Little-known rabbi brings down veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas

WASHINGTON — Teenager Adam Nesenoff and his father, Rabbi David Nesenoff, are pretty far down the media food chain.

The son, an active member of the National Council for Synagogue Youth, the Orthodox Union’s affiliated youth group, runs his own newsy website, Shmoozepoint.com. Dad operates a website called RabbiLive.com and sometimes portrays the satirical character of Julio Ramirez, a Hispanic priest who teams with a rabbi to deliver “Holy Weather” reports.

So it was impressive enough that both managed to snag media credentials for the American Jewish Heritage Month celebration May 27 at the White House. But since then, the senior Nesenoff took things to another level, turning his few hours as a hobnobber into 15 minutes of fame as the YouTube journalist who brought down a media icon.

It was the rabbi, armed with a camera and accompanied by his son and his teenage friend, who went around asking notables if they had any “comments on Israel.”

As the world now knows, Helen Thomas sure did.

“Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine,” the doyenne of the Washington press corps said, and laughed. “Remember, these people are occupied, and it’s their land.”

Nesenoff asked where she thought they should go. “Go home,” she responded.

Asked to elaborate, Thomas said, “Poland, Germany,” and after more prompting by the rabbi, added “and America, and everywhere else.”

The rabbi didn’t post the video until June 3, but it quickly gained national attention, unleashing a flurry of demands for Thomas’ marginalization, if not dismissal.

The final blow was a one-two: The White House Correspondents Association met to consider her coveted front-row center perch at presidential press conferences. And White House spokesman Robert Gibbs called the remarks “offensive and reprehensible.”

On June 7, Thomas, 89, heeded the calls and quit, according to her employer, the Hearst Corp. Thomas’ phone number was not answering.

Since then Rabbi Nesenoff, said he has been deluged with more than 25,000 hate e-mails, several of which are posted on his website, Rabbilive.com. Some of the e-mails say “Hitler was right” and others are replete with obscenities.

Rabbi Nesenoff of Stoney Brook, NY said he accompanied his son and his friend to share the joyful experience of the White House’s Jewish celebration.

Adam Nesenoff, 17, who in addition to running his own website is his father’s webmaster, had applied for a media credential after hearing that the event would have a youthful emphasis. The elder Nesenoff asked the White House if he could join his son, explaining that otherwise he would be stuck outside the whole day waiting to drive him home.

They wandered the grounds near the White House pressroom before the event. Rabbi Nesenoff said he pointed out Thomas to the teen because she was a press icon. He was vaguely aware she had views critical of Israel, but did not think she would be vicious.

“People can have their opinions, but this was ‘Get out of the whole land, cleanse the whole land of Jews,” he said.

“We’re there in our Shabbos best, we had driven down — we were taken back. If it was a skinhead in a parking lot — but here’s this sweet little old lady on the White House grounds. Wewere hurt,” Rabbi Nesenoff said. He still hopes for a more expansive apology from Thomas. “She has to do a little tikkun olam (repair the world),” the rabbi said. “I hope to God she lives a very long time; she has business yet.”