M etro Detroit Incidents Up But the ADL audit reports national anti-Semitic events are down. Keri Guten Cohen Story Development Editor Audit of Anti Semitic Incidents, 1986 2006 (National) 2200 A 2000 all Alklkil 1. Al 1800 1600 c 1400 r, cif 1200 1000 800 z 600 A A 1111 Alan.' Alia AIM 11111rAIIMIIII. \ ' lthou anti-Semitic incidents against Jewish individuals, synagogues and community institutions in the United States declined for the second consecutive year in 2006, according to new Anti-Defamation League (ADL) statistics, the rate in Metro Detroit was "way up:' "Our numbers increased from 9 to 14," said Betsy Kellman, director of ADL's Michigan Region. "Even these numbers are lopsided because they don't represent dis- crimination complaints that come in. Only 14 incidents may sound not so bad, but we get 50 to 60 discrimination complaints a year that are not reflected in this number." The national ADL's annual Audit of Anti Semitic Incidents, issued March 14, counted a total of 1,554 anti-Semitic incidents across the United States in 2006, representing a 12 percent decline from 1,757 reported in 2005. An "incident" is limited to vandalism, such as property damage, cemetery desecration or anti- Semitic graffiti, and harassment, including violent acts of anti-Semitism, and physical or verbal assaults directed at individuals and institutions. Still, discrimination complaints can be quite serious. Kellman says her office is currently dealing with complaints regard- ing teachers in a Huntington Woods elementary school, among faculty at Michigan State University and between undergraduate students at Wayne State University. "These are not incidents and don't show up in the audit, but they show the pattern and behavior going on in the community:' she said. She explains that Detroit is an unusual confluence of factors unlike any city in the country. "We have the country's larg- est Arab population and a large African- American community; we're very segre- gated and our economy is bad',' she said. "We have unique problems no one else has to deal with:" She recently attended an ADL regional directors meeting in New York, where directors from Texas, Los Angeles and Miami were dealing with immigration problems. She found what her office is handling in Metro Detroit is very different from any other region. - - 400 MI lilrd 200 0 o IJA (7% ET, cAch a, a,a,a‘ 0, ‘I) cr‘ m a , CO CO CO CO ON cA - U moN0,00000 o. 0, 0 0 0 0 0 0 MI"C ■ iC\INNN Year *Total Incidents *Harassments, Threats, Assaults •Vandalism Reported Incidents of Anti-Semitism In Michigan 1999-2006 40 an escalation of rhetoric between the two communities. It frightens me. I wish we would tone down on both sides." 30 As examples, she cited recent speeches 25 by local imams Mohammad Ali Elahi and 20 Sayid Hassan al-Qaswini as being very 15 anti-Israel; and last week's ZOA-sponsored 10 .--•-• talk by Dr. Tawfik Hamid, a former mem- 5 0 ber of an Egyptian Islamist group, as being very anti-Muslim. ADL was listed as a sup- J porting organization for Hamid's talk. Year She delined comment on this particular program, but said, `ADL is in a funny posi- One significant factor is Michigan's tion in Detroit. Our allegiance is to the "horrendous economy:' Kellman said. "We suspect things will get worse this year, with Jewish community but, as a civil rights organization, our doors are open to all who increased activity from the Ku Klux Klan face discrimination. and the National Socialist "There are no wars or Movement [neo-Nazis]. Most incursions now [for Israel]," of the people belonging to Kellman said. "I'm hoping these hate groups are work- we can start to rebuild the ing class people. When they relationships [here] that lose jobs and get in financial blistered last summer. There binds, they usually find are a lot of good hearts someone to hate or blame, and souls working in this and we [Jews] go to the top community who have kept of their list. things together for a long "We are girding ourselves time. If they continue to , ' she said. for a bad year' work, we should be OK." "We're seeing lots more hap- Betsy Kellm an Still, Metro Detroit has pening on college campuses, the third highest hate crime and there's a frenzy going rate in the country, according to the ADL on in Detroit back and forth between the audit. Muslim and Jewish communities. There's Num ber If In c idents 35 \ , , 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 N tn 0 0 r■ 0 0 "People just don't know that about Michigan:' Kellman said. "Considering our size, that's unheard of. We're very busy here." The local ADL office responded to the increase of discriminatory activity in late 2006 — including reports of thefts from area synagogues — by bringing in security experts from national ADL, the FBI and local law enforcement to brief local syna- gogue representatives about how they can secure their buildings. Fifty-five institu- tions participated. Still Troubling The national decline in anti-Semitic inci- dents came in a year marked by several violent attacks, including the shooting at the Greater Seattle Jewish Federation in July by an Islamic extremist, in which staffer Pamela Waechter was killed and three others were seriously wounded. That attack and others underscored the continu- ing threat to Jewish community institu- tions, particularly at a time of heightened conflict in the Middle East. Tensions from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and last summer's war in southern Lebanon boiled over onto U.S. college cam- puses and into anti-war protests. "The audit is just one measure of anti- Semitism in the United States. There is also an onslaught of anti-Semitism out there in blogs, e-mails and Web sites — and most significantly in conspiracy theories about alleged Jewish power that have even penetrated the mainstream — that simply cannot be quantified," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL national director. "The national immigration debate caused extremist groups to partially refocus their energies away from their traditional objects of hate and onto other minority groups, particularly immigrants and Hispanics," Foxman said. "One recent example of this is the surprising resur- gence of the Ku Klux Klan. So while we find any downward trend in the numbers on anti-Semitism encouraging, there is no cause to celebrate just yet." Glen S. Lewy, ADL national chair, said, "It is disturbing that there are still an average of about four anti-Semitic attacks per day in America." The full 2006 ADL Audit of Anti Semitic Incidents is available on the ADL Web site at www.adl.org . - March 22 2007 13