Jewish Currents, which advertises itself as a “magazine committed to the rich tradition of thought, activism, and culture of the Jewish left,” and which proudly declares on its website that it was “launched… within the orbit of the American Communist Party” raised eyebrows on Twitter Thursday when they apologized to their readers.
The reason for their apology? Their website inadvertently ran an ad for a free trip to Israel.
An apology to our readerspic.twitter.com/7TYTX3S95d— Jewish Currents (@Jewish Currents) 1640287445
According to The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg, the ad in question was for a fellowship at the Dorot Foundation, a ten month training program in Israel for American Jews. The foundation is known for supporting progressive causes, and describes itself on its website as an organization that “supports progressive social change.”
This ad was for a progressive Jewish fellowship that supports human rights work in Israel and that multiple @JewishCurrents writers and at least one advisory board member have done. Weird to say a fellowship is not in line with your values when you regularly publish its fellows.https://twitter.com/JewishCurrents/status/1474098506080075783\u00a0\u2026— Yair Rosenberg (@Yair Rosenberg) 1640301275
The organization’s statement did not appear to give any further reason that the ad was not in line with the company’s guidelines, implying that the ad was offensive for the sole reason that it was contrary to the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment movement.
The New York Post’s Jonathan Levine posted a screenshot of the ad on Twitter.
This was the ad in questionpic.twitter.com/9RAmGpHfz0— Jon Levine (@Jon Levine) 1640299734
Jewish Currents completed the self-flagellation by retweeting several of their editors who condemned the magazine for having run the ad.
Editor-in-Chief Arielle Angel said, “Had that ad been better properly it would not have gone out.”
Had that ad been vetted properly it would not have gone out. We sincerely apologize and we are committed to publishing our advertising guidelines in the near future.https://twitter.com/jewishcurrents/status/1474098506080075783\u00a0\u2026— Arielle Angel (@Arielle Angel) 1640287673
In response to a follow-up question from a reader, Angel said that the only reason the ad went out is because the site had previously operated under “informal guidelines” that were monitored by a single person, who was sick with COVID.
Currently we have informal guidelines that are upheld by a single person who was out with covid. We will formalize our guidelines so responsibility can be shared across the organization. We will publish those in the new year.— Arielle Angel (@Arielle Angel) 1640288616
The account also retweeted Senior Staff Reporter Alex Kane, who tweeted, “That ad was a mistake.”
That ad was a mistake.https://twitter.com/JewishCurrents/status/1474098506080075783\u00a0\u2026— Alex Kane (@Alex Kane) 1640287490