The @NYtimes, pretending to be "even handed," promotes a fringe pro-Corbyn Jewish group

On November 7, UK correspondent for the New York Times Benjamin Mueller tweeted out asking for some help from an anonymous Twitter account called JewsAgainstBoJo (Boris Johnson):

The JewsAgainstBojo account has only 3000 followers (many of whom are not Jewish or British like Linda Sarsour), a GoFundMe page that has raised £3,492 to publish flyers against Johnson, and its biggest rally seems to have attracted 10 people.

In other words, it is patently obvious that JewsAgainstBojo is a fringe movement in the Jewish community. At the time Mueller reached out to them, the Twitter account was only a couple of weeks old.

So why is the New York Times correspondent in the UK interested in information from them? Because he wants to make them look mainstream.

He got his opportunity when he wrote the NYT story three weeks later about Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis' criticism of Jeremy Corbyn.

The chief rabbi’s rebuke instantly generated fierce debate among British Jews, with some seeing it as reflecting their fears of Labour and others saying that he did not speak for them.....

But some British Jews also criticized the way Labour’s political opponents were putting Rabbi Mirvis’s words to use. Not all British Jews recognize the chief rabbi as the leader of their communities.

And some people warned that Rabbi Mirvis had sidestepped a greater threat posed to Jews and other British minority groups by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has himself been accused of making racist and Islamophobic remarks and energizing parts of the far right similar to those responsible for recent attacks on Jews in the United States.

“We understand why so many in our community feel unable to vote for the Labour party, however we must not make the mistake of thinking the Conservatives are a safer alternative,” an organization called Jews Against Boris wrote on Twitter. “This is a party which is courting nationalist votes by demonizing and threatening minorities, and undermining the rule of law. The idea that this would be a safe environment for Jews is incredibly dangerous.”

The group, modeled in part on the efforts of American Jews to organize against President Trump, said keeping British Jews safe meant standing in solidarity “with all other communities experiencing oppression.”

The vast majority of British Jews who bitterly oppose Corbyn are not quoted. But an anonymous Twitter account is quoted, without even verifying if the account owner is Jewish, or even British.

This fringe account takes up over four paragraphs and is the only "Jewish" person quoted in response to Rabbi Mirvis' passionate article. As far as we can tell, Jews Against Boris didn't even respond to Mueller at all, and all his information came from their Twitter feed.

This isn't reporting. This is advocacy and mainstreaming a tiny pseudo-Jewish organization while downplaying the very real feelings and fears of the vast majority of the UK Jewish community.

(h/t Seth Mandel, who wrote a great thread about this)

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