Tuvia Grossman
Tuvia Grossman (Hebrew: טוביה גרוסמן) is an Israeli-American man who was erroneously identified as a Palestinian in the caption of a photograph that was published by the Associated Press (AP) during the Second Intifada.
It was marketed widely by the AP and featured in several Arab media and government outlets, in addition to mainstream American newspapers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Following the publishing, Grossman's father contacted The New York Times to correct his son's identity and reveal the true context of incident that was occurring when the photograph was taken.
An article was then published by the newspaper to explain that Grossman was actually a Jewish student, that the photograph was not taken at the Temple Mount, and that the Israeli police officer—later identified as Gidon Tzefadi (Arabic: جدعون تزيفادي), a Druze from Kisra-Sumei—was ordering the attacking Palestinian mob to stay back.
On the eve of Rosh Hashana in September 2000, Grossman, a Jewish student from Chicago who was enrolled at Yeshivas Bais Yisroel in the Israeli settlement of Neve Yaakov (a neighborhood of Jerusalem), hailed a taxi with two friends to visit the Western Wall.
[1] At the outset of the Second Intifada on 30 September 2000, the New York Times and other media outlets published an AP photo of a bloodied Grossman crouching beneath a club-wielding Israeli Border Police officer.
The doors were jerked open, they said, and they were dragged out by the mob and beaten.The article further noted the following:[6] The officer [shown above Grossman in picture], wielding a club and moving toward him protectively, ordered the Palestinians to back off.
[7] In April 2002, a District Court in Paris ordered the French daily newspaper Libération and the Associated Press to pay 4,500 Euros to Grossman in damages for misrepresenting him.
[8] "Newspapers across the country carried angry commentaries and letters by supporters of Israel brandishing the mislabeled photograph as palpable proof of their long-held suspicions.
In commentaries, the mislabeled photo was proof that pro-Palestinian "misreporting by the media has been rampant" (Albany Times-Union, 10/25/00), and that "Anti-Israel Bias Warps American Minds" (Providence Journal-Bulletin, 10/13/00).
he is the Director of Business Affairs at Tahal Water Energy Ltd.[citation needed] In 2010, ten years after the incident, Tuvia Grossman finally met the police officer who saved his life, learning that his name was Gidon Tzefadi.
