by Bill White
Yesterday, the New York Times published a crossword puzzle, in which the black boxes produced the outline of a Swastika (see image).
The last time this happened was in October 2017. And then, New York Times Games (@NYTGames) responded on Twitter to the outrage as follows:
Yes, hi. It's NOT a swastika. Honest to God. No one sits down to make a crossword puzzle and says, "Hey! You know what would look cool?"
If this happened one time it would appear strange and, while I would not accept any excuse, because of the numerous sets of eyes that check every page of a newspaper before "print" gets pressed, when it happens twice, you've established a pattern.
And as a matter of fact, on 28 October 2017, when these evil people, working for the New York Times, ran the first 'swastika puzzle' it was the Shabbat of Lech-Lecha, words which mean "Go Forth" and that Parashat recounts Abraham's (then Abram) first encounter with G-D, his journey to Canaan, the birth of his son Ishmael, the covenant between him, his descendants, and G-D and G-D's commandment to Abraham to circumcise the males of his household.
Last night was the first day of Hanukkah.
And before you think these evil people don't know our calendar, trust me, they do. I would venture to say that they know our calendar better than most Observant Jews.
The person who claimed to be responsible for this most recent 'swastika crossword puzzle' is someone on Twitter @McGridsXwords, who responding to @SafeCUNY's statement that the crossword "...pretty much sums up the @NYTimes for the past few years in regard to Jews and Israel", replied, "I'm the constructor of this puzzle! Hope you enjoyed!".
Since that Tweet, this Twitter user has changed their profile photo and protected their Tweets. Go figure.
Antisemitism is nothing new at the New York Times.
During WWII, the Nazi atrocities against Jews that culminated in the Holocaust were often buried in the back pages of the paper, in part due to the view about Judaism of the paper's Jewish publisher, during that time, Arthur Hays Sulzberger.
Sulzberger was a convinced Reform Jew, which was the basis of his assimilationist approach: Judaism for him was only a religion, and he believed that Jews were neither a race nor a people any more than followers of various idolatries were a race. In December 1942 in a memo to New York Times staff, he wrote "I have been trying to instruct the people around here on the subject of the word 'Jews', i.e., that they are neither a race nor a people, etc.,", so it should not surprise anyone that his influence continues today with the current publisher, Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, a grandson of Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger Sr., great-grandson of Arthur Hays Sulzberger, and great-great-grandson of Adolph Ochs.
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Bill White is CEO of WireNews.