This reunion is inspiring, evokes themes of Rosh haShanna and also reminds us of the terrible injustice of media as. A defender of a helpless victim was proclaimed throughout world media as a vicious would be murderer, when in fact he saved someone’s life. But the media would not take interest in who the would be murderers really were.
On September 30, 2000, The New York Times, Associated Press and other major media outlets published a photo of a young man — bloodied and battered — crouching beneath a club-wielding Israeli policeman. The caption identified him as a Palestinian victim of Israeli brutality — with the clear implication that the Israeli soldier was the one who beat him.
That young man was, in fact, Tuvia Grossman, a Jewish student from Chicago, who was beaten within inches of his life before being rescued by the Israeli border policeman in the photo.
The resulting outrage generated by the gross distortion of the photo “launched” HonestReporting.
Now, ten years later, we caught up with Tuvia in an exclusive interview.
[read an additional interview transcript]