British TV Station Uses Gaza Backdrop in Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis Interview on Holocaust
The British broadcaster Sky News apologized for showing images of the Gaza conflict during an interview about the Holocaust with British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.
The apology over the Jan. 27 broadcast came in a letter sent by Peter Lowe, Sky News’ managing editor, to a viewer who sent Sky News a letter of complaint about the interview conducted by presenter Adam Boulton, The Jewish Chronicle of London reported Thursday.
Lowe said showing images of Gaza while the chief rabbi talked about the Israel-Palestinian conflict was logical, but that with hindsight he would not have combined the two, calling it “an indelicate clash”.
He added: “I’m sorry if you or anyone was upset by the interview Adam did with the chief rabbi. I agree that the particular circumstances of the use of the pictures from Gaza was unfortunate.”
The complaint by viewer Jacqui Rudolph also concerned Boulton’s questioning on Jan. 27, International Holocaust Memorial Day, whether Israel provokes anti-Semitism. She called it “an ancient anti-Semitic device,” but Lowe rejected this assertion.
“I don’t think it is something we should edit out from the comparatively rare opportunity to interview the Chief Rabbi in front of a general audience in order to give him the opportunity to confront these ideas and perhaps lay them to rest,” he wrote.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
