Metro

Women Spur

AlT ON

Incorrect Middle East map removed from Migun stores nationwide.

Beverly Apel

Don Cohen

Special to the Jewish News

A

fter months of effort by two West
Bloomfield women, a local store
selling thermal acupuncture beds
has replaced a promotional poster listing
its centers that portrayed "Palestine"
among nations in the Middle East and also
has published an apology to the Detroit
Jewish community.
MigunUSA, the North American branch
of a Korean company with centers
throughout the world, has removed the
inaccurate poster from its center in the
strip mall at Orchard Lake and Powers
roads in West Bloomfield.
The controversy began in June when
Beverly Apel stopped in at the West
Bloomfield Migun (pronounced Meeg-in,
meaning "health and beauty" in Korean)
center where walk-ins are invited to try
their product free for 90 days. While look-
ing through display materials, Apel noticed
a map of center locations that depicted
Palestine as a Middle East country, along-
side Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and

TN

November 3 . 2005

Andrea Gonik

Saudi Arabia. When the map was printed, a
Migun center existed in the West Bank, but
has been closed for years. Migun does not
have a center in Israel; and, therefore,
Israel was not shown on the map..
When Apel expressed her concern-to
staff that Palestine might have been used
in place of Israel and that Palestine was
not a country, she said the response was
unsatisfactory. So she took her concern to
a number of Jewish organizations.
Apel says the Zionist Organization of
America (ZOA) told her nothing could be
done and the Michigan office of the Anti-
Defamation League (ADL) told her that, as
a private business, Migun could do as they
pleased.
Nonetheless, on Aug. 11, Sharone Senk,
Michigan ADEs assistant director, sent a
"To whom it may concern" letter to
Migun's North American office in Los
Angeles and later followed up by phone
without any concrete results. In fact,
Migun's national marketing coordinator,
Robert Lennon, says he has no record of
any communication with ADL. This does-
n't surprise Apel, who says she never got

Tam McKinney

any response to her repeated e-mails to the
L.A. headquarters of Migul.
But while what happened at the national
office is unclear, what is clear is that the
local action has had a national impact.

Misunderstanding

"I wish I had understood what Beverly
[Ape]] had said originally and not had my
own history get in the way:' said Tara
McKinney, the West Bloomfield Migun
center's co-owner and general manager,
who spoke with Apel during that first visit.
"I was afraid I was being told we had to be
anti-Palestinian in order to do business in
a Jewish area!'
McKinney is proudly Irish. "I believe
Britain should get out of Ireland, and I
oppose British colonialism:' says
McKinney.
She believes that both the Jewish people
and the Palestinian people have a right to a
homeland in the Middle East.

Action on page 30

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