UK Jews were livid this week after the Manchester Evening News ran a report on a Hamas gunman who killed 26-year-old Eliyahu Kay and wounded four others in Jerusalem's Old City in its print edition on Monday under the headline: "Palestinian shot dead after holy site killing."
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The Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester and Region said it was "appalled" by the headline and immediately requested an urgent meeting with Manchester Evening News editor Darren Thwaites. The group lamented that "the framing of the headline and the subsequent article recklessly fails to reflect the tragic incident."
Marie van der Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, described the headline as "a highly misleading inversion of what took place."
On Twitter Tuesday, the Manchester Evening News said, "We recognize the headline did not reflect the story in an accurate and balanced way. We apologize unreservedly for any upset caused."
The UK's highest-circulation print newspaper also apologized for publishing material that sparked outrage in the Jewish community.
On Tuesday, Metro editor Ted Young apologized for publishing a letter by a reader that claimed former UK cricketer Azeem Rafiq, who posted antisemitic messages on Twitter, could not be racist because he was a member of a minority, while Jews were a "privileged majority."
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Jewish comedian and "Jews Don't Count" author David Baddiel was baffled by the accusation and said on Twitter, "It is amazing how unchallenged this goes."
"The idea that Jews are privileged and not a proper minority is at the heart of the Jews don't count issue and swirls at the basis of all the dismissals of the calling-out of antisemitism," he said.
Young replied to Baddiel's tweet by saying, "We get a hell of a lot of points of view from around the country every day, and this should never have got through." He wrote in a separate post, "Our readers always challenge views that are clearly wrong in the cut and thrust of debate. But in hindsight, this should not have made the page. Apologies."
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.
