THE JEWISH NEWS
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SERVING DETROIT'S JEWISH COMMUNITY
.
SEPTEMBER 15, 1989 / 15 ELUL 5749
Fresh Air Asks
Marriott For Help
KIMBERLY LIFTON
Staff Writer
The Fresh Air Society has
asked Marriott Corp. to
develop a marketing plan to
boost occupancy for the
Butzel Conference Center at
Camp Maas in Ortonville.
The parternership, pending
approval of the camp's ex-
ecutive committee, aims to in-
crease revenues by attracting
more small business and pro-
fessional groups during the
week to the conference center,
which is booked most
weekends throughout the
year and empty most of the
weekdays. Ninety percent of
its users are Jewish groups.
The executive committee,
authorized last week by the
camp's board of directors to
finalize an agreement with
Marriott, is expected to meet
with Marriott officials this
week.
Butzel would be marketed
to the Detroit area Jewish
community and to the
Detroit/Flint business com-
munity for weekday retreats
and educational conferences.
Sam Fisher, executive direc-
tor of the Fresh Air Society,
said the camp's main concern
is serving members of the
Jewish community, who get
priority bookings at Butzel.
Generally, he said, these
groups select weekends.
"We found that there are
not enough professional
groups using the conference
center during the week,"
Fisher said. "We are not mak-
ing ends meet. All we want to
do is break even. If we occupy
Butzel during the week, we
can do that."
lb date, conference center
bookings for the 1989-90
fiscal year generate $275,000
in revenue. Fisher said Fresh
Air Society needs $325,000 to
break even.
Continued on Page 22
ADL Defends
Screening GOP
WALTER RUBY
Special to The Jewish News
Washington — The Anti-
Defamation League of B'nai
B'rith may begin screening
Republican Party candidates
and appointees for possible
neo-Nazi or racist associa-
tions. Some national Jewish
leaders have questioned the
appropriateness of such an ar-
rangement, which has been
strongly defended by ADL
National Director Abraham
Foxman.
At the same time, Foxman
has denied that there was any
connection between the ten-
tative arrangement and a re-
cent ADL press release asser-
ting that this and other
Jewish publications have
misrepresented Republican
Party Chair Lee Atwater's
position on David Duke, a
Louisiana state legislator and
a former Imperial Wizard of
the Ku Klux Klan.
In a recent conversation,
Foxman confirmed that he
met with Atwater last week
and that the RNC chair
agreed to assign a staff
member to develop a
framework for cooperation
between the GOP and the
ADL.
"As you recall, there was a
problem last year with the
Heritage Council," said Fox-
man, referring to a
Republican presidential elec-
tion support group that was
found to include a number of
former Nazi sympathizers
among its members. "After it
was all over, we wrote letters
[to Republican officials] say-
ing it was in the interests of
the Jewish community and
American citizenry that they
develop some sort of process
by which they can screen this
— that they can check out
who has a [anti-Semitic]
background . . . "
According to Foxman,
Frank Farenkopf, Atwater's
predecessor as RNC chair-
man, thought the idea was a
good one.
"We are an organization
concerned with [finding out]
who are anti-Semites," Fox-
man said. "They are not .. .
That's what we are in
business for: to tell the people
who want to know who are
the anti-Semites and the
Nazis."
Continued on Page 22