See Something, Say Something is The Shoestring’s media criticism column. We critique media because producing journalism is a powerful act — one that has the potential to harm as much as to help. As far as we know, we’re the only local publication turning the spotlight back on the news outlets, be they local or national, that influence local discourse. If you see news coverage of a local issue that doesn’t look quite right to you, let us know at theshoestringmag [at] gmail.com.
***
As journalists, the relationship of trust we have with our community is based on reporting on information that we know to be true. With that comes the responsibility of fact-checking the claims of powerful people in our community, and correcting ourselves when we have published erroneous information.
It is troubling, then, to see that the Daily Hampshire Gazette declined to correct inaccuracies in its coverage of a recent training offered to Northampton Public School employees by Project Shema. Instead, the Gazette published criticism of its own coverage that accuses it of being “one-sided,” seemingly for merely mentioning that criticism of the training existed.
The training, intended to focus on combating antisemitism, drew early criticism from hundreds of community members in the form of a petition to cancel the training. The petition accuses Project Shema of working closely with the Anti-Defamation League and defining antisemitism to include criticism of Israel. The petition’s authors emphasize the need for training at NPS that uses a “collective liberation framework” to address antisemitism alongside other forms of hate, such as Islamophobia.
Project Shema bills itself as “addressing contemporary antisemitism with an emphasis on how anti-Jewish ideas and implicit biases can be carried alongside conversations about Israel and Palestine” — ostensibly taking no position on the question of Zionism itself, although the organization does not appear to say so explicitly.
In its coverage of the training, the Gazette shared the view of NPS Superintendent Portia Bonner that the training “was never about Zionism” or Israel. The article also attributes to Bonner (or School Committee Vice Chair Gwen Agna — the attribution is unclear) that Israel and Zionism only came up during the training’s question and answer session, after the main presentation. Oren Jacobson, Project Shema’s founder, is quoted saying the training is “not ever rooted in the question of Israel and Palestine in general.”
But NPS employees who attended the session say this is not true. In a press release from Jewish Voice for Peace, photos show slides from the presentation that include phrases like “Zionism is racism” and “Israel intentionally kills Palestinian kids” as examples of antisemitism. In a video of this moment of the presentation, shared with both The Shoestring and the Gazette, the trainer attributes the former sentiment as originating in the “Soviet propaganda machine.”
“Many people don’t know what the word Zionism means,” she continues. “Our definition as Jews,” she says, is “simply Jewish self-determination on some portion of our ancestral homeland… It’s the belief that Israel has the right to exist.”
Jewish Voice for Peace requested the Gazette update its article in light of Bonner’s claims being shown to be untrue. The Gazette has to date not updated the original article, nor returned a request for comment for this article, but did publish a letter to the editor from Nass Taskin, a Jewish NPS educator, disputing Bonner’s claims.
Reached for comment, Kara Wilson, Vice President of Operations for Project Shema, said via email that “we as an organization do not offer education or advocacy vis a vis the Israel-Palestine conflict.”
“Defining how many (not all) Jews understand Zionism, is not advocacy or education about the conflict,” Wilson continued. “Rather, a necessary concept to explore to better understand the concerns of the local Jewish community. Only a couple slides of the planned presentation, though, touch on Zionism, Israel, or the discourse around these issues.”
Equivocations aside, the concerns of the petitioners about the likely content of the training were more or less accurate. But you wouldn’t know that from reading the Gazette’s reporting on it.
While the Gazette’s coverage fails to meet basic standards of accuracy, it is also an example of many of the other acts of silencing and omission that are all too common when Palestine and Palestinians are implicated. The Gazette mentions both the petition against the training and JVP’s press release following the training, but apparently made no attempts to contact anyone — be they anti-Zionist Jews or Arab, Palestinian, or Muslim community members — to speak about their concerns. In possession of JVP’s press release, the Gazette made no attempt to square the official narrative with contradictory information from those who attended the training.
A definition of antisemitism that fails to distinguish Jews broadly from the state of Israel “is not only irresponsible,” Taskin wrote in their letter to the editor. Such a definition, Taskin contends, is “frankly dangerous to both Palestinians facing genocide because of Zionist ideology and dissenting Jews critical of that ideology.”
Indeed, if Northampton educators, and by extension, students, are not taught such a distinction, what lessons are young people meant to draw from witnessing a livestreamed genocide that is apparently beyond criticism?
“Honest education on antisemitism is necessary,” Taskin concluded. “Project Shema failed to provide that.”
And, by allowing powerful figures to speak over dissenting voices in our community, the Gazette has pedaled falsehoods that are not making anyone safer, either.
The Shoestring is committed to bringing you ad-free content. We rely on readers to support our work! You can support independent news for Western Mass by visiting our Donate page.