"Chill out Murray Trachtenberg!" ..... Morris Kaufman

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post, "Are they worth it?"

Clare,

To wit:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1945&dat=19910522&id=1DghAAAAIBAJ&sjid=
wWAEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2782,3113783.

Search in the piece (dating back from 1991) for "Murray Trachtenberg" and you'll get what I mean. Was Murray foolish enough to take on Winnipeg icon Nick Hill? I've read Hill's quote and, although it's crude and stereotypical, he (Murray Trachtenberg) looks like a fool. Take special note of Morris Kaufmann's advice to the esteemed Mr. Trachtenberg.
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Dear Anonymous:

Thank you for writing with the link from The Jewish Post & News. If we try to display it as one continuous line it spills over onto the righthand side of the page. However, splitting breaks the htm connection, therefore, we have reproduced the entire article below.

Clare L. Pieuk

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Jewish community officials criticize radio station for airing ad with "negative stereotypes"

The Jewish Post & News/June 5, 1991/Page 1

A Winnipeg radio station's airing of an ad some say had anti-Semitic overtones has drawn rebukes from two Jewish community officials.

But a spokesman for the station said no offence was intended or implied.

In an ad broadcast twice May 19 on country music station CFQX-FM 104, furniture dealer Nich Hill and his "No. 1 son" discussed bargains at Kern-Hill Furniture Co-op, Winnipeg Sun reported May 21. Referring to a set of furniture already reduced in price, the son said it would be reduced a further $200. Nick Hill replied: "Oy vey. And I'm not even Jewish."

Mel Fages, the Winnipeg Jewish Community Council's vice-president for community relations, criticized CFQX for airing a commercial referring to something "so much a bargain that even a Jew would shop for it."

"I am certain that you are aware that negative radical stereotypes are extremely damaging to our whole society ..." Fages wrote in a May 22 letter to Jim Millican general manager of CFQX-FM. He protested the repeated airing of the commercial by "an otherwise sensitive radio radio station," and asked to meet with Millican to discuss the matter more fully.

In a letter to Nick Hill, Fages said: "Most people in Winnipeg are familiar with the irreverent style of your furniture radio commercials. However, when they stray into the area of promoting damaging racial stereotypes we feel as an organization we must protest. I am aware that you have many contacts in the Jewish community, and undoubtedly were thinking only in terms of humor, however, there is nodoubt .... that even casual jokes and remarks can have a a very different effrect ..."

Murray Trachtenberg chairman of the League for Human Rights' of B'nai Brith Canada's Midwest Region, told The Jewish Post & News last month he wrote letters to the radio station and the Canadian Radio-television and Communications Commission (CRTC), taking CFQR-FM to task for running the ad.

"I think there was an error in judgment by Mr. Hill in making a comment he may have thought would be humorous, but really isn't, Trachtenberg said. The comment reinforces the "negative stereotype of Jews."

In his letter to CFQX-FM's manager he said whoever is responsible for editing tapes of ads at the station failed to "pick up on" possible anti-Semitic overtones in Hill's comment. "That person should be sensitized to that kind of ethnic homour" and why people might find it offensive.

Jim Millican, station manager of CFQX-FM said, he hadn't yet received letters from the WJCC's Mel Fages or the League for Human Rights' Murray Trachtenberg. But he stood by a comment he made to Winnipeg Sun reporter Jeff Slusky a few days eariler. "No offence" was intended by Mr. Hill's ad lib."(emphasis ours)

In his May 21 story in The Sun Slusky quoted a listener who heard CFQX-FM's ad and alerted the Sun. A non-Jew with a Jewish wife, the listener told Slusky he called CFQX-FM the Sunday morning the station ran the ad, to complain about it.

The listener said he spoke to the disc jockey, who told him he didn't have authority to pull the ad, but would try to get in touch with his superior. When the station ran the ad a second time the listener called again. Millican told The Jewish Post & News that "in the radio business, you can't leave the announcer who's on the air the authority to run or not run ads."

He said the disc jockey tried to get hold of him, but couldn't reach him. The disc jockey then contacted the station's sales manager, and the ad was pulled. "When Nick Hill does and ad campaign with us, he does about 10 spots,"Millican said, adding that Hill usually improvises the dialogue in such ads for his station as he stands in front of the microphone. "This campaign was definitely cut before it was finished its run."

Asked how the ad got on the air, he said: "The explanation is quite simple. There are safeguards in place and it was missed ... common sense is always the best guideline," Milican added.

The League for Human Rights' Trachtenberg felt Hill may have compounded his negative stereotyping of Jews in a follow up story May 22 in The Sun. (emphasis ours)

In that story, Sun reporter Slusky quoted Hill as saying some of his best friends are Jewish. Hill appeared surprised anyone would be upset with his ad. "It was done in a joking manner, not to hurt anybody's feelings," Slusky quoted him as saying.

Responding to the suggestion he intended to show his prices were so low even a "Jew" would shop in his store. Hill was quoted as saying that wasn't the intent al all. But even if it had been, "Ukrainians are just as cheap."

"Lots of Ukrainians and Jewish people, they really grind you into the ground when they bargain," Slusky quoted Hill as saying. "They're tough. They're from the old school, from the Old Country."

Hill did not return a May 24 call from The Jewish Post & News about his comments in the CFQX-FM ad and the Winnipeg Sun.

Trachtenberg said he'd heard Hill hadn't been quoted correctly in the Sun's May 22 story. But if Hill's comments about Ukrainians and Jews from the Old Country were accurately repeated, "that reinforces the negative stereotype of Jews." (emphasis ours)

One well known member of Winnipeg's Jewish community publicly criticized the Sun's handling of the "Nick Hill Story."

"I don't believe media or individuals should cover up real racism," Morris Kaufman, a former city Alderman and former member of the WJCC Board said in a letter to the editor. "I see Nick often at the YMHA health club, and to suggest what your story does is outrageous."

Among other things, Kaufman urged B'nai Brith Canada's Murray Trachtenberg to "chill out." Trachtenberg offered no response to Kaufman's comment when The Jewish Post & News invited him to reply. (emphaisis ours)

In another letter published in the Sun, Hill challenged the accuracy of Slusky's reporting. He noted that he'd been a member of the YMHA for more than 40 years, sells tickets for the Y's annual Sports Diner, and made some of his best friends there.

"I further told Slusky that people from the Old Country, regardless of whether they were Jewish, Ukrainian or from other ethnic groups, were difficult to sell, that they really grind you into the ground because they had tough times there and valued a dollar ..."

"... Slusky's quote attributed to me 'Ukrainians are just as cheap' is false," added Hill whose wife is Ukrainian.

Sun reporter Jeff Slusky stood by his comments he quoted Hill as making about Jews and Ukrainians in his May 22 story. "The quotes are accurate," he said last week.