“…When Kate Smith was a young, aspiring singer, she made a mistake, common in her time: she sang and recorded two songs with lyrics that today are understandably regarded as racially insensitive and offensive. She did not write the songs and she didn’t continue to sing them thereafter. Many other singers, including African-American legend, Paul Robeson, sang one of these songs as well. Back in the day, many lyrics reflected racial insensitivity.

Smith is now long gone, but her legacy is being attacked because of her youthful mistake. I am a Red Sox fan, so going to Yankee Stadium is for me, a painful reminder of how often the Yankees beat the Red Sox and my beloved Brooklyn Dodgers. But I always look forward to the playing of Smith’s rendition of “God Bless America.” No one ever sang this Irving Berlin classic quite the way she did. But the Yankees decided to end this tradition, as soon as the story of Smith’s youthful indiscretion became public. The Philadelphia Flyers went even further, removing her statue from in front of their arena.

So now let’s compare Smith’s youthful insensitivity toward race with the mature insensitivity of the New York Times with regard to anti-Semitism. The international edition of the New York Times republished a syndicated cartoon modeled on one that appeared in Nazi Germany in 1940. The Nazi cartoon showed a stereotypical Jew leading a naive Winston Churchill. The message was clear: Jews try to control the world by leading non-Jewish world leaders to do their bidding. The Times cartoon was even worse. It portrayed Benjamin Netanyahu as a dog with a Star of David around his neck leading a blind President Trump who was adorned by a kippah. The Times has acknowledged its mistake and insensitivity….”

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