Septempber 18, 2008

Another year, another election, another set of advertisements by the Republican Jewish Coalition.

Many readers have been complaining about the full-page ads the RJC has been taking out in our newspaper and other Jewish newspapers around the country. Such readers complain that they are misleading, unnecessarily divisive, and marked by arguments that rely heavily on guilt by association.

Readers also suggest that the NJ Jewish News, in agreeing to publish the ads, endorses the RJC message and/or tone. In fact, the ads are paid advertisements and subject to the same neutral financial terms that we offer to Republicans and Democrats alike. Advertising is a business transaction, and NJ Jewish News is a business.

There are limits, of course. We check ads for libel and accuracy, and while the RJC ads are provocative, they remain within boundaries acceptable (unfortunately, perhaps) in these days of attack ads and heated political rhetoric. And we publish responses to the ads, pro and con, in the Letters to the Editor section.

That being said, we also feel a responsibility to reflect the values of our community of readers. And the value that trumps all others is not support for either the Democrats or the Republicans but a belief that the Jewish community speaks in a wide array of voices. Most of the time, as we wrote in a similar editorial in 2006, members of the community respect those different voices, even when they disagree with one or more of them. Sometimes, as in the case of the RJC ads, the voices offend a sizable segment of the community. But a principle is a principle, and we need to be a forum for the offensive and inoffensive alike. After all, what one person considers offensive, another might consider his or her most firmly held belief.

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