SOTLOFF Was One of Us We can now say it out loud. Steven Joel Sotloff was Jewish; he was the grandson of Holocaust survivors; his family was involved in the Miami-Dade Jewish community; his mother was a preschool teacher at Temple Beth Am in Pinecrest, Florida. We can even shout from the rooftops: Steven attended a Jewish day school; made Aliyah, was also an Israeli citizen; studied in Herzliya, and wrote for Israeli publications. We can now say this because Steven is dead, beheaded by barbarians. Until now an impermeable cone of silence concealed Sotloff’s Jewish background. That silence was requested by his family and maintained by media. Remarkably, in this age of unfettered social media, where boundaries between public and private are fading more quickly than old newsprint, the family’s request was respected. But now the silence is no longer required. We can also reveal that Sotloff spoke Arabic, studied Islam and evidently cared about the people he covered in Yemen, Libya, Egypt and Syria. Steven, as friends recall, “did not cower from danger. In fact, he flew right into it, intent on telling the stories he believed would shape history.” I don’t know whether his reporting on any story will shape history, but HIS STORY which others are reporting on has a good chance of doing so. Shortly after Sotloff’s kidnapping, his parents set up an emergency headquarters at their home, and assembled a crisis team of Jewish communal leaders, kidnap and ransom experts, and public relations specialists. Their key strategy was secrecy, because there was a genuine fear that Sotloff’s Jewish identity and Israeli passport would create another Daniel Pearl situation. The Sotloffs traveled to Washington to appeal for their son’s life. They did not succeed in meeting with President Obama or Vice President Joe Biden. Their request for a news blackout was also not foolproof. The Orlando Sentinel initially included information about Sotloff’s Jewish roots, as did The New York Times, but those references were quickly scrubbed from the Internet at the family’s request. But while his family back home was doing all it could to hide Steven’s Jewish identity, Steven held onto his Jewish connection. A fellow ISIS captive who was held with Steven and subsequently released related how Steven fasted and prayed while facing Jerusalem last Yom Kippur, despite the extreme danger he would have been in had his kidnappers realized what he was doing. “He told them he was ill and didn’t want to eat, even though they brought us eggs that day.” When Shirley Sotloff begged for her son’s life, she said: “I want what every mother wants…” Today, this is what every civilized person wants: May Hashem avenge his fiendish murderers Picture: First-grade class photo. Steven is second from right in the top row. Courtesy of Temple Beth Am, Miami.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 01:57:07 +0000
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