K. Toure Or Stokley Carmichael:
His Venom Is The Same

JENNIFER FINER SPECIAL TO THE JEW SH NEWS

t was supposed to be
about Malcolm X and
the empowerment of
/- blacks, but Kwame
Toure, formerly Stokley
Carmichael, wasted no
time attacking Zionists
during a speech he gave
) Feb. 18 at Michigan State
\, University.
' Within the first few
minutes of his speech, Mr.
) Toure's comments in-
I' eluded statements like,
"Zionists are slimy pigs."
He also said that when
Jews faced discrimination
I in Miami they "got to-
gether and bought
? Miami."
"I told (Louis Farra-
\ / k.han, leader of the Nation
I, of Islam), that the Demo-
'-' cratic Party is controlled
by Zionists. When they
say jump, the Democratic
, Party says, 'how high?' "
1 he said.
Mr. Toure also said
Africans created Judaism.
"Jews were the first
monotheistic religion;
Africans were the first
monotheists. Therefore,
Africans were the first
Jews," he said.
Mr. Toure, whose MSU
visit was sponsored by the
university-funded Black
History Committee, is a
leader of the All-African
People's Revolutionary
Party and a member of
the Afrikan Anti-Zionist
Front, an alliance created
in Libya in 1990.
"What scared me the
most was how the African-
American students blindly
reacted to whatever Toure
claimed," said P.J. Cher-
rin, a steering committee
member of the newly
formed Jewish Student
Union at MSU. "The audi-
ence did not question any-
thing he said. They came
in the room without any
doubt in their minds. You
have to question the credi-
bility of the speaker and
then pick and choose what
',Du want to accept as
ruth.
,"The whole thing was
t up like a Nazi rally in
sense that the audi-

ence blindly applauded
and laughed along with
whatever he said," Mr.
Cherrin added.
"The main thrust of his
lecture focused on the
legacy of Malcolm X, and I
felt, within that context,
he did an admirable job,"

Kwame Toure:
"Zionists are slimy pigs."

said Curtis Stokes, Black
History Month committee
chair and a professor at
the MSU James Madison
College. "Some individu-
als in the Jewish commu-
nity thought his remarks
were anti-Semitic. There's
confusion between anti-
Zionism and anti-
Semitism. The two are not
necessarily the same."
In response to Mr.
Toure's campus appear-
ance, Mark Finkelstein,
Hillel director at MSU,
said different strategies
will be looked at to make
MSU a more responsible
university.
"We have to examine
the academic standpoint,
(which is) how the univer-
sity deals with academic
distortions. The secondary
issue here is how Zionism
is treated in academia. In
most cases it is either
anti-Zionism or non-
Zionism," he said. "The
second issue is the impact
this has on Jewish stu-
dents, and the third issue
is the impact on reinforc-
ing negative imagery of
Jews within the African-
American student body."

"We are also interested
in how the administration
deals with these types of
problems," he said.
Dr. Finkelstein and rep-
resentatives from the
Jewish Student Union
and the Jewish Faculty
and Staff Association are
scheduled to meet with
university administrators
soon.
"We are going to talk
about our expectations,
present them with the evi-
dence and have them
interpret it and see if they
can define what anti-
Semitism is. Then we will
help them draw conclu-
sions."
William Rosenthal,
president of the Jewish
Faculty and Staff Asso-
ciation at MSU, said, "The
members of the executive
board who attended
Toure's talk were sad-
dened to find that some-
one who had once aspired
to leadership in the black
community had, in a
speech purportedly on the
topic of Malcolm X, little
to offer but a canned set of
remarks blaming Zionists,
Israel and the Jews for
most of their ills.
"I can only imagine that
the members of the black
history committee had no
idea that Mr. Toure has
but one speech which,
apparently, he gives re-
gardless of the announced
topic."
"Were it not for our his-
tory, one could not take
such a person seriously.
As it is, Jews should be
aware that Mr. Toure has
listeners within the
African-American commu-
nity, particularly among
the young."
Mr. Toure has a track
record of attacking Zion-
ists. In February 1991, at
Colgate, he said Jews
were not "a people" and
that Zionism was "satan-
ic." At Amherst, he re-
ferred to Saddam Hussein
as his "comrade," and at
Tufts he implied that
Jews manipulated the
Gulf War. 0

50 YEARS AGO...

World-Wide Pleas
Urge Jewish Rescue

SY MANELLO SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

"Stop Hitler Now"
rally was held in
Madison Square
Garden in New
York. The event attracted
21,000 who were in the
Garden and another
15,000 who crowded the
streets to hear the ad-
dresses. Dr. Chaim Weiz-
mann spoke; talks via
radio were heard from
Gov. Dewey in Albany
and Supreme Court
Justice William O. Doug-
las and Sen. Robert
Wagner from Washing-
ton, D.C.
An assembly of 3,000
met in Mecca Temple,
N.Y., to protest atroci-
ties; refugee children
gave accounts of their
sufferings. The Jewish
Council for Russian War
Relief undertook a $1
million campaign. An
audience of 3,500 filled
the Cass High School
auditorium and adopted
resolutions calling for
retribution for mas-
sacres, gathering of guilt
against Germany, setting
up haven for the home-
less, abolishment of
restrictions of Jewish
immigration to Palestine.
Looking back 20
years, there were two
items of note. Spain
offered a new home in
the name of the Spanish
nation to Professor
Albert Einstein as he
completed a series of lec-
tures there; Professor
Cuza, a fanatical anti-
Semite, was barred from
entering the race for the
Bucharest Parliament
since the government felt
that his presence would
aggravate the Jewish
problem.
Do you remember vic-
tory gardens? Well,
plans were being made
for them as spring ap-
proached the Detroit
community. Bernard
Youngblood, register of
deeds, instituted a new
service for victory gar-
deners which supplied
information of owners of
vacant lots in neighbor-
hoods. Mr. and Mrs. Vin-
cent Unte of Tireman
Ave. were the first prop-
erty owners in Wayne
County to call and offer

land.
There was a move-
ment toward stronger
observance made by the
Women's League for
Sabbath Observance.
They adopted a resolu-
tion completely favoring
the closing of Jewish-
owned food stores on
Saturdays.
There is always some-
one who does not see
that a hobby makes for a
well-rounded individual.
Let him consider the
example set by Cadet
Robert Brasch who was
using his hobby of mak-
ing model airplanes to
scale to teach cadets
identification of combat
plane types.
The entertainment
scene was as diverse as
usual.
The Student
Prince was appearing at
the Cass Theater as part
of a transcontinental
tour. "Yiddish Swing"
was heard weekly over
Hyman Altman's Jewish
Radio Hour; the Barry
Sisters were featured
singers. Two Yiddish
talkies were at Littman's
People's Theater: The
Jolly Paupers and Liv-
ing Orphans.
We hope that one
small item did not go
unnoticed; relatives
were trying to find the
whereabouts of Norman
Katcher who case from
Pennsylvania and ran a
dry goods store on
Gratiot.
There were some

changes in positions held

in the area. Grace Edel-
man was appointed to
replace Faye Portner as
staff worker at the

Downtown USO Club.
Sylvia Marrich was

appointed membership
secretary at the Jewish
Community Center.
The society pages con-
tinued to record achieve-
ments and love in bloom.
Bar mitzvahs were cele-
brated by Alvin B.
Rottman and Jack Gold-
stein. Engagements were
noted for Sophie Shuger-
man and Irving Aus-
lander, Frances Sarko
and Sol Adler, Natalie
Sumner and Louis
Miller. ❑