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Russia Today‘s Lies About Me

Russian media site falsely attributes anti-Semitic views to me

A Russian-speaking friend helping me with plans for my trip there this fall e-mails to say:

Just for you to know how the Russian media works: below is the screenshot of the article about some guy named Rod Dreher (in Russian), published by Russia Today here: https://inosmi.ru/authors/rod_dreher/

At the first glance, this is a simple translation of English Wikipedia article about you (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Dreher). Almost all the text has been translated quite correctly (except Crunchy Cons was translated as Green Cons). But take a look at the last paragraph of the screenshot:

Here is my translation of the Russian original:

Dreher often criticizes Judaism. He blames Jews for the death of Christ. Also, he criticizes Israel, and believes that this state is not the ally, but the enemy of the West. Dreher also thinks that USA has to stop to aid Israel. Also, he thinks the Zionism is pure evil.

When you will be in Russia, you will need to be prepared. 😉

Oh my God. How does one fight this garbage? Is there any way to do it?

UPDATE: My Russian-speaking friend e-mails back:

Just in case it was not you who wrote the English Wikipedia article about your humble person [It wasn’t — RD], here is the paragraph Russians omitted in their translation of English original:

Views on Judaism

Dreher’s emphasis on intentional Christian community has caused him to express admiration for Orthodox Jews. “We Christians have a lot to learn from Modern Orthodox Jews”, he said in a 2017 interview with The Atlantic. “They have had to live in a way that’s powerfully counter-cultural in American life and rooted in thick community and ancient traditions … And yet, they manage to do it.”[19] In an opinion piece on The American Conservative blog he added, “to readers of this blog who harbor anti-Semitic views: don’t even try to post them here. Anti-Semites are among the vilest people.” Later in the same post he expressed support for the American–Israel alliance, writing: “Personally, I strongly believe in the US–Israel alliance. But it is not unlimited and unconditional.”

Russian version of that:

“Dreher often criticizes Judaism. He blames Jews for death of Christ. Also, he criticizes Israel, and believes that this state is not the ally, but the enemy of the West. Dreher also thinks that the USA has to stop aiding Israel. Also, he thinks Zionism is pure evil.”

UPDATE.2: A translation of the motto of this organization:

InoSMI - Everything worthy of translation

UPDATE.3: This is interesting. Noah172 comments:

INTERESTING UPDATE:

The Russkies did NOT make up that paragraph about Jews by themselves. It’s a translation of an old edit to Rod’s Wiki page which the editors quickly corrected. See here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/…

and here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/…

Apparently, some wiki editor known as “lutheranchick”, who existed for one day in 2017, trolled Rod’s page with the Jew stuff and then tried to tweak the page for Civil War historian Shelby Foote. For the offending paragraph on Rod’s page, lutheranchick cited a 2010 Beliefnet post entitled, “The last days of Crunchy Con”, which says nothing about Jews.

I wonder if the Russkies accidentally came upon an archived version of Rod’s Wiki page with the trolling paragraph — or if someone brought it to their attention. It’s weird that they found an old Wiki which existed for about 24 hours out of the 13 years Rod has had a Wiki entry (when Crunchy was published). Rod’s entry, BTW, has had hundreds of edits. Even if someone wanted to smear Rod, that takes some digging to find this ready-made attack.

Because I want to think the best of the Russians, I hope that you are right, and this was a mistake by them based on an American troll.

UPDATE.4: Reader Ryan W. says this website is not affiliated with the TV network of the same name. He writes:

Possibly a minor point, but worth noting (a number of comments here show that some people are not aware of this). Despite the fact that the literal translation of “Rossiya Segodnya” is “Russia Today”, this organization has no connection with the English-language network that’s known by that name (although technically, that network has not officially been called “Russia Today” for a number of years. The short form “RT” is now the official name of the network).

The reason this is important is that I think some people are seeing patterns that aren’t really there. Although both news organizations receive funding from the Russian government, they’re arms-length organizations, and aren’t closely coordinated with the Russian government, much less with each other. I think this is a case of a criminally sloppy editor at Rossiya Segodnya, but not much more than that.

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