The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle

Home /  Opinions /  Letters

RSS Feed

Chronicle should have had more about victims

December 18th, 2008

With the terror in Mumbai and the loss of six precious Jewish souls, the world-wide Jewish community is experiencing pain the magnitude of which can only be compared to the most horrific evils which have befallen our people historically.

I turned to the pages of the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle for comfort and support. Unfortunately, I was disappointed to find that the coverage of this event was limited to a short article articulating the personal relationships our community members had with the victims.

Where are the tributes? Where is the description of the selfless heroism displayed by Rivkah and Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg? What about Rabbi Aryeh Teitelbaum’s and Bentzion Chroman’s commitment to ensuring that the laws of kashrut are observed meticulously?

What about the fact that Norma Rabinovich was days away from making aliyah and that Yocheved Orpaz had traveled to India to be with her daughter and grandchildren? What about the fact that with the murder of these special people, 20 children became orphans?

This is not the first time I failed to find comfort in my community’s paper. I am reminded of the coverage of the March 2008 murder of eight students at Jerusalem’s Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva.

Again, we, as a community sat and wept at the images of these lives cut short by murderers. The Chronicle’s coverage again failed to represent the human story of suffering and heroism that emerged from that horrific event.

The Chronicle is our community paper. We turn to its pages in times of joy and of political tension and change, for news of happenings and events. Please, let us be able to rely on the pages of our newspaper in times of communal sorrow and suffering as well.

Editor’s note: The Chronicle edition in question (Dec. 5) was published one week after the events (Nov. 26-28) took place and had been covered extensively online and in local news media. Two of that issue’s three page-one stories were devoted to the tragedy.

Further, The Chronicle’s Web site is updated continually and included coverage of the attacks and its victims.