Newhouse, Hillel to present author Laurel Leff on newspapers, Nazis, anti-Semitism April 17

Newhouse, Hillel to present author Laurel Leff on newspapers, Nazis, anti-Semitism April 17April 07, 2006Jaime Winne Alvarezjlwinne@syr.edu

In recognition of Holocaust Awareness Week, Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and Hillel will present author Laurel Leff on “Newspapers, Nazis and Anti-Semitism in Pre-War America,” April 17 at 7:30 p.m. at the Winnick Hillel Center, 102 Walnut Place. Leff will be interviewed by Richard Dubin, professor of practice in television, radio and film in the Newhouse School, in the format of his conversations on race, television and film. The event is free and open to the public. Paid parking will be available in the University Avenue Garage.

Leff, associate professor of journalism at Northeastern University and a former Wall Street Journal and Miami Herald reporter, recently broke a story about a case of anti-Semitism that involved 39 journalism schools and the American Newspaper Publishers Association in pre-World War II America. She presented the story at the Association of Jewish Studies in December. The Newspaper Association of America allowed her to address its board earlier this month. She speaks frequently on the topic at academic conferences and to the public.

In 1939, Hitler’s Germany forced German-Jewish intellectuals and scholars to seek asylum in the U.S. and other countries. Many professional and academic organizations welcomed these refugees, but one did not. Thirty-nine journalism schools, contacted by a single Harvard professor, refused to accept any German-Jewish journalists, often giving blatantly anti-Semitic rationales for their decisions. The American Newspaper Publishers Association refused to allow the professor to speak on the crisis at its 1939 convention.

“As we close in on Holocaust Awareness Week, it is important to be reminded that anti-Semitism was not restricted to Germans, but was rampant throughout the world,” says Larry Elin, associate professor of television, radio and film in the Newhouse School, who organized the lecture. “The fact that this was comfortable in our mass media and in the schools that prepared news people who covered the war and its aftermath should give us all pause. We should ask ourselves–to what extent have we changed since then?”

Leff was also formerly an editor with American Lawyer Media Inc., and the Hartford Courant. She will have her latest book “Buried by The Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper” (Cambridge University Press) published later this spring. At Northeastern, she teaches courses in news writing and reporting, media law, magazine writing, legal reporting, nonfiction writing and the First Amendment.

For more information, contact Elin at 443-3415 or lpelin@syr.edu.