Remember
When • • •
From the pages of The Jewish News
for this week 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50
years ago.
1989
Anti-Semitism tally
rises; $500, 000 for the
Campaign; Knollenberg
on teaching hate.
For the third straight year, Michigan
reported an increase in anti-Semitism,
according to the Anti-Defamation
League's Audit of Anti-Semitic
Incidents.
The 57 incidents recorded in 1998
were 17 more than in 1997. Acts of
harassment, threat or assault jumped
from 33 to 45, and acts of vandalism
rose from seven to 12. Michigan had
the highest numbei- reported in the 14
Midwest region states.
"The increase in Michigan inci-
dents is due to better reporting and
the increased activity of hate groups,"
said Don Cohen, Michigan ADL
director.
Nationally, 42 states and
Washington, D.C. reported 1,611
anti-Semitic incidents — nearly half
of them vandalism cases. That was up
from 1,571 in 1997 and ended a run
of three straight years in which such
incidents declined.
The Allied Jewish Campaign's annual
Days of Decision phon-athon raised
more than $500,000 last week,
Was (Not Was), the rock band of
native Oak Parkers Don Fagenson
and David Weiss, has moved from
cult status to popular success. It
began in 1980 when music producer
Fagenson persuaded L.A. jazz critic
Weiss, son of actor Rube Weiss, to
return to Detroit and cut an album.
according to Campaign director Laura
Linder.
New gifts have been a major focus in
this year's Campaign, she said, and of
the 845 new gifts collected so far, the
majority came from the Days of
Decision event. So far, the Campaign
has generated $26.5 million of its
$29.6 million goal, Linder said.
When the West Bloomfield-based
Mothers Against Teaching Children
to Kill and Hate (MATCKH) visited
Washington and asked U.S. Rep. Joe
Knollenberg of Bloomfield Hills to
fight the Palestinian Authority's incite-
ment of children to be hostile toward
Jews and Israel, they were kicking on
an open door.
In a March 18 letter, the
Appropriations Committee member
urged President Clinton to raise the
))
"incitement as an obstacle to peace
issue with Yasser Arafat during the PA
chairman's visit to the Capitol this
week. "Most disturbing," Knollenberg
wrote, "is the anti-Israel brainwashing
of Palestinians at their most impres-
sionable — as children."
Citing the 1998 Palestinian media
broadcast of a "Sesame Street"-style
children's program that encouraged
youth to regain their land by violent
means, Knollenberg wrote:
"Palestinian textbooks still work to
further the indoctrination of a whole
generation to hate Western society
and Jews. Good-faith negotiations on
the part of the Israelis are simply
impossible when the PA regularly
defiles and depicts Jews in reprehensi-
ble ways.
He may be kicking on an open
door also. The Wye peace agreement
that Clinton brokered included specif-
ic steps to combat incitement through
educational curricula and TV pro-
gramming.
The hope, said MATCKH's Molly
Resnick, is that the U.S. will hold up
financial aid to the PA and its agencies
until they demonstrate "a sincere desire
to live in peace and co-existence with
Jews and Israelis in the State of Israel."
33
Marking 100 Years
Of Detroit Jewry
1979
In the wake of the Camp David
peace agreement, The Jewish News
editorially praised "Jimmy Carter,
the Peace-Maker," 'Anwar Sadat,
the Fearless Leader" and
"Menachem Begin, the Israeli
Patriot." Acknowledged for prevent-
ing a collapse of the talks behind
the scenes are Foreign Minister
Moshe Dayan and Ambassador to
the U.S. Ephraim Evron.
to w\
Southfield Mayor Norman Feder,
opposed to building a domed stadi-
um in his city, said, The psycho-
logical, economic and physical
damage resulting from the exodus
of Detroit's major athletic organiza-
tions may prove more costly to the
Southeast Michigan complex than
the immediate ... economic gains to
any one suburban area."
1959
As Hawaii becomes the 50th state,
an old speculation that Hawaiians
were the lost tribes of Israel is
recalled. Although island natives
practiced circumcision and the
Polynesian word for the God of
Love, Aloha, resembles the Hebrew
Elohim, a report to the American
Jewish Historical Association in
1903 called such evidence too slight.
1949
Classes for new Americans were held at the
12th Street Council Center in Detroit. In
this photo, circa 1947, a new American is
learning English.
Photo courtesy of the Leonard N. Simons Jewish Community
Archives/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit. If you have
information about this photograph. please call Heidi Christein,
Jewish community archivist, (248) 642-4260.
3/26
1999
26 Detroit Jewish News
In a stirring address at Temple Beth
El, Israeli U.N. representative Abba
Eban appealed for Jews to aid Israeli
immigrants — "the battered rem-
nants of disaster who are separated
from their final redemption by finan-
cial difficulty. If you shared in our
military glory, do not hesitate to
share in the pain of national rebirth."