Middle East

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Write On

Jaivst Mance .eending,

Pro-Israel letter-writing workshop
yields quick results.

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The Full Service Mortgage Lender
Perfect or Less than perfect Credit

L

ocal Israel activists attend-
ing a StandWithUs-Michigan
media response workshop last
week didn't take long to parlay their
newly acquired letter-writing skills
into effective advocacy. Some had let-
ters published in the Detroit News
and Detroit Free Press.
In the week following the Sept.
10 workshops led by CAMERA
(Committee on Accuracy in Middle
East Reporting in America), more
than a dozen letters generated from
the workshop were published in the
News and Free Press. Lee Green,
the founding director of CAMERA's
national letter-writing campaign, pro-
vided participants both the concrete
techniques and encouragement to
effectively respond to anti-Israel bias
in the print and broadcast media.
"The workshop gave us real tools to
help us get our message out. We saw
instant results. It was very well worth
our time to attend this workshop,"
said Mike LeFavour of Livonia, whose
letter was among those submitted and
published. "The presenter was very
focused and she knew exactly what
she wanted to teach us and was so
dedicated to the mission?'
CAMERA works to promote more
accurate, balanced and complete
coverage of the Middle East. Based in
Boston, it monitors and aggressively
responds to distorted news accounts
about Israel and holds news organi-
zations accountable for setting the
record straight. CAMERA also moni-
tors campus newspapers and anti-
Israel activity.
In addition to sharing specific tech-
niques to effectively frame arguments,
Green emphasized that it only takes a
little bit of time to make a big impact
and that, as in all endeavors, profi-
ciency increases with practice.
"The level of fairness and account-
ability of a nation's press is directly
related to how involved the public
and media watchdogs are on insisting
upon fair and factual reporting" Green
said. "Please keep this in mind when-
ever you are pondering whether you
should spend a half hour to promote
fair reporting about Israel to your local
editor or to a national commentator?'

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J oin Us For The High Holidays

) at The Birmingham Temple

Share the Jewish New Year
with Us!

A High Holiday Experience
That Is Meaningful and
Inspiring.

The Birmingham Temple:
A Congregation for
Humanistic Judaism

28611 West Twelve Mile Road
Farmington Hills MI 48334
Phone: 248- 477- 1410
Fax: 248- 477- 9014
Email: info@birminghamtemple.org
www.birminghamtemple.org

Memorial Garden Service

Sunday, September 24 th 1:00 PM

Yom Kippur Evening Service

Sunday, October 1" 8:00 PM

Rosh Hashana Evening Service

Friday, September 22'

PM

Yom Kippur Morning Service

Monday, October 2' 10:30 AM

Rosh Hashana Morning Service

Yom Kippur Family Service

Saturday, September 23' 10:30 AM

Monday, October 2"d 2:00 PM

Rosh Hashana Youth Service

Yom Kippur Memorial Service

Saturday, September 23' 2:00 PM

Monday, October 2' 4:30 PM

1157670

22

September 21 . 2006

"No doubt about it — the work-
shops were a tremendous success,"
said StandWithUs media coordinator
Ed Kohl. "Both veteran and novice let-
ter-writers came away from the semi-
nars equipped with proven techniques
to draft cogent and concise letters to
positively impact the dialogue on the
editorial pages of local and national
newspapers and broadcast outlets?'
The workshops were underwritten
by the Benard L. Maas Foundation.
StandWithUs-Michigan, launched
eight months ago as the local chapter
of the international, interfaith Israel
education and advocacy organization,
has developed a team of letter writers
who regularly weigh in to challenge
errors of fact, omission and context
that skew Middle East reporting in
our local media. E

For information on how to join
this effort and to obtain addi-
tional resources to improve
your media outreach, contact
StandWithUs-Michigan at (248)
432-1384 or e-mail
swumichigan@standwithus.com .

Answering

Israel's Critics

The Charge:

A University of Michigan-
Dearborn professor is offering a
class this semester that describes
the Palestinians as a "conquered
people?'

The Answer:

Far from being conquered, over the
past seven decades, the Palestinians
have rejected numerous opportuni-
ties to establish an independent
nation-state alongside a Jewish one
— including Britain's Peel Commis-
sion proposal in 1937, the United
Nations partition plan in 1947 and
the Camp David and Taba negotia-
tions in 2000-2001.
— Allan Gale, Jewish Commu-
nity Council of Metropolitan
Detroit