Ms. magazine faulted for rejecting pro-Israel ad

By Sue Fishkoff

article created on:

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA)—The American Jewish Congress is ramping up its protest against Ms. magazine’s rejection of its pro-Israel ad.

It launched a letter-writing campaign and held a news conference Jan. 15 featuring a roster of high-powered Jewish feminist speakers.

The protest campaign, launched Jan. 12, urges people to write, call or email the prominent feminist magazine to “register your complaint at their anti-Israel bias.”

Among those who addressed the news conference in New York were Orthodox feminist leader Blu Greenberg, authors Phyllis Chesler and Francine Klagsbrun, and Susan Weidman Schneider, editor of Lilith magazine. Statements were read from author Cynthia Ozick and scholar Susannah Heschel.

The ad in question features photos of three prominent Israeli women leaders and the phrase, “This is Israel.”

AJCongress leaders claim it was rejected by Ms. magazine because of the magazine’s bias against Israel, a charge the magazine’s editor hotly denies.

“We only take mission-driven advertisements,” Ms. magazine’s executive editor, Katherine Spillar, told JTA.

“Because two of the women were from the same political party, we understood it as political” endorsement, she said, and Ms. “does not get involved in the domestic politics” of other countries.

AJCongress President Richard Gordon disputes that as the reason for Ms. magazine’s rejection of the ad.

He noted that the magazine ran a cover story about Jordan’s Queen Noor in 2003, and a story in its most recent issue about Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) under the headline “This is What a Speaker Looks Like.”

Gordon said that the only difference he finds between Pelosi and the three women featured in the AJCongress ad is that Pelosi is not Israeli.

“Ms. magazine obviously is trying to create a legal fiction after the fact to cover their bias at the time of the incident.”