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May 14, 2004/Iyar 23 5764, Vol. 56, No. 34
Was Nicholas Berg targeted as a Jew?
JOE BERKOFSKY
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - The world may never know for sure if Nicholas Berg's religion played a role in his grisly execution at the hand of terrorists in Iraq.
But many, including his family, are speculating that it was a factor in the terrorists' decision to kill the American Jewish civilian who had gone to the war-torn country in search of business.
A video that surfaced on the Internet on May 11 showed the decapitation by masked Iraqis of Berg, 26, of West Chester, Pa.
The scene echoed the 2002 murder in Pakistan of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was forced to admit his Jewishness on tape just before his captors cut off his head.
The killing raises questions about whether a Jewish person - civilian or military - is in any graver danger than anyone else in such a volatile region.
Shoshana Bryen, director of special projects for the Washington-based Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, said it makes sense that Jews would be targeted in Iraq.
"There are people in these countries who are looking to kill people who are members of certain groups," Bryen said. "The two at the top of the list are Americans and Jews."
Though Berg's religion wasn't mentioned on the video, posted on a Web site linked to Al-Qaida, Berg cites his family members, similar to the way Pearl did.
Berg is seen saying, "My name is Nick Berg, my father's name is Michael, my mother's name is Susan ... I have a brother and sister, David and Sarah."
His father, Michael, inundated by reporters on May 11 as his family was still grieving, said his son's religion may have made him a target.
"There's a better chance than not that they knew he was Jewish," his father was quoted saying. "If there was any doubt that they were going to kill him, that probably clinched it, I'm guessing."
His father also told reporters that his son routinely wore a tzitzit, or traditional fringed undergarment, although he didn't wear it in public.
Joseph Kashnow, an Army Cavalry scout from Baltimore who has returned from Baghdad, felt strains of anti-Semitism before coming home after a severe injury.
Kashnow, an Orthodox Jew who wore a kipah but usually hid it under his helmet, said that while most of the time his religion wasn't an issue, he did encounter problems.
As an American Jewish soldier in Baghdad, Kashnow said he learned better than to pursue one particular conversation with a local man.
"He said, 'Saddam wasn't so bad, at least he wasn't Jewish,'" recalled Kashnow, 25. "Not a person I wanted to continue having a chat with."
"It's certainly possible there are people" in Iraq "who would feel it was a 'two-mints-in-one' to get an American and a Jew," Kashnow told JTA.
But not everyone agrees.
Rabbi Mitchell Ackerson, an Orthodox rabbi and senior Jewish chaplain for Operation Iraqi Freedom, just returned to his native Maryland from Iraq after nearly one year there. Despite the killing of a Jewish civilian, he said he believed American soldiers remained the prime target for Iraqi insurgents.
While in Iraq, Ackerson never told Jewish soldiers to hide their identities, but neither did he counsel them to "flaunt" their Judaism.
"I'm not sure what happened with Berg, but my gut inclination is he was not killed because he was Jewish. Instead, it was, 'We captured an American, we're going to prove we're the tough guys and we're going to kill him.'"
Ackerson said that if Berg's murder was religiously motivated, his captors or the Al-Qaeda-linked group that claimed responsibility "would've highlighted it," just as they did with Pearl.
Kashnow says Berg's murder should only deepen American and Jewish faith in the war on terrorism. "Berg was fighting to rebuild the country and make it safe for freedom. It's still a tragedy," he said.
Kashnow is not alone.
Some Jewish organizational officials echoed Kashnow's view that Berg's murder, combined with the May 11 videotaped killing of six Israeli soldiers by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip - should deepen the commitment of Jews and other Americans to the war on terrorism.
"This is an evil force that has no moral compunction at all," said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Referring to the video showing an Iraqi holding Berg's severed head aloft and shouting, "Allahu akbar," or "God is great" - and footage of Palestinian militants proudly displaying an Israeli soldier's head and other body parts - Hoenlein said the two cases point to the same enemy.
"Their barbarism could not be more clear after today. On both fronts it's the same menace," he said.
JTA Washington bureau chief Ron Kampeas, JTA staff writer Matthew E. Berger in Washington and the Phil-adelphia Jewish Exponent contributed to this report.
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