Heilman Threatens Suit
His letter about this post, and my responses, below.
Mr. Weiss:I see you removed the references in your blog that referred to your having been expelled from the Hebrew Theological College and from Yeshiva University. I assume you did this because you want to protect your stellar reputation. That is an understandable goal. Do you think that I might also not want to protect mine and not have my name to appear with the headline “liar” next to it? You have every right to disagree with my assessments of orthodoxy and to criticize my work. But there is a difference between disagreement and calling someone a “liar” I understand you want readers in that woeful blog of yours and you think that with such headlines as “Samuel Heilman, Liar” you will get them by trading on my name to attract readers
who are looking for me. But to call me a liar because you do not agree with my analysis or because you do not agree with my argument that orthodoxy cannot be reduced to the seductive clarity of statistics is both slanderous and inaccurate. I am asking that you please remove these headlines and stop using that term. You cannot slander someone without consequence.
I repeat: I ask you now to desist. Please do not force me to turn to legal representation, which if necessary, I will not hesitate to do.Samuel Heilman
My initial response came after reading just his first couple sentences:
Heilman -
I’ve removed nothing from my blog, and don’t know what you’re talking about.keep it good,
Steven I. Weiss
After reading the rest:
Heilman -
I didn’t call you a liar because I disagreed with you, I called you a liar because you fabricated claims about your work in order to make it appear to be less wrong than it actually is.
Your personal attacks and immaturity aside, my approach to this has nothing to do with any desire on my part other than labeling something as it is. The fact that you think searches for “Samuel Heilman” generate a lot of traffic is cute and revealing, but is of course far from the truth — just like your claims about your book.
You seem unfamiliar with the law on these issues, so I’ll give you some free legal advice. Firstly, you’d be going for a “libel” claim, not a “slander” claim. Second, you’d have to show that what I wrote is wrong, that I knew it was wrong, and that I published it with malice knowing it was wrong. You lose at the first step, and even moreso at the second and third.
As I’ve written in various comments, I didn’t come into reviewing this book with any particular opinion of your prior work, and had every expectation that it’d be a decent volume. When it wasn’t and I said so, I simply expected you’d disagree. But instead of disagreeing, you lied to cover up your errors. You could’ve let the review stand, or you could’ve just admitted that your numbers were off. Instead, you lied.
You created this situation for yourself by lying, and you’ll just have to live with it.
It’s not my fault that you lack integrity.keep it good,
Steven I. Weiss
March 7th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
steve, be careful - there’s nothing more dangerous than a petty academic with a wounded ego, unless its one with a wounded oversized ego. Good luck with this one - he sounds like he’s just unprincipled enough to make your life difficult. You caught him in a blatant innacuracy and what looks like an attempt to whitewash it; I just hope that his legal advisor is as close and careful a reader as you are.
Heilman, if you’re reading this (to hell with it, I’m SURE you’re reading this) - I’m pretty sure that steve’s academic record has not an iota of relevance to his critique, which on my reading, seems spot on. Thankfully, past degrees are no indicator of future success. I think you’ve pretty definitively demonstrated that point.
March 7th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Wow. There’s absurd. And then there’s this gem (from the original heilman post):
AR Says:
March 1st, 2007 at 4:33 pm
If we wanted to get involved in personal attacks, we could mention that Heilman had only a public school education and cannot read Orthodox texts with any proficiency, therefore he would be outside the club of those who can understand the Orthodox society. But we wont get personal, so forget it.
Heilman Says:
March 6th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Not true. I went to the Maimonides Yeshiva and read the text quite proficiently
Pardon me for noting that this is the equivalent of responding to a “yo mama’s so fat…” joke with a whining “not true - my mama isn’t fat…”
Can academics really BE this petty?
Apparently. Shudder.
March 7th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Steve,
As mentioned in a previous post, heilman is an expert, so its impossible for him to be a liar (im pretty sure this is one of newtons mathematical principles).
looks like you wont be able to use “truth” as a defense.
March 7th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Good analysis of the law, Steve, except the point about malice. The higher standard of malice is only applicable to a public figure. You might have already known that but assumed that Prof. Heilman is a public figure. That might be true, especially in this context.
March 8th, 2007 at 8:05 am
You have really blow your credibility.
1) If you had said, without blaring headlines, that Mr. Heilman was “dishonest” or that he wrote something “he knew or should have known was untrue” you would be taken seriously here by a lot of people who (like me) don’t have the time to look at the source material.
2) There are plenty of bright, capable people who just aren’t meant for the academic world, and the American workplace is often a very unfair place. Therefore, if you were open about your past it could be a sign of your character and perseverance. But the lack of biographical material explaining your getting thrown out of yeshiva, college, and a journalistic job makes one wonder what really happened. And reading on Luke Ford’s site that you called your adversaries at yeshiva liars, and implied that the administration at YU was not honest about why they were expelling you… it just has to make one wonder about anything they see on this site, particularly blaring headlines…
One test of your integrity will be whether you allow this posting..
March 8th, 2007 at 8:27 am
anonymous - It’s always great to have a phantom declare me non-credible. Irony is apparently not one of your strong suits.
As to your first point: So, because you haven’t had the time to read the source material, I should adjust my claims, and then you’d be more likely to believe them? I don’t care if you haven’t read it; it’s not my job to make you read things so that you understand what I’m writing about.
As to my past, I’ve been entirely open about it and discussed it with anyone who expressed concern, but that stuff happened years ago. It’s available in public interviews in my own words; how much more open about it could I be?
In general, as a a journalist, one’s expected to declare continual notice of one’s conflicts of interest, not a biography that indicates in every way how any reader might think one’s less than perfect. The stuff that gets one kicked out of a couple yeshivas has no bearing on one’s ability to do quality reporting. And on the basis of my reporting, I don’t think any one can question my capability or credibility.
Those expulsions don’t create conflicts of interest in virtually anything worth reporting, as HTC isn’t a significant entity and the guys responsible for expelling me at YU aren’t involved anymore. Given your position of complete ignorance on this, it’s ridiculous that you’d think my assertions about them somehow spoil my credibility. If I say that HTC lied to my parents, and that YU expelled me on the basis of grades when my GPA wasn’t at the level the rules said would lead to expulsion, who are you to say otherwise? Is there anything else you don’t know about my childhood that you’d like to present claims about? Maybe you’ve made up a claim that I cheated on my bar mitzvah parsha?
On your concluding point, it’s no test of my integrity as to whether I allow uninformed insinuations such as yours to enter the page. All comments that aren’t spam get through. And idiocy such as yours certainly helps to indicate just how low that barrier for entry is.
March 8th, 2007 at 9:09 am
1. The credibility of a someone simply asking basic questions is not at issue. Noone is reading this blog and saying “well I saw it in one of anyonymous’s posts…”
2. Your continued name calling again does bring into question your credibility. “Idiocy”? There is no need to resort to name calling unless you are angry, immature, or, insecure.
3. I didn’t ask you to care if I read it. I asked you to care about what people who don’t have the time to read it will think. Noone asked you to adjust your claims; the point is, if they are correct, you shouldn’t be ruining your credibility with childish name calling.
4. “The stuff that gets one kicked out of a couple yeshivas has no bearing on one’s ability to do quality reporting” - That’s bull. If, say, one gets thrown out of a couple of yeshivas for lying, for unjustified attacks on other’s characters, for plagiarism, for laziness…. That could definitely bear on one’s ability to do quality reporting. I’m not saying you got kicked out for any of those reasons. But when I read. say, the Forward, I know they have standars in who they hire. Blogs can be written by anyone, so showing your credentials and explaining who you are matters far, far more. In a blog where you just need one little link for basic biographical information, my suggestion is that you should put up some explanation.
But wait … you don’t want to hear any suggestions from me because I am a “phantom” who writes “idiocy”. And I am supposed to think that you are taking Heilman’s explanations seriously? Maybe you are, but it wouldn’t be my guess….
And by the way, there is no wealth of information readily available about you on the web, and Ford’s piece is not flattering, to say the least…
March 8th, 2007 at 9:12 am
anonymous - You’re certainly entitled to remain as mistaken as you want to be.
As to reading the Forward, well, that’s one of the main places I publish my reporting.
March 8th, 2007 at 9:16 am
anonymous writes in exactly the same style as Heilman. Hmm…
March 8th, 2007 at 9:29 am
Another blog speaks of
Sam Heilman Syndrome (mistaking my personal dsicovery of long existing facts for their first emergence in the world).
And
Maybe Heilman is simply misinformed and this is merely an instance of people’s tendency to magnify the significance of the information they happen to know. Or maybe this is another instance of Heilman’s overly simplistic definition of Haredim.
...
I wonder where his not understanding blogs, bloging, and bloggers fits into the syndrome?
March 8th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Excuse me, I appreciate your need to resort to conspiracy theories, but this is not Samuel Heilman. It is someone who read one of his earlier books who was interested in the topic until SIW made it sound like a 3rd grade argument.
And having read Mr. Heilman’s earlier work, while I am agnostic about his research and honesty, I concluded that his prose is quite bland and boring. So I really don’t appreciate being compared to him
March 8th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
(In honor of Purim)
When a Jew Sues: The Ethnography of a Blogged Son (Hardcover)
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
“For Jews, time alone does not heal; suing does,” posits Heilman, a sociologist at the City University of New York. The Jewish rituals of suing, he says, “demonstrate that however much blogging has thrown life into disequilibrium, the Jewish response is to bring that life back to some equilibrium in a precisely timed set of steps.” As the only child of Holocaust survivors, he was raised petulant and narcissistic always confronting his inability to be contradicted or work with others. When blogged concerning one of his inaccurate and sloppy works, Heilman was forced to confront bloggng “not as… the object of an anthropologist’s curiosity. He concludes that the role of suing and litigation in repairing morale and ensuring personal and collective continuity is paramount. For Jews, the attitudes are almost liturgical- of suing and the traditional response of “so sue me. ” Heilman recognizes that his traditional approach may not resonate with everyone in today’s pluralistic society, but the rhythms of restoring one’s sense of reputation reflect enough of the universal to appeal to many seeking understanding and solace.
Pam Greenbaum- Masterful
(Real Name)
A masterful study of the ritual process of spinning one’s legal wheels in order to respond to bloggers.
Sam Heilman- Fascinating Book,
(Can we ever know if it is his real name?)
This book brings Samuel Heilman back to looking at American Jewish Orthodoxy. His trenchant and persuasive analysis shows how and why there is a move to the defensive and suing among America’s Orthodox sociologists. There’s even a hilarious and revealing look at the orthodox on the internet. A great read!
Those who bought this book also bought:
Cosmopolitan Bloggers and Pariah Academics – Samuel Heilman
March 10th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
I second the ad hominem attacks leaving a bad mark on your credibility. I’m really not clear why you had to resort to name calling. Would you do that in an article you wrote? Probably not.
March 11th, 2007 at 12:19 am
Abbi - To my knowledge, I haven’t made any ad hominem attacks. If I’m wrong, please let me know.
March 11th, 2007 at 1:15 am
Steven,
I understand that you have some serious issues with the accuracy of Mr. Heilman’s academic work. However, I want to point out that your logical arguments about his alleged inaccuracies have taken on a grating, holier-than-thou tone. If you are truly angered to such a degree by his academic inaccuracies, I am truly impressed and humbled. I suspect that there must be something more going on here, having to do with Mr. Heilman’s entrenched position in the Jewish academic/journalistic world, and your desire to share a bit of that spotlight yourself. Steve, there were probably many more productive (or at least “derech-eretz” oriented), ways to prod Mr Heilman to see the error of his ways than shaming him and humiliating him. Or, perhaps once you become a Doyenne of the JBlog-osphere you can finally throw off the shackles of good middot in the name of Blogoriphic Honesty.
You may very well make it to the ivory blogo-journalistic tower, Steve, but you sure as hell aren’t standing by your own mantra of “keeping it good.” More like “keeping it ascerbic”…
March 11th, 2007 at 3:13 am
Dan - I really don’t get what you’re talking about. I find a lot of this discussion of my approach to Heilman rather gratuitous. After all, it’s not me making personal attacks, dissembling, and lying. And then threatening suit when called on it.
There’s no point in my responses to Heilman where I express the anger you’re suggesting I contain. I’m simply describing what I see, as I see it. It’s usually considered a big deal when someone lies to cover up for their own errors. Simply calling it that isn’t going overboard, in the gutter, or being “holier than thou.”
As to any position of Heilman’s I’d like to obtain, I have no intention of becoming a sociologist. This is a ridiculous accusation, and one that I wouldn’t normally respond to if it didn’t reveal the simple fact that you’re willing to concoct claims about a man’s intentions with no evidence at all. That’s an obscene way to go through life, and it is unfortunately unsurprising that you cloak your unsupported claims of ill intentions in a post meant to lecture me on appropriate speech.
It’s amusing for me to see that Heilman can go deep into the gutter and lie, and the condemnations you have are of me for acknowledging it.
Are you for real?
March 11th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Proclaiming that Professor Heilman is a “liar” is an ad hominem attack. It suggests that Professor Heilman is an habitual liar. That’s Composition 101. Declaring that a fact in his recent book is a lie is an academic discussion based on different interpretations of statistics, ideas, etc (albeit a bit heated. I’m not sure why you couldn’t have just made your point and moved on. It would have been much classier, to say the least). You crossed the line by sinking to namecalling.
March 11th, 2007 at 11:23 am
My takeaway from this whole discussion:
Heilman- Overrated dishonest hack
Weiss- Overreacting and self righteous.
March 11th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Abbi - Your comment indicates you either haven’t read the relevant discussion or did not understand it.
March 11th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Steven
I read the title (and the relevant long winded discussion(s) )- you called him a liar (If I recall the title of the post was “Sam Heilman, Liar”) . That’s an ad hominem attack. I’m fascinated that you continue to delude yourself that you didn’t sink to calling him a rude name. Not very doyenne-like.
March 11th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Abbi - So, not surprisingly, in addition to not understanding the discussion, you don’t understand the proper utilization of the phrase “ad hominem.”