NEW YORK
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Larry Cohler-Esses

The lede, as we call it in the journalism biz, sat there silently on the computer screen, like an IED waiting to explode:

“…or as he put it, ‘a schvartze,’” it said at the end.

The phrase reported accurately the word Rabbi Hershel Schachter used to describe the reason he resisted the idea of rabbis reporting cases of child sexual abuse within the Jewish community to the police. It was not, he said, that reporting such cases — after some rabbis judge them genuine — violated Talmudic strictures against turning a Jew over to secular authorities. But even if the accused Jew is guilty, said Schachter, he could end up in jail with a black man — “a schvartze.”

Forward staff reporter Paul Berger and I knew what kind of outrage would ensue once Forward web editor Dave Goldiner pressed…