Author and translator Hillel Halkin writes a column on language at the Forward using the nom de plume Philologos and a recent topic of his was how we frum Jews ought to be referred to by our non-Orthodox brethren.

The piece is rife with errors of fact and logic. He writes that the JTA “substituted ‘fervently Orthodox’ for ‘ultra-Orthodox’ as far back as the 1990s” although it has done no such thing. He writes too that “‘ultra-Orthodox’ may sound pejorative to some people but I very much doubt that it was coined with such an intention in mind.” Why?

And who cares what the coiner’s intention was? There’s a simple way to ferret out double standards in cases like this: Simply replace “ultra-Orthodox”  with terms used to refer unflatteringly to blacks Hispanics or almost any racial or religious group in America save for religious Christians and then have Mr. Halkin tell us how much the original coiner’s intention matters. Works every time.

And that’s as it should be from a Torah standpoint. Names that individuals or communities honestly regard as pejorative ought not to be used. There are in fact descriptive terms that many frum Jews use for certain racial groups that don’t bear any inherently disparaging implication certainly nothing approaching that of “ultra-Orthodox ” yet in certain contexts may indeed be perceived as less than complimentary. I try to be careful in my own conversations not to use them.    

Later in the piece Halkin allows that “[w]e live in an age in which it is frowned upon to call groups by names they don’t like and this is not in itself a bad habit.” This is doubly disingenuous. Is it really only our “age” in which such behavior is frowned upon? Let’s put aside the Torah’s millennia-old prescriptions against derogatory speech and appellations which may not much move Mr. Halkin; but which age then did he have in mind? The Viking Age or that of Attila the Hun perhaps? Then he’s right: Back then with vicious enemies in pursuit people were far more concerned with epitaphs than with epithets. And is the double negative “not in itself a bad habit” the best he can do to call out name-calling? Our little “substitution” exercise above will likely evince otherwise.

The columnist next engages in a bit of casuistry arguing that “[f]ervently Orthodox” [is] far worse than “ultra-Orthodox.” That’s because “ultra” can carry a negative sense as in “ultra-ambitious ” or a positive one as in “ultramodern ” which connotes “a measure of improvement on something less perfect.” But “fervently Orthodox ” Halkin writes “is not neutral … the connotation is almost always positive.” Since it implies that “there are Jews … who are ‘merely’ Orthodox and there are others who are ‘fervently’ so ” we ought to eschew its use.

Halkin is usually a pretty careful thinker but even a cheder yingel can find the logical flaw here. If “ultra” indeed has dual connotations then if used pejoratively it should be unacceptable and if used admiringly it’s no better than “fervently ” which by Halkin’s lights is unacceptably judgmental of non-“fervent” Orthodox Jews.

But Halkin strains to wiggle loose of these logical constraints by professing that his “own sense of the term ‘ultra-Orthodox’ in American Jewish discourse is that on the whole it has been used neutrally with no overtone of either denigration or praise.” This in a column appearing in a newspaper that “fervently” devotes itself to a weekly calumny of Orthodox Jews! A sampling of Forward headlines from just the last month in which “ultra-Orthodox” appears yields the likes of “Beit Shemesh Israel’s Town of Ultra-Orthodox Hate Steps Back From Brink” and “Western Wall Remains in Ultra-Orthodox Control”; innumerable others use “ultra-Orthodox” in the body of articles with lovely headlines like “Israel Doctors Blast Blood-Sucking Circumcision Rite.” Yes neutral as Switzerland and blessedly free of even an “overtone of denigration.”

But beyond the illogic and factual sloppiness beyond even the intellectual dishonesty is the rank hypocrisy. Mr. Halkin you see has been writing his column for many years now and in August 2005 as the Gaza disengagement reached its denouement his column addressed the propriety of Reuters referring to a rally by “Israeli ultranationalists.” He wrote:

“Ultra” is an odd prefix because it can have either a positive negative or neutral connotation depending on what word it goes with.… [I]f we call someone “ultra-honest” or “ultra-efficient ” clearly we are praising him. And in still in other contexts especially political ones “ultra” is pejorative.… This is one reason that very observant Jews dislike being called “ultra-Orthodox ” since the word “Orthodox” in such a combination seems more analogous to “conservative” or “liberal” than to “honest ” “efficient” or “modern.”

How much changes in a mere eight years.…

Returning to the Reuters usage of “Israeli ultranationalist” Halkin writes:

On the face of it such a description seems fair enough. After all many of these protesters do after all come from an extreme end of the Israeli political spectrum…. And yet there is something troubling about Reuters’s usage. A quick Internet check reveals that to date Reuters’s news articles have used the expression “ultranationalist Israeli” 4 020 times and “ultranationalist Jew” 839 times while not using “ultranationalist Palestinian” even once. Can this be called anything but biased? … Are there any Palestinian “ultramilitants” in Reuters? Not one. Perhaps then “Palestinian ultra-Islamists”? Not one …

For Reuters it seems only Jews can be “ultra” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That’s pretty ultra itself. Ultra-anti-Israeli in fact.

I trust we need not ask how many times the Forward or the Jewish Week or any other secular Jewish media outlet have used “ultra-Reform” or “ultra-Conservative” or “ultra-secular ” because we know the answer.

So tell me Mr. Halkin what does that make them — or you?

VOUCHING FOR VOUCHERS  I’ve written here before of the grave injustice perpetrated on the poor black students of Washington DC by the years-long efforts of Democrats from Barack Obama on down to close down the Opportunity Scholarships voucher program that enabled many of them to escape the failed DC schools for a chance at educational success. In an excerpt from her new book Michelle Rhee the former DC schools chancellor who lost her job in 2010 after the teachers’ unions helped unseat the mayor who supported her reforms describes her metamorphosis on the issue of school choice:

[S]oon after I arrived in Washington D.C. I was in a pickle. The District of Columbia had Opportunity Scholarships…. The program was up for reauthorization and there was a heated debate going on in the city.… My inclination was to say no.…

However I wanted to have my facts straight. So I decided to meet with families across the city and spend some time better understanding the Opportunity Scholarships initiative. It’s amazing what one can learn from talking to parents.…

After … hearing so many parents plead for an immediate solution to their desire for a quality education I came out in favor of the voucher program. People went nuts. Democrats chastised me for going against the party but the most vocal detractors were my biggest supporters.

“Michelle what are you doing?” one education reformer asked. “You are the first opportunity this city has had to fix the system.… You need time and money to make your plan work. If during that time children continue fleeing the system on these vouchers you’ll have less money to implement your reforms.…”

“Here’s the problem with your thinking” I’d answer. “My job is not to preserve and defend a system that has been doing wrong by children and families. My job is to make sure that every child in this city attends an excellent school. I don’t care if it’s a charter school a private school or a traditional district school. As long as it’s serving kids well I’m happy. And you should be too.”

Here’s the question we Democrats need to ask ourselves: Are we beholden to the public school system at any cost or are we beholden to the public school child at any cost? My loyalty and my duty will always be to the children.

Not everyone bought it. In fact most of my Democrat friends remained adamantly opposed to vouchers. It was interesting though: they were always opposed to the broad policy but they could never reconcile their logic when thinking at the individual-kid level.

This is a classic example of well-intentioned liberal policies foundering on the rocks of the reality of actual children’s lives. If a conservative is a liberal who was mugged a conservative-minded educator is a liberal who discovers that kids in the DC voucher program have a 94 percent graduation rate rather than the 70 percent rate in DC’s public schools.