Since Paul Chadwick replaced Chris Elliott as the Guardian Readers’ Editor last year, erroneous claims – like the one which appeared in an Oct. 23rd article – are far less likely to be corrected. So, we’re asking for your help in contacting the office of the Readers’ Editor to get a response to our query, which we emailed and tweeted over the last two days.
Here’s the claim in question, in article written by their culture reporter about Jerusalem (“‘This land is just dirt’: a rooftop view of Jerusalem”) which focused heavily on the influence of Haredi Jews, and on what the writer claimed was an increasingly ‘segregated’ city.
The Haredim have less and less need to go out of our own neighbourhoods,” she says, “and that creates more separation.”
In Jerusalem, they [haredim] have practically built their own city within a city. In order to cloister their way of life from the corruption of secular modern society, they have their own schools, shopping malls, sports clubs, parks and hospitals.
Whilst we know of no haredi-only shopping malls or parks, the suggestion that there are haredi-only hospitals is just absurd, as anyone familiar with Israeli hospitals would surely know. Whilst Bikur Cholim Hospital in Jerusalem treats a large number of Haredim (due to its close proximity to Haredi neighborhoods), like all Israeli hospitals, it treats all patients who come through its doors, regardless of religion.
More broadly, with patients and healthcare professionals of all faiths and backgrounds mingling and working together, Israeli hospitals arguably represent the most successful model of Jewish-Muslim co-existence in the country. (In a rare moment of lucidity, even the Guardian acknowledged this fact in a 2016 report by Kate Shuttleworth.)
We ask that you consider contacting the Guardian and politely asking editors to substantiate the claim.
Email them here: guardian.readers@theguardian.com
You can also retweet these two Tweets from UK Media Watch (one to the journalist and the other to the Readers’ Editor) embedded below:
.@HannahEP Hi. Which Israeli hospital are you referring to that you suggest only serves Haredi Jews? https://t.co/YYSmF8dJRl pic.twitter.com/1wcEO6ImMi
— CAMERA UK (formerly UK Media Watch and BBC Watch) (@CAMERAorgUK) October 23, 2017
.@GdnReadersEd I hope, per our complaint to your office, that this claim can be either substantiated, or, if untrue, then corrected. Thanks. https://t.co/7aGuL2jRNu
— CAMERA UK (formerly UK Media Watch and BBC Watch) (@CAMERAorgUK) October 24, 2017
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