Jewish Journal Editor Rob Eshman emails me:
Hey Luke:
I read your blog post about our Rabbi Weil quote. In the recent article in question, Roberto Loiderman’s, we indeed mistakenly and inadvertently took the original quote from Amy Klein’s Jan 18, 2008 article out of context and gave it a meaning that Rabbi Weil clearly did not intend. We will run a correction in this week’s paper to that effect. The change and correction has already been made online.
As to Amy Klein’s original piece, we stand by it. Her primary source was the shul’s president past-president Marc Rohatiner, whom she quotes at least twice.
That article appeared two years ago and we never received a single complaint from the rabbi or Mr. Rohatiner. If you read it, you’ll see why: Amy actually says in the lead that the Rabbi is referring to all Jews who breach the law, not specifically the Spinka rabbi. Her last graf is, “Weil concluded by saying no one should point fingers at other religious Jews.”
If readers draw an inference that the rabbi was INCLUDING the Spinka rabbis in his condemnation, I can understand why. He chose to give that particular sermon at the height of the scandal in which one of his congregants was deeply implicated. That timing may have been coincidental, but even so, it’s easy to see why some, including perhaps Mr, Rohatiner, would assume he’s in part referring to a particular case.
Why the rabbi and others would now, two years later, accuse The Journal of printing a fraudulent account is beyond me.
Be well, and get a haircut–
Rob
