Dangerous reporting
Although my wife, Rachel Perkal, and I currently reside in the Chicago area, we have kept a subscription to the KCJC for all of the years since we have moved away from Kansas City because we both have very strong ties to our former home.
We just received the March 9 issue with the story downplaying current anti-Semitic acts with a byline from Lori Lowenthal Marcus (“Is the ‘rising tide’ of American anti-Semitism only a surge in incident reporting?” provided by JNS.org).
After reading the article, I immediately searched the internet for her background and was not even remotely surprised to find a very conservative leaning reporter, with deep admiration for the current administration in Washington, D.C. Rachel and I have always admired the reporting in the KCJC, but this kind of one-sided slant on a very serious issue undermines the credibility of your publication. Regardless of Ms. Marcus’s sources on this issue, she clearly had an agenda that I believe is counter-productive to the safety and well-being of Jewish life on a national level. The attacks on Jewish centers mentioned in her article took place over the past 10 years and the number of hate crimes in the past two months have spiked enormously based on the underlying tone of racism and the lack of a strong response to such hate crimes by Donald Trump and his administration.
My hope is that you take greater care in the future with regard to the furthering of what I consider to be dangerous and inappropriate reporting.