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Sign With Swastikas Prompts Outrage

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Staff photo by Angie Baan

This banner OrrigirreWle
at Currier and Telegraph
in Dearborn Heights was
posted until last weekend.

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4 Ave

. ofacaot

F

or the last month, a house at Currier and Telegraph in
Dearborn Heights has drawn attention from motorists.
Betsy Kellman, director of the Southfield-based Anti-
Defamation League/Michigan Region, received more than four-dozen
phone calls since Oct. 8, when motorists noticed a large Israeli flag
with swastikas drawn on it flying from a flagpole at the home.
An oversized banner on the second story was added later. It
read: "Stop U.S. Tax Dollars to Israel! A Free Palestinian State.
AmericanlsraelisForPeace.com ." A Star of David was wedged between
two swastikas on the banner.
"We've gotten calls from a lot of people who aren't Jewish," Kellman
said. "If you were driving to the airport, you couldn't miss it. It was
enormous, and that's why it was getting so much attention."
The Michigan Department of Transportation reports 93,200 motor-
ists a day passing by that corner.
Kellman noted that under the First Amendment, homeowner Mario
Fundarski hasn't broken the law with the content of his messages.
But Fundarski is in violation of some Dearborn Heights housing
codes, and that's why he's scheduled to appear at 10 a.m. Nov. 29 in

20th District Court, said Dearborn Heights Ordinance Officer Dave
Novak, who so far has issued $400 in fines. Fundarski took the flag
and banner down last weekend because the banner — and his house
— were being pelted by eggs and paintballs, Novak said.
Fundarski is "certainly out to get attention:' Novak said. "He's hired
an attorney, and he wants to turn this into a First Amendment case.
They can't turn it into a First Amendment case because the city is just
citing him for oversized signs."
Stan Goldberg, a member of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield and
a Dearborn Heights resident, noticed the sign three weeks ago on his
way to Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus.
Fundarski has a right to say whatever he wants in terms of a politi-
cal message, Goldberg said, "but to do it with two swastikas next to a
Star of David is terribly offensive. I feel very ashamed that it's in my
city. This city has a lot of citizens of Arabic background, and their sen-
timents are appropriate to what they feel, but I don't see other people
putting up swastikas."

A Detroit-Israel Connection
A group of Detroit young adult leaders recently visited Ammunition
Hill, a former battlefield in the Six-Day War and now a museum
and memorial to commemorate the 182 fallen soldiers in the libera-
tion and unification of Jerusalem. The group guide was Gadi, a 65-
year-old retiree; in 1967, he was a reservist in the paratroopers and
fought in the battle on Ammunition Hill.
As the 28 members of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit's Class of a Million mission headed to their bus, they passed
a group of female army recruits. Class of a Million participants are
members of Federation's young leadership who make a sizeable,
long-term financial commitment to the Annual Campaign.
The soldiers were at the site to learn about the battles fought by
the army they so proudly serve. The commander approached Naomi
Miller Rockowitz, the Detroit Federation's Israel Offices director of
missions and exchanges.
"It's me, Shlomit from Migdal HaEmek, Tamarack 2002 and 2004!"
exclaimed the commander. Her first summer at the Ortonville camp
was as a camper; the second, as a staffer.

She was so excited to see Detroiters (and even a member of her
Tamarack host family), she came up and spoke to the group. Her
English was flawless as she shared, passionately, how the Israeli
Camper Program at Tamarack had changed her life. "She said that
being part of the program and her time at camp and in the [Detroit]
community made her understand who she is as an Israeli, as a Jew
and as part of the world Jewish community:' Rockowitz said.
Rockowitz added, "Shlomit, all of 20 years old, moved us all when
she shared her passion for her country, her feelings as a soldier
and her experiences during the recent [Palestinian] Kassam rocket
attack on her base and how she looked after her soldiers."
The guide, Gadi, hugged Shlomit when he realized she was from
Migdal HaEmek, the city he volunteered to serve in as a reserv-
ist during the Lebanon II war last year. The city is in Federation's
Partnership 2000 region in the Central Galilee.
When Shlomit finishes her army tour of duty, she wants to return
to Tamarack as a counselor.

A8

November 8 2007

iN

- Harry Kirsbaum, special writer

- Robert A. Sklar, editor

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