stories that are "more emotional, more personal, less analytical." "When our readers read the paper, they don't see themselves in the paper," Mr. Willes says in an interview at company headquarters in Los Angeles. In addition to the Times, the company owns Newsday of Long Island, N.Y., the Baltimore Sun and Connecticut's Hartford Courant. "People want to feel like the paper's theirs," he says. "They can't do that if it's a fundamentally white-male newspaper." Almost all newspapers have been struggling with how to better reflect their often increasingly diverse readerships and stem a general decline in readership. Many minorities have long felt that they are ignored by the people who run newspapers and are certain to applaud most acts that force editors to look their way.
Prager's letter to the 5/14/98 Wall Street Journal:
Letters to the Editor Justice for the Friendly Spy In his May 6 editorial-page commentary "Ethnicity Is No Excuse For Espionage," denouncing the activities on behalf of spy Jonathan Pollard's release, E.V. Kontorovich calls me an "esteemed moralist," but doesn't much esteem my moral argument that spying for a friendly democracy is morally (if not legally) quite different from spying from an anti-democratic enemy. He asks rhetorically, would I not think "adultery a less serious offense if committed with a close family friend?" I love analogies, but this one doesn't work. In adultery, the primary wrong is the hurt felt by the betrayed spouse--not whether the person with whom the adulterous spouse slept was a family friend or a stranger. If he really believes in his analogy, Mr. Kontorovich presumably believes that the primary wrong in spying is the hurt feeling of the country betrayed. But feeling hurt is not a particularly strong argument for giving a man a life sentence in prison, much of it in solitary confinement. Furthermore, we are constantly told that the issue is entirely one of "great damage" to American security, not betrayed feelings. And here my moral argument remains unanswered: Would Americans--would Mr. Kontorovich--really have considered an American who spied for Britain against Nazi Germany before America entered World War II to be as damaging and as immoral as an American spying for Nazi Germany? Mr. Kontorovich's comparison of Jonathan Pollard to convicted cop killer Mumia Abau-Jamal is even odder, and easily answered. If anyone shows that one American was killed or even harmed as the result of Pollard's spying, I, and I would hope everyone else, would abandon any campaign on behalf of his release. Finally, with regard to Mr. Kontorovich's overriding charge that "ethnic solidarity" is at the heart of all the appeals on Pollard's behalf, I can only speak for myself in saying that Jonathan Pollard's being Jewish plays no role whatsoever in my support of his release. He spied on behalf of the only democracy in the world that is threatened with extinction by many of its neighbors. That, not his ritual circumcision, defines the issue for me. Dennis Prager Los Angeles ***
From the 5/15/98 Los Angeles Jewish Times: Article by Ari Noonan, veteran Los Angeles Jewish journalist.
Headline: Prager Serves, And Crowd Goes Wild
By the eve of the 22nd anniversary of his arrival in Los Angeles, the thinker Dennis Prager has molded thousands of the community's Jews exactly to his liking, and it was noisily evident last week at Shomrei Torah, a Conservative synagogue in Mr. Prager's neighborhood, where West Hills begins to shinny up a northerly mountain. Some 400 came not only to cheer but to fawn, and they met scant resistance. The applause began when he merely slanted through a doorway from dinner, continued through ten minutes of opening patter, and it's probably still ringing somewhere among the surrounding hills. When emcee Barry Wolfe mentioned Mr. Prager's resume on the internet spans 18 pages, they applauded. When Mr. Prager asked how many non-Jews were in the audience, they applauded. When Mr. Prager flashed his well-known, ahem, self-confidence and said, gee, he must really have made it now because he was billed as a speaker without having a topic listed, they applauded more. However, those who came to be cerebrally challenged were not disappointed, since that, amazingly in an anti-intellectual age, is how Mr. Prager has forged his unique and populist reputation. After all, he is more thinker/moral interpreter than raconteur, although, when you are wildly popular, the temptation to switch must bring a fever. A few weeks before his 50th birthday, his former boyish appearance has blossomed into Mature Matinee Idol, handsomely graying at 6-4, 250. Gazing down on his loyal subjects, he knows every pronouncement will only cement their fealty. The business of Mr. Prager's life is public speaking - most else is detail. His ability to make the known but not so obvious sound as if he has just laboriously crafted this original moral lesson especially for you, dear listener, remains his worthiest weapon. Another powerful skill is changing oratorical speeds. Uncharacteristically, his lengthy parrying with the audience at the start was fast wearing down to the threads. Just as some began to worry, is this why we came? Mr Prager faked out his listeners. Ruminating casually, he wondered, vaguely, what subject he should examine. The fear was, he'd just thought one up. As despair was straightening up to knock, he launched into a brilliantly stitched five-dimension view of "What I'd Like to See for a Better America," reasoned, typically, with sky-blue clarity and cogent logic. He called bi-lingual education a tragedy. He wished families had a free choice of schools, because ending a public school's monopoly would force it to improve. He said America mistakenly committed to multi-culturalism when what it really wanted was multi-ethnicity. And he wishes for a secular American Government with a religious society but the calibration is way off there, too. Saving the best for first, Mr. Prager, the noted anti-television watcher, said if Americans subtracted two hours from their daily average of seven hours watching, they could master any language in a year. If they exchanged the weekly average of 49 hours watching for study, they could earn graduate degrees for the rest of their lives - which is how long the audience wanted to hear him think.
From the monthly bulletin of Stephen S. Wise Temple: 5/98
Dennis speaks at SSW Friday night May 29.
The Saturday morning Minyan has been a fixture at Stephen S. Wise for almost two decades. As of the first Shabbat in April, Dennis Prager began giving the devar Torah (sermon) at the minyan almost weekly. Dennis is well known as a daily talk show host on KABC radio. But religion in general and Judaism specifically are his first loves. Dennis, why speak every week?
WELL, I had very low ratings at my station and I've been looking for a new job. Also, my wife thought I wasn't busy enough. I love Judaism and I love this synagogue. So when the rabbis invited me tot each Judaism here at the minyan, I was honored and delighted to accept their invitation. Let me just say, the minyan is already great. For Cantor Linda Kates' davening and singing alone, people should come to the minyan. There is a combination of prayer, music, religious seriousness and camaraderie that I have rarely found anywhere, and I've been to Shabbat services in hundreds of synagogues. People talk about this minyan outside of Los Angeles. I just hope to add a dimension of learning that will make it even better.
What are you going to talk about?
Sometimes the parsha (weekly Torah portion), but more often about Judaism, its relevance to our lives and to the world at large. In the first weeks, I hope to discuss how a sophisticated, educated, rational questioning individual can come to Jewish faith and to God.
You have called this minyan "Chassidic reform." What does that mean?
Many of the people at the minyan have the passion and the commmitment that is associated with Chasidim. At the same time, they are Reform in that they are free to experiment with non-Orthodox halachic modes of expression. Religious passion and seriousness alongside religious freedom make a very powerful combination. It's a great credit to this synagogue that it fosters an environment where this can happen.
In modern society we have lots of choices - about a million of them on a Saturday morning. Why attend a religious service?
You're right. People have choices. Shabbat competes with the mall, the golf course, and all other forms of entertainment. But when it's done right, there really is no competition - Shabbat wins decisively. How many people have joyous, meaningful experiences at the mall? You can have it every week at home and in Hershenson Hall. I have never met anyone who regretted having Shabbat in their lives. I have met a lot of people who are sorry they don't.
If a person has never been to a Shabbat service, it can be a little intimidating. There's a lot of Hebrew in the service and so on. How would you suggest people approach the minyan for the first time?
The question is a fair one. Coming from an Orthodox synagogue and yeshiva background, I was comfortable with the Hebrew the first time I came to the minyan. But many others will find the Hebrew unfamiliar. To these people I have two suggestions. First, close your eyes and just enjoy the beautiful Jewish music and the beautiful voice of Cantor Kates. |
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