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By Aiden Pink February 26, 2018

In an article about the aftermath of the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, the Associated Press wrote that Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel had described visiting the families of the victims.

“I’ve been to their homes where they sit and shiver,” the AP quoted him as saying.

But what Israel actually said was “I’ve been to their homes where they’re sitting shiva.”

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The AP issued a correction four days later.

This is not the first time that the secular media has gotten confused about the concept of sitting shiva, a seven-day mourning period. In 2015, The New York Times had to issue a correction after confusing a shiva call with sitting shiva itself. The Times also had to correct another part of the article: “Also, an earlier version of this article and its accompanying headline incorrectly compared JSwipe users to yentas. Yentas are busybodies, not matchmakers.”

Of course, no news organization is immune from errors — not even the Forward. This correction, from a 2013 article, is probably best read without context: “The Forward previously reported that [former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael] Oren reached for the ham, which misrepresented what Leibovich wrote in his book. Leibovich’s account never insinuated that Oren ate the ham. The Forward regrets the error.”

Contact Aiden Pink at pink@forward.com or on Twitter, @aidenpink

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