96
Friday, September 14, 1984 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Richard Lobenthal
reflects on his 20
years as Michigan
director of the
Anti-Defamation
League.
ichard Lobenthal's trophy room
would make any big game hunter
proud. On the wall, there's a Nazi flag,
and next to it, the robe of a Ku Klux
Klansman. Inside a glass display case
is a metal sign reading "Gentiles
Only" which once disgraced the regis-
tration desk of a Miami Beach hotel.
Nearby is a crudely-drawn anti-
Semitic postcard; then a photograph of
the infamous "Burn Jews, Not Oil"
sign — a relic of the 1973 Arab oil
embargo; and a copy of the Protocols of
the Elders of Zion. But to Lobenthal,
Michigan director of the Anti-
Defamation League of B'nai B'rith,
these pieces of hate are far more than
mere conversation items.
It's been said that every object
tells a story, and in his 20 years as the
ADL's man on the Detroit scene, Lo-
benthal has heard them all. Now
celebrating his 25th year with the
ADL, Lobenthal has been in the foref-
ront of the fight against a veritable
Who's Who in American Bigotry. For
many of us, organizations such as
Breakthrough and the John Birch
Society, and individuals like the
KKK's Robert Miles, American Nazis
Bill Russell and George Lincoln
Rockwell, Donald Lobsinger and
Thomas Poindexter may be names
from the past. However, to Lobenthal,
they evoke two decades of less-than-
fond memories.
Indeed, when Lobenthal first
came to Detroit in November 1964,
fresh from stints in Texas and Vir-
ginia, it was George Lincoln Rockwell
that was on everyone's mind. Rockwell
(fuhrer of the American Nazi Party),
was going to speak at the University of
Michigan and Lobenthal remembers
that the first concern expressed to him
was whether Rockwell would actually
appear in Ann Arbor, and what should
the Jewish community response be.
The second concern," adds Lobenthal,
was whether there would be more
police on hand. There was great inse-
curity as to what someone like
Rockwell could achieve. What would
be his impact on the student popula-
tion? What does this say about the
community where Rockwell was in-
vited to speak and were tax dollars'
.
"7. ■
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•
'
ACING THE
TEMONGE
BY ALAN ABRAMS
Special to The Jewish News
being used for this purpose?
"I was there that night. I was the
only one there (from the Jewish com-
munity). It was seen as an appropriate
role for ADL. But today, the Nazis
aren't nearly as charismatic. There
isn't a single person who is the
spokesman for the American Nazis
like Rockwell was. If you think about
'64.and then look at 1984, if there were
to be a Nazi rally on say 15 Mile Road
and Woodward, what would be the
Jewish community's response?"
Lobenthal answers his own ques-
tion. It would be an entirely different
thing. There wouldn't be mobiliza-
tions. There wouldn't be meetings.
There wouldn't be the whole question
of 'what do we do?' It would be some-
body saying 'call the police' and some-
one else asking is anyone going to
watch those idiots?' Yet another per-
son would be saying 'don't ask me be-
cause I have better things to do on that
day' and even who the hell cares?' It
would be that kind of a thing."
Could this be because the menace
of the American Nazis has been
downplayed? The cycle has gone from
witnessing the intimidating rhetoric
of Rockwell to seeing our home-grown
Hitlers portrayed as comic heavies and
racist buffoons in movies like The
Blues Brothers." Lobenthal thinks it is
necessary to maintain a level of ten-
sion between the two extreme depic-
tions. He does not see the American
Nazis as being "something which is
threatening the well-being of the
Jewish community" much less "demo-
cratic society of the American con-
stitutional republic. They don't repre-
sent that kind of a threat. Therefore
we need to be a little prudent in the
kind of responses we make.
"But on the other hand, we can't
dismiss this thing. We need to under-
stand these people as a reminder that
there is a hate group in America, there
are people who think this way. And
that while the Nazis may be the most
outrageous, if not the most ludicrous,
fringe of the hate movement, they are
at least symbolic. There is this sector
of society, whether they call them-
selves Nazis or Klan members or the
Identity Church or one of a hundred
other names which exist, and they
range from cranking out pamphlets to
standing in front of a synagogue and
killing people as they come out.
"The tension between a dismissal
and a reaction that is perhaps stronger
than necessary, and the likelihood
that there is never going to be a resolu-
tion of the tension between these two
positions, is probably what helps keep
the Jewish community healthy."
But can't this lack of a definite
stand be interpreted as complacency?
Do Jews tend to dismiss Robert Miles
and the KKK and the American Labor
Party of Lydon LaRouche as not being
real menaces?
Lobenthal maintains that "one of
the roles of an ADL perhaps more than
any other Jewish communal institu-
tion is to address the search for what is
a resonable line between constantly
reminding and alerting the commu-
nity — both Jewish and non-Jewish —
that these groups are out there, and
what their potential is, and the other
side, which is to stay with the analogy
of prudent response and confront com-
placency. It is dangerous to hold the
premise that these groups are not
really a big issue, because irrespective
of whether they are or not, they repre-
sent a sector in our society that is al-
ways with us and always searching to
realize its potential — which is un-
known."
Does Lobenthal believe that the
media helps in identifying these hate
groups? Lobenthal says, "Let's divide
the media into two cateories. First,
there's the media which exploits for
sensationalistic purposes. Radio Sta-
tion WXYZ is an illustration of the
most opportunistic of the Detroit area
media. For example, last week they
put on Tony Alamo, who is a profes-
sional anti-Catholic, for the third
time. It wasn't that they put him on
once and their defense was we wanted
to alert the public that this kind of
kook exists out there.' It wasn't that
they put him on the air twice. They put
him on three times because it was good
for business that they could be out-
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