When Victims Rule (pdf)

JEWISH INFLUENCE IN THE MASS MEDIA (PT. 3)
“Schlessinger,” notes Yvonne Crittenden, “hasn’t spoken to her mother for
fourteen years, and is equally estranged from her younger sister and family –
more fodder for critics who claim she’s a hypocrite for espousing strong family
values … She fell in love with a married Zoology professor – Lew Bishop (who
was married with children at the time they met) … Schlessinger converted to
Judaism after watching a show on the Holocaust with her son … [An article
written by Leslie Bennetts of] Vanity Fair found her to be “cold and condescending,
defensive, evasive and spiteful about those she’d worked with and
hated by many formers friends and colleagues, all long before she became successful.’”
[CRITTENDEN, 10-10-99]
Schlessinger, notes Evelyn Theiss, is “particularly tough on callers who have
been divorced, but she herself is a divorcee … By the sheer numbers of documented
episodes of such outrageous behaviors, [author Vickie] Bane persuades us that
this is a woman with some serious problems … There is plenty more of such behavior
– an almost stultifying amount.” In 1998, “Schlessinger received Israel’s
50th Anniversary Tribute Award for her contributions to humanity.” [THEISS,
10-10-99] The Jewish Forward notes the brand of Judaism she practices:
“Ms. Schlessinger was born to a Jewish father and an Italian Catholic
mother, but was raised without religion, she has said in interviews.
Prompted by questions from her son, Derek, while they watched a Holocaust
documentary, Ms. Schlessinger began to research her Jewish
roots and ended up converting under the auspices of Conservative Judaism.
She later joined Chabad-Lubavitch of Conejo in the Los Angeles
area and underwent an Orthodox conversion two years ago. The Chabad
congregation’s rabbi, Moshe Bryski, said Ms. Schlessinger regularly
attends.” [EDEN, A., 2001]
The author, David Reuben, of the popular volume, Everything You Wanted
to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask, was also Jewish. And for decades, the
prim know-it-all Jewish psychologist, Dr. Joyce Brothers, (real surname: Bauer)
was omnipresent in the mass media (her ride to fame began on a TV game show
when she won “top prize on the first leg of the $64,000 Question, telling twenty
million TV viewers that ‘cestus’ was the name of the leather glove worn by ancient
Roman boxers.”) Brothers was “the only member of the American Psychology
Association who was ‘repped’ by General Artists Corporation, which
said [in its handout to journalists] for background: she looks like Loretta Lynn,
walks like Marilyn Monroe, and talks like Dr. Freud.”) [KRIM, p. 139-140]
“She’s obviously a fraud,” wrote journalist Seymour Krim, “but I can’t undress
her in public. It’s too goddamn cruel.” [KRIM, p. 140] Brothers has a syndicated
column in 350 newspapers, a daily program on NBC Radio/Westwood One
and “is a long-standing member of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies.”
[HYMAN, p. 191]
Another Jewish psychiatrist in the talk show business was David Viscott. “At
his peak in the early ‘90s,” noted the Los Angeles Times, “he advised millions on
both radio and television programs.” [ZAMICHOW, p. 10] Viscott had his own
greeting card line, therapy audio tapes, and he had written two autobiogra-
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