In the April 19 edition of The New Yorker, Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones take a systematic, long-term look at how the attitudes of two German Jewish families, the Ochses and the Sulzbergers, are reflected in the pages of the paper they controlled, The New York Times. Ms. Tifft and Mr. Jones begin with Julius Ochsenhorn's arrival in America in 1845 and work up to Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.; he was confirmed at an Episcopal Church in Manhattan at the behest of his non-Jewish mother, who had divorced Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger. "At the time," the authors write, "Punch was discomfited about his children's being brought up as Christians, but not enough to ensure that they were brought up as Jews."

Ms. Tifft and Mr. Jones report on a 1969 trip that the younger Sulzberger made to Israel on which "a senior official of the Israeli government who suggested that, no matter what happened in the world, everyone around the table would always have a homeland in Israel. 'Excuse me, but I'm an Episcopalian! Is this still my country?' Arthur Jr. said loudly. Thirty years later, he continues to regard the Israeli's comment as racist."