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Technical row

Anti-Semitic insults ruin game for Hillel basketball team.

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DIANA LIEBERMAN

Copy Editor

middle school girls basketball game disinte-
grated into shoving, name-calling and anti-
Semitic epithets on Thursday, Nov. 15.
Administration and staff members at
Hillel Day School of Metropolitan Detroit and
Conner Creek West met the following Monday to
discuss the episode, which took place at the Warren-
based public school academy. Representatives of
both schools said the situation had escalated because
of what they described as poor officiating.
Nearly all the Conner Creek team members are black.
Players and adults from the academy allegedly hurled
and-Semitic slurs toward the visitors from Hillel.
Hillel's teams won both the junior varsity and var-
sity games. But it was an empty victory. Rocks were
thrown at the team bus as it left, said Hillel
spokesperson Marianne Bloomberg.
Hillel students were in tears when they returned
to the campus of their Farmington Hills day school,
reported one parent. Another longtime member of
the Hillel community said he was unhappy but not
surprised at the incident. "We're all adults," he said.
"We all know this kind of thing goes on."

Bloomberg said the fact that the two administra-
tions met speaks well for them both. "It was agreed
that games in the future will be played in a sports-
manlike manner," she said.
Students must maintain good grades and citizen-
ship to play on any Hillel team, Bloomberg said,
and, for the past five years, the school has been rec-
ognized by the Michigan High School Athletic
Association for being in good standing in the areas
of good sportsmanship and athletics.
She emphasized that Hillel team members had
been escorted by parents and coaches both to and
from the Warren school.
No plans have been made to eliminate any future
games from the Hillel schedule, she said. "We are
committed to our sports program 100 percent, and
that includes away games."
Nina Kuhn, Conner Creek's interim director, said sev-
eral other activities scheduled for that night had attracted
more adults than usual to the game. "Some of the adults
involved were not even parents of teens," she said.
Both Kuhn and Bloomberg, neither of whom were
at the game, said the coaches reported that referees had
ignored apparent fouls and seemed in a hurry to leave.
Quoting Hillel athletic director Alita Cyrlin,
Bloomberg said, "If the officiating is falling below

Screaming For Ice Cream

Nine-year-old convinces township to allow ice cream trucks.

SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN

Staff Writer

bile watching his 6-year-old brother
Jeremy play T-ball in Farmington
Hills, Josh Lipshaw saw something
11117 he'd only seen once in his nine years.
He was awed by the sight and sound of an ice
cream truck. After asking his parents Suzanne and
Marc why no one brought a refrigerated truck full of
ice cream to his street, he was told that in West
Bloomfield Township, where the Lipshaws live, an
ordinance prohibited it.
Not standing for that, Josh asked his mom to call
the township office for details.
"Margie Fiszman-Kirsch, deputy supervisor, told
us that a 1954 peddlers and solicitors ordinance did
not allow the ice cream sales within the township,"
says Suzanne Lipshaw.
Josh then wrote a letter to'the township board,
asking them to change the law. He was granted the
opportunity to present an informal petition, gather-
ing signatures from family, neighbors and from his
Pleasant Lake Elementary School classmates.
Josh was later invited to present his complaint at
an Oct. 1 township board meeting. He also attended

11/23
2001

12

the No 5 meeting, where he
received word that a tentative
ordinance had been passed,
allowing the trucks to roll
throughout the township.
"But, it said, the trucks could
not use bells, music or chimes,"
his mom says. "Josh looked at
me and said, 'That's no fun.'"
Dana Lowenstein of West
Josh Lipshaw
Bloomfield, a friend of the
Lipshaws, stood up at the Nov. 5
meeting to say it was a safety issue for the kids to be
able to hear the trucks coming.
Then Josh spoke once again, reinforcing the
importance of the bells. "There was also a Cub
Scout troop at the meeting, working on citizen
badges," Suzanne Lipshaw says. "They joined right
in and so did Josh's brother Jeremy." Josh also had a
group of friends with him at each meeting, taking a
lesson in law and persistence.
Josh was ecstatic with the Nov. 19 adoption of the
new "Ordinance to regulate frozen confection ven-
dors," passed by a unanimous vote of the seven
board members.
He was even more pleased when he was informed

Hillel's standard of sportsmanship, conduct and
ethics, then she believes the coaches have it in their
power to call the game."
"My understanding is the two administrations are
taking the incident very seriously," said Robert
Orley, Hillel president. "I've also been told the
[Conner Creek] parents were worse than the kids."
The day after the incident, Kuhn said she spoke to
the Conner Creek team members about their behav-
ior. "Quite honestly," Kuhn said, "the kids that play
basketball are from the inner city and a lot of them
don't know what Jews are. I told the girls the word
like' was unacceptable, and one of them said, 'Did
they call us that?'"
Conner Creek holds once-a-month diversity train-
ing sessions for its students, Kuhn said, and a large
number of its teachers are Jewish, including Assistant
Principal Sheila Charlip, who taught at Hillel for 37
years. She moved to Conner Creek two years ago.
Kuhn, who is not Jewish, said there had been pushing
and shoving on both sides. A number of her school's
players had received suspensions for future games, she
said, and she understood from Monday's meeting that a
Hillel player was also given a game suspension. On
Tuesday, Bloomberg said Hillel had made an extensive
review of the situation and "there is no punishment of
consequence coming to any member of the team."
Kuhn said there is no excuse for the behavior of
either the adults or the players at her K-8 school.
"The best lesson they can learn from this," she
said, "is that they can agree to disagree, but do so in
a manner that is appropriate." ❑

the ordinance included permission for drivers to
turn on the bells and chimes.
The ordinance included the hours the trucks may
operate and an order for the police department to
provide a safety report.
"From one little question, 'How come there are no
ice cream trucks in West Bloomfield?' came a lot of
excitement," says Josh, who has received calls from
NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and ABC's
Good Morning America and London and Australian
radio programs. Stories about Josh have graced the
pages of newspapers and Web sites in American and
Canadian cities and have even run in Spanish-lan-
guage papers.
Josh's mom, who has been videotaping the cable-
run township meetings and chronicling the progress
in a scrapbook, plans to take Josh's venture one step
further. With the help of a West Bloomfield Police
Department liaison officer, she says, "I plan to speak
with schools about holding safety programs in the
spring. For many parents, this brings back memo-
ries, but for the kids this is brand new and there are
important safety concerns to address." .❑

Correction

The "Help for Aging" story in Active Living,
Nov. 16, page 107, contained incorrect tele-
phone numbers for Jewish Family Service. The
Southfield office is (248) 559 1500; the West
Bloomfield office is (248) 737-5055.

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