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This Jewish radio reporter was ‘the dean of the press corps’
(New York Jewish Week) — Room 9, the compact space designed for journalists inside New York City Hall, has held its share of personalities over the years. But none has spent as much time there as Stan Brooks, a Jewish radioman who reported on the city for five decades, covering six of its mayors and some of its most pivotal moments.
“He was like the dean of the press corps,” longtime colleague and friend Glenn Schuck told the New York Jewish Week about Brooks, who worked at 1010 WINS for almost his entire career.
“Every mayor kind of revered Stan,” Schuck said. “All the mayors liked him, would call on him, and made sure that Stan was an important part of whatever question and answer session they were having.”
A few weeks before Brooks’ death from lung cancer at age 86 in December 2013, the city’s outgoing mayor showed up at his bedside in Hell’s Kitchen with cookies. “Mike Bloomberg showed up, went up into his room — Stan was not well, he was very, very sick at that point — he sat with him, held his hand,” Schuck recalled. “That’s how respected Stan was. I mean, he had the ear and attention of a lot of people.”
And then, just days before Brooks’ passing, Bloomberg renamed the radio room at City Hall the “Stan Brooks Radio Room,” citing Brooks as the “longest-serving member of Room 9.”
That would not be Brooks’ only lasting mark on the city he loved. In 2014, his local city councilman — Corey Johnson, who would go on to become the council’s speaker — spearheaded an effort to rename the corner of West 43rd Street and 10th Avenue, where Brooks and his wife Lynn lived at Manhattan Plaza, Stan Brooks Way.
“He loved that neighborhood,” Shuck said. “His life was that building and that neighborhood that he lived in.”
Schuck recalled how people would always ask Stan, “You’re 80-something years old, don’t you want a house in Florida?” and his response was always no. “He wanted to be in Hell’s Kitchen, in his apartment, on a Saturday, walking through the neighborhood. That was his life,” he said.
Stanley Bertram Brooks was born Jan. 24, 1927 in the Bronx to Herman and Mildred Brooks. His father was a paper salesman and the president of the Young Friends Association, a Jewish burial organization, and his mother was one of 11 children, coming from a very close family.
Stan, who grew up in a kosher home and attended a Conservative synagogue, lived on the same block — Walton Avenue — as practically his entire extended family, according to George Brooks, one of his three sons. Stan and Lynn raised raised their family on Long Island where they belonged to Temple Sinai, a Reform synagogue.
“He was kind of spiritual in nature. I think he felt his connection to Judaism very much through his parents and his family — I would call it a family-based religion,” George said, recalling how his father said Kaddish every morning for the first year after his parents died.
Brooks went to City College before serving in the army and graduating from Syracuse University.
Brooks once spoke about being on “Kitchen Patrol” duty while in basic training and seeing stacks of pork chops being fried in lard and going outside and throwing up because he had never encountered pig meat before and was overwhelmed, George said.
That was the beginning of “opening his mind to the wider world. He really was taken from kind of a sheltered, shtetl-y Bronx upbringing to seeing all kinds of people that he would never have met,” George said of his father’s time in the army.
Before joining WINS as news director in 1962, Brooks worked for newspapers in Westchester County and was a reporter and editor for Newsday on Long Island for 10 years.
Shortly after he joined 1010 WINS, it became an all-news operation — the first of its kind in New York City and one of the first in the country. He helped lay the groundwork for the station and for all 24-hour news stations to come.
“Being the first news director of the first all-news station, everyone looked up to Stan, admired Stan. He was, you know, he really was a trailblazer,” Schuck said. “I mean, he set a lot of the things in motion that are now 24-hour news channels, whether it’s TV or radio, are in place today,” Schuck said.
One reason for hesitancy with 24 hour news channels was the concern that there couldn’t possibly be enough news to fill all that time. But Brooks “knew New York had enough stories to tell and he was just a really, really good storyteller,” Schuck said.
And Brooks certainly found enough to report on. He became a local reporter for 1010 WINS in 1970 and had a full reporting repertoire of 30- to 60-second dispatches. Even at 80, “he would always be the first one to get his stories done,” Schuck said.
“He would bring the story to life. He could go to an endless news conference and somehow he would know what the center of the story was immediately and he’d have the lead written before he got back to the desk,” Rich Lamb, a reporter from WCBS and one of Brooks’ colleagues said after his death.
Brooks was a man of routine. For almost 50 years, every morning he drove from Hell’s Kitchen down to City Hall where he parked in the same spot each day. He ate the same cheese sandwich made by his wife at his desk for lunch every day because he wanted to be able to work without pause.
He brought that steadiness to moments of high intensity in the news.
During the 1971 Attica prison revolt — when inmates at the high-security Attica Correctional Facility took control of the prison and kept guards hostage resulting in 39 prisoners and guards killed by law enforcement gunfire — “he was famously on a payphone in the middle of this prison riot and was so calm,” Schuck said. ”Stan made his name for things like that.”
Then, in 2003, City Councilman James David was killed in City Hall right in front of Schuck and Brooks just seconds after they had just shaken his hand. Brooks delivered a live report on the scene.
“Because Stan was with me that day, it allowed me to get through something like that, because I felt like, ‘I’m with Stan so I’m good,’” Schuck said. “He was more than a colleague to me, he was a mentor and a friend. Almost like a second father. I just always felt better when he was around and he led by example.”
When Schuck joined 1010 WINS in 2000, Brooks sat down with him to answer all of his questions and would do that for anyone. “He was very welcoming, willing to sit with anybody, even if you had met them for the first time just to kind of, you know, set you on your path,” Schuck said.
Throughout his career, Brooks frequently shared his wisdom and experience with younger journalists. “He was firm, but never rude. He would teach that to younger journalists, you don’t have to be rude to get your answers. He asked tough questions, but he was always nice about the way he did it. And that’s how he got his answers,” Schuck said. “He always got the answers he wanted, because he had the right tact and the way he handled himself. And if people wanted to tell a story, they wanted to tell it to Stan, I think that was important and he taught journalists by the hundreds how to do that.”
“He never really even saw it as a job,” Schuck added. “He just loved what he did. He wanted everyone to learn how to do the job like he did.”
Not only did he love what he did, but he understood the importance of his work — and did it until just a few weeks before his death, even when he could barely make it up the City Hall steps.
“I think that he felt very strongly about uplifting the downtrodden, which I think of as tikkun olam, giving people who don’t have a fair shake a fair shake,” George Brooks said. “That’s part of why he was a journalist, to tell the stories of the people who needed to be heard who might not otherwise have a voice.”
When he wasn’t working, all of Brooks’ time was devoted to his family — his wife Lynn, to whom he was married for 60 years before she died just months before him, and his three sons, George, Rick and Bennet.
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Miriam Libicki illustrates her experience being banned by the Vancouver Comic Arts Festival
This cartoon originally appeared in the Fall 2024 issue of the quarterly magazine published by The Canadian Jewish News.
The post Miriam Libicki illustrates her experience being banned by the Vancouver Comic Arts Festival appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Justice Department Charges Afghan Citizen With Plotting To Commit Terror Attack on Election Day
An American flag waves outside the US Department of Justice Building in Washington, US, Dec. 2, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Tom Brenner
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has issued charges against an Afghan citizen allegedly plotting to execute a terrorist attack during Election Day at the behest of Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).
Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, a 27-year old resident of Oklahoma City, schemed to help ISIS commit an act of terrorism on American soil through the acquisition of firearms and ammunition, according to the federal officials. Tawhedi allegedly sold many of his assets and moved several family members out of the United States as part of his preparations for the terrorist attack.
“As charged, the Justice Department foiled the defendant’s plot to acquire semi-automatic weapons and commit a violent attack in the name of ISIS on U.S. soil on Election Day,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, “We will continue to combat the ongoing threat that ISIS and its supporters pose to America’s national security, and we will identify, investigate, and prosecute the individuals who seek to terrorize the American people.”
“This defendant, motivated by ISIS, allegedly conspired to commit a violent attack, on Election Day, here on our homeland,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.
While investigating Tawhedi, the FBI surfaced messages between Tawhedi and an ISIS-connected individual “who facilitated recruitment, training, and indoctrination of persons who expressed interest in terrorist activity.” In addition, the Justice Department report alleges that Tawhedi obtained, viewed, and saved ISIS propaganda on his digital devices. He also sent messages in a Telegram account affiliated with ISIS and sent money to sham “charity organizations” which fundraise for the terrorist group.
While Tawhedi and an alleged partner, who is a minor, were in the process of selling his assets in advance of the planned terrorist attack, an individual connected with the FBI contacted him under the guise of purchasing a computer. During their communications, the individual informed Tawhedi that they were in the process of launching a new gun business.
Tawhedi and his partner eventually met up with the FBI-connected individual in rural Oklahoma on Oct. 7 with the goal of purchasing firearms to carry out the terrorist attack. The duo successfully bought and took possession of “two AK-47 assault rifles, ten magazines, and 500 rounds of ammunition.”
The agency slapped Tawhedi charges of “conspiring and attempting to provide material support to ISIS,” and “receiving a firearm to be used to commit a felony or a federal crime of terrorism.”
In recent months, the DOJ has been busy holding foreign extremists accountable for planning or committing acts of terrorism on American soil. In September, the agency announced charges against several top leaders of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas for orchestrating the Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. That same month, the agency thwarted a planned shooting against New York Jews by a Pakistani national.
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Brown University Rejects BDS Proposal
More than 200 Brown University students gathered outside University Hall where roughly 40 students sat inside demanding the school divest from weapons manufacturers amid the Israel-Hamas war. Photo: Amy Russo / USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect
The Brown University Corporation has voted down a proposal — muscled onto the agenda of its annual meeting by an anti-Zionist group which held the university hostage with threats of illegal demonstrations and other misconduct — to divest from ten companies linked to Israel, according to an announcement from the University.
According to the university, the Corporation heeded the counsel of the Advisory Committee on University Resources Management (ACURM), which witnessed earlier this semester a presentation — delivered by the pro-Hamas group Brown Divest Coalition (BDC) — in support of divestment and recommended that it be turned down. Brown University president Christina Paxson concealed ACURM’s opinion from the public, ostensibly to shield it from political pressure, but the decision had the effect of fueling speculation that the body, which once recommended divestment several years ago, had done so again.
“The Corporation also discussed the broader issue of whether taking a stance on a geopolitical issue through divestment is consistent with Brown’s mission of education and scholarship. The Corporation reaffirmed that Brown’s mission is to discover, communicate, and preserve knowledge. It is not to adjudicate or resolve global conflicts,” president Paxson and Brown Corporation chancellor Brian T. Moynihan said on Wednesday in a letter commenting on the vote.
They continued, “The manner in which our community now reflects on this decision creates an opportunity. Throughout our history, Brown as a community has been guided, even when we disagree with each other, by a deeply held campus culture characterized by mutual respect, support for each other, empathy, understanding of differences and, importantly, a willingness to engage in constructive dialogue regarding these differences. Whether you support, oppose or have no opinion on the decision of the Corporation, we hope you will do so with a commitment to sustaining, nurturing, and strengthening the principles that have long been at the core of our teaching and learning community.”
Brooke Verschleiser, a third-year Brown University student and biochemistry major who helped lead the effort of Jewish students to oppose divestment, told The Algemeiner on Wednesday that she commends the Corporation’s prudence.
“We are pleased that ACURM followed its charge and that the Corporation made its decision based on the facts and appropriate guidelines,” Verschleiser said. ” We echo President Paxson’s hope that the community will uphold its culture of ‘mutual respect, support for each other, empathy, understanding of differences, and, importantly, a willingness to engage in constructive dialogue.”
The Brown Corporation’s mere consideration of the divestment proposal, which many argued would descend the university into the paranoia and hatred of antisemitic conspiracy, set off waves of opposition over the past several weeks.
Last month, Joseph Edelman, a trustee of the Corporation has resigned from his position, condemning the vote as a betrayal of the Jewish community.
“I disagree with the upcoming divestment vote on Israel,” Edelman, a hedge fund manager, wrote in an op-ed explaining his decision. “I am concerned about what Brown’s willingness to hold such a vote suggests about the university’s attitude toward rising antisemitism on campus and a growing political movement that seeks the destruction of the state of Israel.”
Others, including 24 attorneys general, warned that conceding to the demands of a group which endorses mass casualty events inspired by Islamist extremism would have “immediate and profound legal consequences” — potentially divestment from Brown mandated by “laws in nearly three-fourths of states prohibiting states and their instrumentalities from contracting with, investing in, or otherwise doing business with entities that discriminate against Israel, Israelis, or those who do business with either.”
Meanwhile, an investment network, JLens, published a study which found that adopting divestment — a core tenet of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement — may compromise Brown’s financial health. According to the study which measured the havoc BDS would wreak on university investment portfolios, divestment from Israel would incinerate over $300 million in returns for the Brown’s endowment in the just the next decade.
News of Corporation’s decision was greeted with invective and abusive language, as the pro-Hamas group which proposed divestment took to social media to lodge expletives and other offensive insults at Christina Paxson, who withstood sharp criticism for agreeing to negotiate with its members.
“F— you CPax. F—You Brown Corp,” the Brown Divest Coalition said in a statement on Wednesday. “Free Palestine.”
American universities are largely rejecting demands to divest from Israel and entities linked to the Jewish state, delivering further blows to the pro-Hamas protest movement, which students and faculty pushed with dozens of illegal demonstrations to coerce officials into enacting the policy.
In August, Oberlin College’s Board of Trustees voted against BDS after reviewing a proposal submitted by “Students for a Free Palestine,” a spin-off of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which has been linked to Islamist terrorist organizations. The following month, University of Minnesota and Chapman University also rejected BDS, citing similar reasons, including “fiduciary duty” and the importance of insulating investment decisions from the caprices of political opinion.
Oberlin explained that divestment would undermine its mission to create a space in which students “express contested views,” adding that adopting the divestment proposal “would be taking a clear institutional stand on one side of a fraught and contested issue that divides the Oberlin community.” It continued, “The board believes that doing so could constrain critical thinking, discourse, and debate on the subject, which would jeopardize the college’s mission.”
Christina Paxson and Brian Moynihan expressed similar views in Wednesday’s statement.
“Brown’s Public Statements Policy is already clear that the university does not make institutional statements on social, political, or policy matters unrelated to the university’s operations in advancing education, scholarship and discovery,” they said. “Brown’s standards for divestment should be reviewed to ensure that they are aligned with this policy…for now, it is clear that the endowment should not and will not be used to take a stance on the contested geopolitical issues in the Middle East.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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