In recent days we have made a lot of the fact that the New York Times ran a front-page article equating the campus Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS) against Israel with anti-Semitism. The piece completely left out the fact that many Jewish students support BDS (about one in five of activists Weiss has seen in his travels).

Well, Margaret Sullivan, the Times public editor, agrees. In a piece titled, “A Jewish Litmus Test Was Unacceptable,” she hammers on the fact that David McCleary, a University of California PhD candidate who is Jewish and supports BDS, was subjected to the third degree by a Times stringer because his name doesn’t sound Jewish and that neither he nor any

other Jewish student who supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement was quoted or represented in the story.

Sullivan quotes David Nasaw, a professor at CUNY and biographer of Joseph Kennedy, complaining about the framing of the piece:

I am distressed about the lack of evidence in the piece to support the authors’ assertions about this deeply sensitive and volatile issue. Divestment is supported by a large group of individuals — some of them members of minority groups, and some Jews. (I, incidentally, do not support the movement). To make this into a “Minority vs. Jewish” question, without supplying evidence, is to distort the issue.

– Read more: ‘NYT’ Public Editor Faults Paper for Failing to Quote Jews who Support BDS – Mondoweiss