Wayne State U. alumna Helen Thomas saddened many in WSU’s journalism department after it appeared one mistake might mar the illustrious career of a pioneering journalist.
Last week at the White House’s Jewish Heritage Day event, Thomas, 89, responded to a question on Israel. She said on camera that Jewish people should “get the hell out of Palestine.” She suggested that they “go home” to “Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else.”
On Monday, the longtime White House correspondent and Hearst News Service columnist resigned, possibly ending a career that covered every president since John F. Kennedy’s administration.
“What she said on Jewish Heritage Day was terrible,” Jack Lessenberry, lecturer in Wayne State’s journalism department, wrote by e-mail. “But I think we should ask whether one callous mistake wipes out the honor of an incredible career.”
A similar feeling was shared by journalism department director Ben Burns.
“Like someone a long time ago said, ‘He who is without sin cast the first stone,’” Burns said. “I think forgiveness is a virtue.”
The controversial May 27 video became viral on the Internet, which quickly fueled a storm of people calling for Thomas’ job. The White House and her publishing peers quickly denounced her comments, which led to her resignation.
“What made it so offensive is that it not only seemed to challenge Israel’s right to exist, it appeared anti-Semitic,” Lessenberry wrote. “There are few Jews today in Poland and Germany, because they were all murdered there during the Holocaust.”
Thomas offered an apology, but it “sounded corporate and wooden and satisfied no one,” Lessenberry wrote.
The national director of the Anti-Defammation League Abraham Foxman released a statement that said, “We believe Thomas needs to make a more forceful and sincere apology for the pain her remarks have caused.”
But that pain might be felt hardest at WSU for a different reason.
“All of this is very painful. Painful in a special sense to me,” Lessenberry wrote. “I know Helen fairly well. She is a proud Detroiter who has never forgotten where she came from.”
Thomas is tied to Wayne State in many ways. She comes to campus every year to speak to students; she helped create a scholarship program for students; and the university dedicates a yearly “Spirit of Diversity” award in her name, given to local and national journalism stars.
In August, the university was to help sponsor Thomas’ 90th birthday party in Washington D.C., but sponsors and plans for the celebration fizzled fast, Burns said.
“I don’t think Jesse Jackson’s birthday party got cancelled for his comments of Jews,” Burns said.
In 1984, Jackson was quoted in the Washington Post calling Jewish people “Hymies” and referring to New York City as “Hymietown.” But for Thomas, she’s currently facing the “worst trouble of her career,” Lessenberry wrote. And it may cost Thomas her legacy.
“I think it would be very sad,” Burns said. “She’s been iconic for women, particularly in journalism.”
He added that as people in Thomas’ line of work get older “the edit button tends to get rusty.”