What is a 'slumlord'?

Friday, shortly before Shabbos I saw on social media an information about a Jewish businessman in Brooklyn being kidnapped. Not the usual kind of news that one may expect, but with so many preparations to do and very sick people to daven for, I did not think too much about the case, kept the name in mind for my tehillim and promise to check if hopefully everything was sorted out motzei Shabbos. 

Two hours after Shabbos ended, I checked the news and started to understand what happened. For a long time, I am very selective when it comes to using various sources, including blogs, for Jewish related topics. Thank G-d we have nowadays a lot of sources that can compete with the 'official' media versions. What surprised me in the case of Menchem Stark was the lack of journalistic information about the situation. Instead, I did find the 'New York Post', a yellow publication in the case of which I can't give any single argument why someone should spend any $ for buying it, a big picture of the Stark, in Hasidic garb, under a title according to which he was a 'slumlord' whose dead was wished by many. Just to recap: a human being, US citizen, father of 8, is kidnapped from his office, tortured and burned, whose corpse is thrown in a dumpster. And this is all that NYPost has to say?

There are thousand of people with serious legal issues in NYC, but I don't remember to see too often a newspaper openly stating that there were anyway, many people that wanted a certain individual dead. Plus, I also don't remember to see that person pictures in his best church clothes or wearing a significant religious sign that might recognize him as a member of a certain religious community. I bet the owner of the NY Post has a lot of enemies too, nu?

Anti-semitism in the US media differs significantly from its European variant, but still is a common features of many media reports, especially when it has to deal with the Hasidic community. There are enough stories about the rapid assimilation of the European Jews that went to the 'goldene medina' at the beginning of the 20th century. If they wanted to stop being peddlers for generations, many needed to change their names, clothes and eventually to marry outside the tribe in order to outperform. 

Whatever illusions we may nurture, we are never safe in diaspora and our strength is the kidush Hashem and good deeds. But this is a completely different story, our story. What happened in the case of NYPost, and other American media, was to focus rather on condemning the deceased instead of feeling outraged by what happened. If he was so guilty, he needed to pay according to the legal previsions. Otherwise, NYPost and the company are no more than encouraging the mafia methods and crimes against fellow citizens. 

There are many lessons learned, but on the media side, I hope that more and more people will admonish openly the journalists making a shame of such a beautiful profession.