Interview: Ned Temko, Jewish Chronicle editor (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
WATCH out, politicians: the Jewish Chronicle is on full alert. Ned Temko, the editor of Anglo-Jewry's house journal, may be leaving the paper in June, but first he intends to expose every hint of anti- Semitism that seeps into the General Election campaign.
"There are enough real issues in this campaign without any party having to resort to prejudice," he says in his office near Chancery Lane. But should any politician play however subtly on what he calls "chattering-class anti-Semitism", Temko warns, the Jewish Chronicle will "hold up a mirror to what's going on".
His paper has already had plenty to write about. Labour's website election posters, which critics claim depicted Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin as literature's most notorious Jewish stereotypes, he found particularly troubling. "I wouldn't have thought kicking off an election campaign with a subliminal appeal to images like Shylock or Fagin does Labour much credit," he says. "Some images are so entwined with the iconography of anti-Semitism that you can't reasonably say this is just old political knockabout. It doesn't mean that Labour's deliberately going on a campaign to bait Jews - but this is territory that either political party enters at its peril."
Then came the controversy over Ken Livingstone's refusal to apologise for comparing a Jewish Evening Standard reporter with a concentration-camp guard, which continues to dominate Temko's paper this week. Although it has not accused the mayor of anti-Semitism ("I don't throw the term around lightly," Temko says), he is scathing about what he calls Livingstone's "astonishing double standards". "He preens and presents himself as a symbol of [London's] multicultural success, yet displays a self-indulgent reluctance to acknowledge he got something wrong."
The JC, as readers know it, may sell just 35,000 copies, but its influence extends beyond its newsstand sales: according to one survey Temko cites, it is read in almost every Jewish home in parts of north-west London and Hertfordshire. It is also very profitable. "There are people who keep no religious laws, may not go to a synagogue, yet still read the JC," Temko says. "It's still the best index of Jewish affiliation in this country."
As an outsider, Temko, 52, finds it easier to speak his mind than Anglo-Jewry's more established figures. An American former war correspondent, he was a surprise choice when appointed editor in 1990. Since then, the paper's relationship with the Chief Rabbi in particular has often been fraught. But then this slight, bearded man, who grew up in Watergate-era Washington, has always enjoyed creating a stir. "We're leaned on all the time," he says, "but the one thing that isn't up for negotiation is the paper's editorial independence."
That independence faced its greatest test in 1997, when the paper received a leaked private letter from the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, which accused the late Reform rabbi, Hugo Gryn, of helping "destroy the faith". Sacks sought a High Court injunction to prevent publication, but with the support of the paper's board, Temko printed the letter. Relations have never fully recovered.
"I'm sure there's some tension there," Temko says. "It was very tough for the Chief Rabbi, as the letter was at variance with what he was saying in public. I have a great deal of respect for him, but our first responsibility was to report the news, and we would do the same again."
Their disagreements have continued in print. Temko condemned Sacks's decision three years ago to rewrite his book, The Dignity of Difference, because hardline rabbis felt it too inclusive of other faiths. "Rewriting the book was a mistake," Temko still insists. "Many on the religious right have never accepted him as their chief rabbi. Equally on the religious left. I do think he's got a near impossible job, and I don't think it's any accident that his greatest successes are representing the Jewish community in broader British society."
Is he suggesting that the Jewish community has become irreparably split? "On the surface it's become more divided," he says, "but I think it's actually become more self-confident. Twenty years ago, Jews would not dare disagree with each other publicly for fear that all Jewish life as we know it would implode. But today, look at the active debate over Israel, all with a bedrock of respect.
"The central job of the JC is to sustain the argument. One of my great satisfactions is that Jews who would cross the street to avoid talking to one another will argue in our pages."
What does concern him is the growth of "chattering-class anti-Semitism", particularly in the media. "I do think we've seen a change in the intellectual climate, where things that would simply not have been said a decade ago make their way into public discourse," he says. He cites an Any Questions? debate, just before the Iraq invasion, in which an audience member noted the number of "Israelis" in the US government. "It was clearly a code word for Jews, but what was more disturbing was that no one on the panel batted an eyelid," Temko says. "Then, a couple of days later, a BBC radio presenter asked his guests if there should really be a White House spokesman with the name Ari Fleischer. So should anyone with a Jewish name be pensioned off?"
Temko does not claim that the BBC is institutionally biased, far less anti-Semitic. "But I do think that too often on BBC there is this problem of lack of context. Often there's laziness and sloppiness." He does not take particular issue with Barbara Plett, its Middle East correspondent, who reported that Yasser Arafat's death brought her to tears. "I don't think one should read too much into that report, except to say that as a former foreign correspondent I'm not sure it's your place to shed public tears to a party in a conflict you're covering. I'm talking about the 'something in the air'. It's a fact that there have been more incidents of violence, more desecrations of cemeteries."
From June, he will write for either an American or a British newspaper (negotiations continue), and will complete a book on religion and science, still living in London with his wife, an NHS child psychotherapist, and their 17-year-old son. He says he has missed reporting: before arriving in London, he was with AP, UPI and the Christian Science Monitor in hotspots from Beirut to Moscow. It is too soon, he says, to name his likely successor: headhunters are currently talking to internal and external candidates.
Temko leaves "genuinely upbeat" about the community's prospects and confidence, despite his concerns about hostility towards Israel occasionally spilling over into anti-Semitism. And despite his concerns about political debate, he considers Britain ready for a Jewish prime minister: "The central fact about Michael Howard is he was made Tory leader despite being Jewish," he says. "When we asked that question in an ICM poll, four-fifths of people said a Jewish prime minister would be okay."
Doesn't that undermine the stark warnings of intercommunal tensions regularly sounded on his own pages? "Let's face it, we're not talking about jackboots on the streets of Golders Green," Temko reflects. "It's ludicrous for community leaders to draw comparisons with the 1930s. This is still broadly a very tolerant society."
(Evening Standard, March 2 2005)
WATCH out, politicians: the Jewish Chronicle is on full alert. Ned Temko, the editor of Anglo-Jewry's house journal, may be leaving the paper in June, but first he intends to expose every hint of anti- Semitism that seeps into the General Election campaign.
"There are enough real issues in this campaign without any party having to resort to prejudice," he says in his office near Chancery Lane. But should any politician play however subtly on what he calls "chattering-class anti-Semitism", Temko warns, the Jewish Chronicle will "hold up a mirror to what's going on".
His paper has already had plenty to write about. Labour's website election posters, which critics claim depicted Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin as literature's most notorious Jewish stereotypes, he found particularly troubling. "I wouldn't have thought kicking off an election campaign with a subliminal appeal to images like Shylock or Fagin does Labour much credit," he says. "Some images are so entwined with the iconography of anti-Semitism that you can't reasonably say this is just old political knockabout. It doesn't mean that Labour's deliberately going on a campaign to bait Jews - but this is territory that either political party enters at its peril."
Then came the controversy over Ken Livingstone's refusal to apologise for comparing a Jewish Evening Standard reporter with a concentration-camp guard, which continues to dominate Temko's paper this week. Although it has not accused the mayor of anti-Semitism ("I don't throw the term around lightly," Temko says), he is scathing about what he calls Livingstone's "astonishing double standards". "He preens and presents himself as a symbol of [London's] multicultural success, yet displays a self-indulgent reluctance to acknowledge he got something wrong."
The JC, as readers know it, may sell just 35,000 copies, but its influence extends beyond its newsstand sales: according to one survey Temko cites, it is read in almost every Jewish home in parts of north-west London and Hertfordshire. It is also very profitable. "There are people who keep no religious laws, may not go to a synagogue, yet still read the JC," Temko says. "It's still the best index of Jewish affiliation in this country."
As an outsider, Temko, 52, finds it easier to speak his mind than Anglo-Jewry's more established figures. An American former war correspondent, he was a surprise choice when appointed editor in 1990. Since then, the paper's relationship with the Chief Rabbi in particular has often been fraught. But then this slight, bearded man, who grew up in Watergate-era Washington, has always enjoyed creating a stir. "We're leaned on all the time," he says, "but the one thing that isn't up for negotiation is the paper's editorial independence."
That independence faced its greatest test in 1997, when the paper received a leaked private letter from the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, which accused the late Reform rabbi, Hugo Gryn, of helping "destroy the faith". Sacks sought a High Court injunction to prevent publication, but with the support of the paper's board, Temko printed the letter. Relations have never fully recovered.
"I'm sure there's some tension there," Temko says. "It was very tough for the Chief Rabbi, as the letter was at variance with what he was saying in public. I have a great deal of respect for him, but our first responsibility was to report the news, and we would do the same again."
Their disagreements have continued in print. Temko condemned Sacks's decision three years ago to rewrite his book, The Dignity of Difference, because hardline rabbis felt it too inclusive of other faiths. "Rewriting the book was a mistake," Temko still insists. "Many on the religious right have never accepted him as their chief rabbi. Equally on the religious left. I do think he's got a near impossible job, and I don't think it's any accident that his greatest successes are representing the Jewish community in broader British society."
Is he suggesting that the Jewish community has become irreparably split? "On the surface it's become more divided," he says, "but I think it's actually become more self-confident. Twenty years ago, Jews would not dare disagree with each other publicly for fear that all Jewish life as we know it would implode. But today, look at the active debate over Israel, all with a bedrock of respect.
"The central job of the JC is to sustain the argument. One of my great satisfactions is that Jews who would cross the street to avoid talking to one another will argue in our pages."
What does concern him is the growth of "chattering-class anti-Semitism", particularly in the media. "I do think we've seen a change in the intellectual climate, where things that would simply not have been said a decade ago make their way into public discourse," he says. He cites an Any Questions? debate, just before the Iraq invasion, in which an audience member noted the number of "Israelis" in the US government. "It was clearly a code word for Jews, but what was more disturbing was that no one on the panel batted an eyelid," Temko says. "Then, a couple of days later, a BBC radio presenter asked his guests if there should really be a White House spokesman with the name Ari Fleischer. So should anyone with a Jewish name be pensioned off?"
Temko does not claim that the BBC is institutionally biased, far less anti-Semitic. "But I do think that too often on BBC there is this problem of lack of context. Often there's laziness and sloppiness." He does not take particular issue with Barbara Plett, its Middle East correspondent, who reported that Yasser Arafat's death brought her to tears. "I don't think one should read too much into that report, except to say that as a former foreign correspondent I'm not sure it's your place to shed public tears to a party in a conflict you're covering. I'm talking about the 'something in the air'. It's a fact that there have been more incidents of violence, more desecrations of cemeteries."
From June, he will write for either an American or a British newspaper (negotiations continue), and will complete a book on religion and science, still living in London with his wife, an NHS child psychotherapist, and their 17-year-old son. He says he has missed reporting: before arriving in London, he was with AP, UPI and the Christian Science Monitor in hotspots from Beirut to Moscow. It is too soon, he says, to name his likely successor: headhunters are currently talking to internal and external candidates.
Temko leaves "genuinely upbeat" about the community's prospects and confidence, despite his concerns about hostility towards Israel occasionally spilling over into anti-Semitism. And despite his concerns about political debate, he considers Britain ready for a Jewish prime minister: "The central fact about Michael Howard is he was made Tory leader despite being Jewish," he says. "When we asked that question in an ICM poll, four-fifths of people said a Jewish prime minister would be okay."
Doesn't that undermine the stark warnings of intercommunal tensions regularly sounded on his own pages? "Let's face it, we're not talking about jackboots on the streets of Golders Green," Temko reflects. "It's ludicrous for community leaders to draw comparisons with the 1930s. This is still broadly a very tolerant society."
(Evening Standard, March 2 2005)
<< Home