Lessons In Mate
An
Anti-Defamation
League group
rouse; students
on the issue
of prejudice.
T
hree strangers walk into a
classroom of seventh and
eighth graders at Ferndale's
Coolidge Middle School.
They pick a group of children, take
them from the room and inform them
they no longer have summer vacation
and they must take more exams than
other students — because of what they
are wearing.
The young students just got a quick
lesson in prejudice and discrimination,
courtesy of Quinn Wright, Stephanie -
Citron and Joel Kirsch, members of the
Anti-Defamation League's Dream Dia-
logue.
Dream Dialogue is a five-year-old
group of Jewish and African-American
high school students that work towards
eliminating racism and bigotry. They
stopped at the Ferndale school with the
intention of recruiting students.
"The ice breaker got their attention,"
said Wright, a Ferndale High School
African-American student who joined
Dream Dialogue after recruiters visited
Coolidge while he was a student there.'
"We want them to believe we are seri-
ous.
Citron, who is a sophomore at
Southfield-Lathrup High, Kirsch, a
junior at Berkley High, and Wright per-
formed skits for two classes about dis-
crimination. They used the "clothes"
encounter and an interracial dating skit
to make their points. For the latter,
Kirsch confronted Citron and told her
Adat Shalom is hit with
anti-Israel graffiti.
JULIE EDGAR
News Editor
April Evelyn protests the discriminatory "new rules."
LONNY GOLDSMITH
Staff Writer
Synagogue
Defaced
he didn't approve of her dating Wright
because he's black
"I like to see [the students] turned on
to an issue they may not have grappled
with and pay attention," said Birming-
ham attorney and Dream Dialogue Pro-
gram Director Michael Serling. "They
get the lessons better from high school
students and it makes an impact."
According to Coolidge teacher San-
dra Stabnick, this is the best lesson the
students can learn. "It teaches the stu-
dents to be kind to each other and get
to know each person for who they are,"
she said. "Every class has been interested
in this."
This is the fifth year Dream Dialogue
participants have come to Coolidge.
They also visited Roosevelt Middle
School in Oak Park this year.
❑
LaVez Williams listens to the Dream
Dialogue participants.
In a skit, Joel Kirsch, at back, is distraught after being mocked by Quinn Wright
and Stephanie Citron.
group or a perhaps just a
few individuals with anar-
chist and anti-Zionist lean-
ings spray-painted their slo-
gans on two flanks of Adat Shalom
Synagogue early last week.
Police are investigating the incident.
"We're actively working the case and
trying to identify the person or persons
who are responsible," said Farmington
Hills Police Chief-William Dwyer. "It's
the first time that synagogue has had
any type of graffiti or anti-Semitic-type
reports that I can recall. At this point,
we don't have any suspects. It could
have been a random act, an isolated
incident."
A synagogue maintenance employee
discovered the graffiti upon arriving at
work at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, June 2.
Police found business cards in shrub-
bery near the areas hit, but they may
not have belonged to the perpetrators,
Dwyer said.
Don Cohen of the Anti-Defamation
League inspected the markings, which
were near the entrances on the east and
west sides of the building. He described
them as anarchist and anti-Israel.
"There were no hate symbols, no
swastikas. Everything was 'No Zionists'
or the word 'Zionists' with a slash
through it. It doesn't look like any of
the stuff we would regularly see," said
Cohen. "Usually you see a focus on
Israel but something clearly anti-Jew-
ish. It's not as blatantly anti-Semitic
with Nazi overtones like the past [inci-
dent] at Adat Shalom."
That incident took place about 8 to
10 years ago, Cohen said.
In the wake of the latest defacing,
Cohen sent notices to area synagogues
explaining what happened and alerting
them to review their security procedures.
Alan Yost, executive director of Adat
Shalom, said the graffiti, executed in
black spray paint, was removed with a
high-pressure water hose. Congregants
were not informed of the incident, he
said, noting that the synagogue views it
as isolated.
"It's done, it's gone, it's over with,"
he said.
❑