Jewish Leaders Reject Apology by Lariat Editors, Ask for Retraction : Journalism: Rabbis and others meeting with Saddleback’s student editors want stronger admission of error.

Orange County Jewish leaders said Wednesday that they are not satisfied with a written apology by editors of the Saddleback Community College’s student-run newspaper for publishing a commentary that was widely criticized as being anti-Semitic.

Only a retraction, or a written admission of error, would lay the issue to rest, the Jewish leaders said.

“Whatever has been printed should be retracted in print and not verbally or indirectly,” said Rabbi Haim Asa, senior rabbi of Orange County, after an hourlong meeting with student editors of the Lariat, the college’s weekly newspaper.

The paper has been rocked by a storm of criticism since it published an opinion piece and political cartoon on Dec. 7 that attacked Israel for stockpiling nuclear weapons but also said that “if (Israelis) are indeed God’s chosen people . . . it would seem that God might have made a better choice.”

Although they maintained that the column and cartoon--written and drawn by 26-year-old journalism student Michael S. Boren--were not anti-Semitic, student editors, including Boren, issued a formal apology this week to the Jewish community, administrators, faculty members and fellow students.

“The Lariat has had a tremendously valuable educational experience and is genuinely sorry for any pain that was caused,” the apology said.

Boren, however, did not attend Wednesday’s meeting, which was called by outraged Jewish and Christian leaders before the apology was issued on Tuesday.

“My intent here this morning was to hear an apology from the writer himself,” Asa said.

Rabbi Allen Krause, head of Temple Beth El in Mission Viejo, joined Asa in calling for a written retraction to what they say were numerous factual errors in the piece.

“There are a series of historical untruths that have not been properly addressed,” Krause said, adding that although he wanted the issue to be dropped, he hoped that retractions would appear in later editions of the Lariat.

But Frank Eiklor, founder of Orange County Christians Against Anti-Semitism, said after the meeting that he was willing to lay the matter to rest.

“I feel we’ve had one of the most productive sessions that I have ever known,” Eiklor said, adding that he has been a full-time activist against anti-Semitism in Orange County for 10 years. “I also believe that we have seen a situation today that we are satisfied is resolved.”

Eiklor said that student editors expressed “deep, deep emotion,” over Boren’s commentary, which, among other things, called Israel a “fanatical government” whose people “will resort to any means to protect their religious claim on the land.”

“They were not crying crocodile tears,” Eiklor said after the hourlong session at Saddleback College with four student members of the Lariat and the paper’s faculty adviser, Carol Ziehm.

Student editors declined requests to be interviewed and left the meeting before reporters were allowed in for a news conference.

“We agreed not to speak to the media about what happened,” said arts and entertainment editor Lance Wellbaum from the Lariat office about an hour after the meeting broke up.

The article, under the headline “Israel Enters Nuclear Arms Race,” was meant to be an anti-nuclear commentary, author Boren said in a recent interview. He was unavailable for comment on Wednesday.

The cartoon that accompanied the article showed a menorah tipped with smiling nuclear warheads, singing, “We Wish You a Happy Holocaust.”

College President Constance M. Carroll said that the ongoing debate sparked by the publication of Boren’s piece has not only spurred students to learn new lessons about the balance between freedom of the press and responsible journalism, but also has forced them to take a fresh look at Jewish history and religion,

“I have been talking about and living with nothing but this issue for 12 days,” she noted.

Carroll said that students have spoken to members of the Jewish Federation of Orange County and the Anti-Defamation League.

In conversations with students, Carroll said, Jewish leaders have pointed out a variety of what they consider to be factual errors in the opinion piece.

“They (students) are now doing their homework,” Carroll said. “I am proud of these students for rising to the challenge to say, ‘I’m wrong. I have learned. I apologize.’ ”

In a letter that appeared in the Dec. 14 issue of the Lariat, Rabbi Krause argued that Israel’s right to the land is not based on “their religious claim,” as Boren suggested, but is based on a 1947 act of the United Nations.

Krause also said that the “holy war” being waged in the Middle East is a result of the Arab world’s refusal to recognize the state of Israel, not because of an Israeli “fanatical government.”

Twenty-one of 22 Arab nations in the Middle East do not recognize the United Nations charter of Israel, Eiklor added.

“Though Boren has the right to express his opinion, he also has the responsibility to deal in facts, and not in myth,” Krause wrote in the letter. “There were so many untruths and half-truths in his short article that one hardly knows where to begin in a response to it.”