Roddie Edmonds, the NY Times and Visions of America

American Pravda, masquerading as the so-called newspaper of record, the NY Times, has again shown itself unworthy as a media exemplar. The Times is nothing but a pretender to veracity and prominence as it has debased itself into little more than a propaganda sheet with no concern for the truth or fitness of the news it prints. Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin and other leaders of Pravda would be proud of the NY Times and its slavish adherence to the leftist American “party line”. Today, American Pravda caters to the extreme “progressive” left by opening selected articles to allegedly “moderated” reader’s comments. How this leads to leftist propaganda can be demonstrated by their “handling” of a recent “opinion” essay in their pages.

On June 3 (2025), Sheila Katz, identified as Chief Executive of the National Council of Jewish Women authored a guest essay in the opinion page of the NYT entitled “Jews are Afraid Right Now”. This article referred to recent anti-Jewish violence in Boulder, Co, Washington DC and Harrisburg, Pa where the Governor’s mansion was firebombed. All three of these incidents were in some manner related to the ongoing Hamas-Israel war started on October 7, 2023 when a Pearl Harbor type of sneak attack occurred against Israel. American Pravda opened this article up to readers’s comments and 788 responses were published, the overwhelming majority extremely critical of Israel defending itself and condemning American Jews for daring to sympathize with Israel. Many times, the responses number over a thousand but the paper closed the responses after only 788 were received. It is interesting to look at which articles are opened for comment. Articles about conflict in other parts of the world usually are not open to comment. Articles about Israel are usually open, and the tenor of the responses usually attack American Jews and hold them responsible for the ongoing war in the Middle East. No other American ethnic group in the United States is subjected to this blame, much less violence and demonstrations by ignoramuses masquerading as intellectuals. Starting a war is dangerous. Hamas started one and now is suffering the consequences of their actions. Progressive groups have made clear that they do not believe in democracy and Democratic Peace Theory as they trumpet anti-Jewish tropes including accusations of pink washing. It would be interesting if various LGBTQ+ groups held their annual conventions in some Arab nations; If they would only dare. Intersectionality also covers outrageous anti-Jewish demonstrations. These progressives have forgotten how the United States reacted to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the confinement of Japanese Americans in concentration camps. (Earl Warren, Governor of  California at the time was one of the leaders pushing for Japanese American incarceration). Today, all would condemn the treatment of the Japanese Americans and who remembers the

tarnished reputation of Governor Warren now revered as a great liberal. However, Japaneses Americans do remember.

American Pravda has failed in recognizing the essential equality of American citizens. They wouldn’t dare blame any other group for the alleged “misdeeds” of its members,  Of course, American Jews are held responsible for the actions of Israel. Russian Americans are not blamed for Putin’s war on Ukraine, Mexican Americans are not held responsible for the Fentanyl epidemic in the US nor are Chinese American held responsible for that epidemic. But Jews are different. Perhaps the NYT has a problem with the ethnicity of its controlling family, formerly Jewish, now Episcopalian. During World War II, they made certain to bury any new of the Holocaust deep in the pages of their paper for fear of “upsetting” their refined readers. Today, they go after the American Jewish community with a vengeance. This, too, will be remembered.

All of this calls our attention to Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, a true American hero. M. Sgt Edmonds was the senior non-commissioned prisoner of war in Stalag IX-A in Ziegenhain Germany (January, 1945). Asked by the Nazi Commandant to order the Jewish POWs, approximately numbering 200 to step forward and be isolated from the other American POWs, with a gun on his head, Edmonds replied “we are all Jews here”. The Nazi commandant retreated and all the American POWs were rescued about three months later.  Master Sergeant Edmonds, twenty-five years old at the time, a graduate of Knoxville (TN) High School didn’t have the benefit of an ivy league education. But he understood better than most just what America is and what it meant to be an American. If only more Americans understood what Roddie Edmonds understood and behaved as he did, America would be a great country again.

Garry S. Sklar

Las, Vegas, NV

June 5,2025