Alfred, Leo and Bob

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO — Recently, I spoke at length on the phone with Logan Jenkins, columnist for the Union-Tribune, about the travails of our Jewish Mayor Bob Filner.

Jenkins was worried by whispers he has heard in the Jewish community: could the coverage of his newspaper and that of the media generally be motivated by anti-Semitism?

I assured him that while I am critical of the pattern of Filner news coverage, I do not believe that anti-Semitism is an important factor.  Oh sure, some Jew haters might jump on the issue to try to justify their pre-existing antipathy for our community. For the most part, however, the people calling for Filner’s resignation are politically rather than religiously motivated.   If anti-Semitism had been an important factor you wouldn’t have seen such political leaders from the Jewish community as U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, U.S. Rep Susan Davis,  and City Councilwoman Marti Emerald, all Democrats, among those publicly calling for Filner’s resignation. Nor, in my opinion, would you have seen Gloria Allred, who also is Jewish, agreeing to serve as the attorney for plaintiff Irene McCormack Jackson.

So let’s lay the anti-Semitism issue to rest.

More significant than anti-Semitism is the uneasiness among Jews, perhaps including Jenkins’ Jewish wife, that if passions spin out of control, the case someday could lead to overt anti-Semitism, particularly when at the same time as the Filner fiasco two former Jewish officeholders who left office under a cloud of sexual misdeeds are back in the news: former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer and former Congressman Anthony Weiner.  That there are plenty of non-Jewish politicians who have been involved in sex scandals, including former North Carolina Gov. and now Congressman Mark Sanford, might be mentioned by the media but often isn’t.

It’s a mark of our Jewish insecurity that we kvell when prominent Jews gain political office, or win honors, but we shrink with embarrassment when they commit a crime, or humiliate themselves and us with their sexual escapades. My late mother — may she rest in peace — would say a little prayer whenever she heard that some public official had gone off the tracks: “Please, God, don’t let him be Jewish.”

So while the campaign against Filner is not now anti-Semitic, those of us with an appreciation for history realize that there is always the potential for overt anti-Semitism at some later date.  If one is versed in American history, or ever saw the musical Parade, one gets the feeling that Filner is experiencing the same kind of one-sided media coverage that was directed against Leo Frank, the Jewish factory owner in Georgia who was accused of sexually assaulting and murdering little Mary Phagan.

Even before the trial, people whipped up by newspapers and politically motivated orators had decided that Frank–like Filner, a Jew from New York–was guilty.  His conviction was a foregone conclusion, and when after lengthy appeals,and the presentation of new evidence, the governor of Georgia decided to pardon Frank, the people were so agitated that they lynched Frank.  The episode could not have been more polarizing; on the one hand, it marked the re-birth of the Ku Klux Klan, and, on the other hand, the establishment of the Anti-Defamation League of the B’nai B’rith.

While we are on the subject of mob justice, another episode in history was the way facts were manufactured, and public opinion was manipulated, in the late 19th century case against Alfred Dreyfus, whom the French military establishment accused of giving military secrets to the Germans, even though the actual culprit was one of their own, Major Ferdinand Esterhazy. Dreyfus was convicted, reviled, shorn of rank, sent to Devil’s Island, and only later exonerated.

In comparing the Filner case to the Frank and Dreyfus cases, I am not comparing the facts of the three.  I am comparing the emotions the three cases  engendered. The facts have not been adjudicated. So far, all we have heard are the accusations of the plaintiffs. We have not heard a defense.  If all of us newspaper readers and television viewers were part of a jury, at this point, we could not make a decision.  We might be leaning towards the prosecution, but we would be required to listen to the defense before we rendered a verdict.  In politics, alas, there is no similar sense of balance.  In a well-orchestrated campaign, Filner has been accused in almost daily headlines of some misdeed or another. Some of these complaints potentially are actionable in courts, others are more likely calculated to keep public opinion stirred up as an effort to recall Filner from the mayor’s office gets underway.  In my opinion, their demands for his resignation are way too premature.

There has been an element of hypocrisy in the arguments thus far put forward by the anti-Filner forces.  On the one hand, we hear that many, many people knew all along about the kind of sexual bullying and untoward advances that have been ascribed by the complainants and the media to Filner– and that this knowledge was commonplace at the same time that Filner was regularly winning votes and determining policies as a congressman and later as mayor.  On the other hand, we are hearing that regardless of whether these charges are proven to have merit, Filner has so lost his base of support that he can’t govern.

I believe it’s not Filner who is bringing city business to a standstill; he in fact has a stake in proving that he can be effective.  Those blocking business are his political opponents who are afraid to let him do his job while the courts decide if he is guilty of wrongdoing.  So the opponents and their media allies do everything they can to keep Filner on the front page.  Getting him out of office, and not determining where justice really lies, is at the heart of what we are watching.

The “get Filner” campaign is one of political blood lust. The hounds are aroused by the scent of their bleeding prey. Members of the media think their aggressive, anything-goes kind of reporting, will win them journalistic prizes.   But I don’t see any of them earning a Pulitizer, at least not so long as that esteemed prize is based on journalistic ethics and not on political partisanship or sensationalism.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com