22 Friday, October 12, 1984 . . THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS This graffiti was scrawled on the Wiesenthal Center's walls, leading to a large rally at the Center that some Jewish organiza- tional officials called exploitive. Community Relations Council. The Center overreacted to the vandalism, he added, because "I think some organiza- tions stand to benefit in terms of their ability to raise funds, in terms of proving their necessity to exist." He said Rabbi Hier "played into the hands of our enemies by giving them a million dollars worth of free publicity." The classic Jewish establishment response to anti- Semites is to quarantine them when they want attention and spotlight them when they don't. Community relations officials say that most swastika-painting incidents are done by minors as a manifestation of imitative behavior; the more attention they are given the more times such in- cidents will occur. "The Wiesenthal Center people probably called the media before they called the police," said Wood. He added that while the Center has an expertise in pro- moting an understanding of the Holocaust era, "in terms of contemporary anti-Semitism they are amateurs." Another critic of the rally was Deborah Lipstadt, pro- fessor of Jewish studies at UCLA, who said that "mak- ing a big media hype"out of the graffiti incident was "not fighting anti-Semitism but only self-serving an institution." Responding to charges that he left the graffiti on the Center's walls for two weeks to attract media attention and ensure a large rally, Rabbi Hier said that the decision was Wiesenthal's. "He said for us to leave it up, to prove to the Jews of Beverly Hills, who might think that they are beyond hatred, that anti-Semitism is still alive." Rabbi her wondered if those who criticized the rally weren't guil- ty of "sour grapes" over the Center's highly visible reac- tion to vandalism. Wiesenthal himself later assailed the leaders of the organized Jewish community of Los Angeles for what he saw as their failure to respond forcefully to a rising number of anti-Semitic incidents. "The Jewish Federation of Los Angeles wanted to keep it quiet," he said of the graffiti incident. "This kind of response on the part of the Los Angeles Federation reminds me of the situation in Ger- many in the 1920s and 30s when the Nazis spit in our face, and the Jews would say, 'what a nice rain.'" SA New Wave of Anti-Semitism' Do we need another Jewish defense agency? Many community leaders and Jewish professionals around the country are concerned that the Wiesenthal Center appears to have evolved from what they thought it would be, a Holocaust-related research institution, in- to another Jewish defense agency, competing with — and, critics say, duplicating the work of — organizations like the Anti-Defamation League of Bnai Brith. A case in point is a widely circulated mass mailing that has been sent out to hundreds of thousands of American Jews over the last year, soliciting funds for the Wiesen- thal Center to launch a new Nazi-Watch Program. The six-page letter, under the signature of Wiesenthal Center counsel Martin Mendelsohn, claims that "a new wave of anti-Semitism is sweeping Europe" and it "is be- ing fueled by Americans who are supplying both leader- ship and materials to rebuild Nazism in Europe." The letter goes on to cite a number of specific anti- Semitic incidents in Europe and in the U.S., from synagogue bombings to "scholarly" articles purporting the Holocaust never happened. According to the letter, "the new surge of anti-Semitism here is connected to the rise of anti-Semitism abroad. And these are not just a series of isolated, random events. We have learned the rise of anti-Semitism is spear-headed by networks of neo-Nazis which reach all over the country. INDEED, ALL OVER THE WORLD!" Later, it states: "That same intense, U.S.-originated hatred that feeds these Nazi groups in Europe also sparks neo-Nazis in the United States. Hatred and anti-Semitism are shockingly on the rise here, being boldly scrawled across our entire nation, threatening all that we hold dear." Critics maintain that the letter is long on shock value but short on fact, that it links disparate events occurring over a period of several years and that were exposed at the time by existing national Jewish defense agencies. These critics say the letter deliberately exaggerates anti- Semitic activity. Specifically, some observers contend that the number and influence of neo-Nazi groups in the U.S. is quite small and that they often compete with each other rather than forming "networks of neo-Nazis," as the letter states. Fur- ther, these groups are neither "strong" nor "well financed" as they are described in the letter. The assertion that "hatred and anti-Semitism are shockingly on the rise" in the U.S., "threatening all we hold dear," is not based on any meaningful criteria, critics charge. And the phrase "scrawled across the nation," referring to anti-Semitism vandalism, goes against the statistical evidence compil- ed by national Jewish agencies which shows a steady decline over the last several years of such incidents — and only a handful of which have been proven to be the work of organized hate groups. Mot galling of all, though, to professionals at Jewish organizations is the "pitch" of the Wiesenthal Center let- ter, which calls for $250,000 to create a Nazi Watch Pro- gram. Mendelsohn, the former head of the U.S. Depart- ment of Justice unit investigating Nazi war criminals, writes that from his experience he has developed "unique and effective procedures for keeping records of worldwide Nazi activities." In his letter, he writes that the Nazi Watch Program would maintain files of all anti-Semitic literature published in America; learn the names and loca- tions of all neo-Nazis and anti-Semitic leaders in every state; keep careful records of their activities and expose them to the public. _ The Anti-Defamation League has been engaged in these activities for more than seven decades and their expertise in monitoring and combatting neo-Nazism and anti- Semitism is acknowledged around the world. Privately, Anti-Defamation League officials complain that the Wiesenthal Center is not only "re-inventing the wheel" at great cost to well-meaning American Jews but that its approach is to over-dramatize the facts about anti- Semitism in order to raise funds. "They are acting irrespon- sibly and the results — in terms of frightening people could be extremely dangerous," said an official of a Jewish research project. But publicly the ADL and other national Jewish agencies who are critical of the Wiesenthal Center's methods, are silent, saying that a public rift would be detrimental to the community as a whole. They are well aware of the fact that the Center is extremely popular among the vast majority of American Jews and that an attack on such an institution would appear to be motivated by jealousy and, perhaps even worse, an attempt to diminish the impact of an organization dealing with the Holocaust. Asked to respond to the criticism of the direct mail piece, Mendelsohn acknowledged that it was written by a public relations firm but he defended its tone and underlying message, noting that "neo-Nazis may not be a primary problem but they are an unmet problem." .