CAMERA’s Israel staff has prompted a correction today in the English edition of Ha’aretz which wrongly reported twice last week that Jewish prayer is permitted on the Temple Mount. As we reported earlier this week, a May 9 article falsely reported (“Jordan grills Israeli ambassador following Temple Mount rioting) erred:
The rioting ensued Tuesday after the police allowed some 200 Jews to enter the Temple Mount to pray in honor of Jerusalem Day.
Again, on May 10, the English edition falsely reported (“Women of the Wall, Haredi girls to face off at Kotel”):
Just Tuesday, the Temple Mount was the site of violent riots, when 200 Jews were premitted to enter the holy site to pray in honor of Jerusalem Day.
As reported earlier by CAMERA:
[O]nly Muslims are permitted to pray at the site. That Jews are completely prohibited from praying at the Temple Mount, Judaism’s most sacred site, is an underreported and little-known fact about Jerusalem, a city that draws intense scrutiny and coverage.
Today’s commendable page 2 correction follows:
The errors were the result of erroneous translations on the part of Ha’aretz‘s translators, who translate the original Hebrew articles into English. CAMERA has documented the troubling phenomenon of what we call “Ha’aretz, Lost in Translation” for the last several years. Not for the first time, CAMERA asks:
Given the ongoing problem of mistranslations, what steps will Ha’aretz take to put a stop to this phenomenon? How long will the wayward translators continue to remain shielded by their anonymity? Will the English edition begin to identify the translator for each article, or at least name the translator when a correction is needed? Reporters are named (and shamed) in corrections when they err, shouldn’t translators also face the same degree of accountability?
For the Hebrew version of this post, please see Presspectiva. For all corrections at Ha’aretz prompted by CAMERA and Presspectiva, please see here.