Rutgers University Newspaper Mocks the Holocaust

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Rutgers Paper Apologizes for Holocaust Cartoon

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Associated Press

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - Student editors of a campus newspaper at Rutgers University apologized Wednesday for publishing a cartoon that mocked the Holocaust.

Editors of the Medium acknowledged they had hurt the feelings of readers by printing an illustration on the cover of the April 21 edition showing a man throwing a ball at another man sitting on an oven at the campus' spring fair. The text read: "Knock a Jew in the oven! Three throws for one dollar! Really! No, REALLY!"

"It is the responsibility of our staff to ... act with dignity by responding with a due apology," the newspaper said in a statement.

The cartoon sparked strong objections from many students and school officials, including university President Richard L. McCormick. Several national Jewish organizations also condemned the alternative weekly newspaper.

Editors said the drawing was not intended to be anti-Semitic but was "meant to amuse through extraordinary absurdity."

McCormick said he was pleased with the newspaper's apology. "I am hopeful that this apology is a sign of progress toward more responsible editorial judgment and exercise of their First Amendment rights," he said in a statement.

The Medium receives nearly $10,000 a year through the university's student government.

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Cartoon on Holocaust Draws Fire at Rutgers

The New York Times

By RICHARD LEZIN JONES

Published: April 24, 2004

NEWARK, April 23 - The president of Rutgers University condemned a weekly campus publication on Friday for printing a front-page cartoon that ridiculed victims of the Holocaust. But, citing legal precedents protecting student publications, he said he could not take away its university funds as some critics had urged.

The publication, The Medium - a journal of news and opinion that features humor, cultural items and sexual and scatological references - ran a cartoon depicting a bearded man wearing a hat and sitting on the edge of an open kitchen stove in a carnival setting. Under the heading "Holocaust Remembrance Week," the cartoon's caption reads: "Knock a Jew in the oven! Three throws for one dollar!"

In a statement, the Rutgers president, Richard L. McCormick, said that the illustration was "outrageous in its cruelty" and called on the editors of the publication to issue an apology. "The editors may think this is satire, but I completely disagree," Dr. McCormick said. "While this student-funded publication is protected by the First Amendment, the vicious, provocative and hurtful material the editors have chosen to publish is completely at odds with our values as a university."

The university's senate, a body made up of student and faculty representatives, issued a statement on Friday noting that it "abhors" the illustration. It was unclear whether the university would take any further action. Officials said the publication received about $15,000 in school funding.

While noting court precedents that protect student newspapers, three Jewish groups on Friday nevertheless urged the university to re-examine the possibility of a stronger action than the senate statement condemning The Medium. "There's zero tolerance for making jokes, making fun or belittling the Holocaust," said Kenneth Bandler, a spokesman for the American Jewish Committee.

The editors of the newspaper did not return e-mail messages seeking comment, and no one answered the telephone at their campus offices. However, one editor, Ned Berke, defended the cartoon on Friday in The Star-Ledger of Newark. He said that he is Jewish, and that he viewed the illustration as a tribute to his own Jewish relatives who died in the Holocaust.

"Humor is a way of honoring them and trying to get over it and to laugh," Mr. Berke said.

Mr. Bandler said that while his group was "strongly supportive of the First Amendment," he did not feel that any explanation could justify the contents of The Medium.

Andrew Getraer, executive director of the Rutgers University chapter of Hillel, the Jewish student organization on campus, noted that the cartoon in the most recent edition of The Medium was the latest example in a long-running series of items that have offended various groups at the school.

Last fall, for example, the publication was strongly criticized by Dr. McCormick and others on campus for a number of items in one issue that were considered racially offensive.

"But even this," said Mr. Getraer of the latest incident, "is a new low for them."

The Anti-Defamation League also criticized the publication.

"The Medium has engaged in some of the most egregious and vile attacks on Asian-Americans, African-Americans and gays," said Shai Goldstein, the New Jersey regional director. "It lacks any qualification as satire. Its level of sophistication is beneath junior high school." The controversial edition of The Medium was not on the publication's Web site on Friday, but an issue posted earlier featured the kind of fare that critics of the organization said was common. Interspersed with photos of nude women, close-ups of genitalia and explicit personals ads, were mock news stories like one about the "death" of a campus computer server unit.

By late Friday, even that issue was inaccessible online. The newspaper's site had been wiped off the Web, apparently by a computer hacker who left a link to the Anti-Defamation League's Web site. Mr. Goldstein denied any involvement by his organization.

"If that was done, that's not something that we do and we condemn," Mr. Goldstein said.

The Web site's removal came a few hours after the statement by the university senate, an action that Mr. Goldstein said had encouraged him about the university's commitment to fostering amicable relations between those of different faiths and ethnicities.

Noting that the senate's resolution called for the "expression of responsible journalism," Mr. Goldstein said of The Medium: "That isn't journalism. That isn't even bad journalism."

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April 26, 2004

SWC URGES RUTGERS STUDENTS TO WITHHOLD FEES IN PROTEST OF CONTINUED FUNDING OF PAPER THAT SLANDERED VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is urging students at Rutgers University to deduct next semester's student fees in protest of the university's continued funding for the “Medium,” a student-funded newspaper that published a horrific cartoon mocking Holocaust victims during Holocaust Memorial week ” which shows a man at a campus fair throwing a ball at another man sitting on an oven.

The caption reads: "Knock a Jew in the oven! Three throws for one dollar? Really! No, REALLY!"

"It dare not be business as usual when such disgusting sacrilege of the victims of Nazism passes as 'protected speech'. Students at Rutgers should be under no obligation to fund future outrages by this or any other funded publication, said Rabbi Abraham Cooper. "We hope students will launch their own grassroots effort to financially disassociate themselves from such unadulterated hate."

The Center further called on New Jersey Governor, James McGreevey to insist that Rutgers University President, Richard McCormick issue an apology to those students who were demeaned and offended by the antisemitic cartoon.

“Rutgers University President Richard McCormick should investigate how a culture of disparagement exists on the flagship New York State University,” said Mark Weitzman, Wiesenthal Center Director of the Task Force Against Hate. Mr. Weitzman extends an invitation to Mr. McCormick and Governor McGreevey and the editors of “The Medium” to visit the New York Tolerance Center to meet with Holocaust survivors and see archival video footage of what they were making fun of.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with a membership of over 400,000 families in the United States. The Center is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, and the OSCE.

For further information please contact Sydney Pringle at 212/370-0320.