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Thy Maccabi Mystique

I

n our house, we have two parents
working more than full time (that's
crazy). Two kids in middle school
and travel sports (that's insane). And this
year, on top of everything, my wife is bat-
tling breast cancer (surreal). Then why did
I give up a week this summer to coach at
the JCC Maccabi Games? (I'm nuts.)
I had heard about Maccabi, but, to be
honest, it wasn't on my radar. And when
my son made the Detroit Maccabi base-
ball team, I just thought it would be one
more tournament in the sea of a 60-game
season.
Now, I had heard the Games were big.
But I wasn't prepared for the opening
ceremonies. Sitting among thousands of
Jewish athletes and coaches, in front of
10,000 family and friends in the Pond in
Anaheim, Calif., literally made my jaw
drop. Our players had a similar reaction

when the Laker Girls took the
stage.
But when they listened to
Anouk Spitzer, the daughter of
Andre Spitzer, the Israeli fenc-
ing coach who was murdered by
Palestinian terrorists at the 1972
Munich Olympics, I think they
understood why the JCC Maccabi
Games existed. And they knew
why we were there.
When our baseball team took
the field against the home team
from Orange County, it wasn't
like any of those other 60 games back
home. There wasn't petty jealousy or con-
cern about playing time or even a dislike
for the other team. Those guys were just
like us, albeit a bit more tan.
And when we got up by six runs and
kept our players from stealing and run-

ning up the score, I heard
something on the bench
that I've never heard before.
"Rochmones, [compassion]
baby. Rochmones."When's the
last time you heard your son
say that?
Then I looked at my own
son. I realized that this tall,
skinny kid behind the catch-
er's mask was the only Jewish
player on his travel baseball
team last year. Sure, he felt like
he belonged. But it wasn't like
this team. This Maccabi team was impor-
tant.
When we got home, I literally went
through withdrawal. I called some of my
players' parents and asked if we could go
out and watch the Tigers game. I literally
missed those kids after one day.

At the restaurant, the Detroit kids
were in Maccabi shirts from Denver and
Edmonton and Rockland, joking about
the kids they met and games we won and
lost. And even though we were back here,
back where everything goes way too fast,
for that one night I felt like I was going the
speed limit for a change. In August, I got
to feel that way for a week. LL

Jimmy Kollin is a Farmington Hills resident.

Maccabi athlete Max Kollin

s Bad Publishing Choice

Ann Arbor

"Distribution agreements are undertaken
strictly as business relationships and have
historically been a small part of the UM
Press's business. Currently, the Press distrib-
utes for five publishers. As is the case with
all such commercial arrangements, books
distributed on behalf of clients are not edit-
ed, reviewed or produced by the UM Press,
and they do not bear the imprimatur of the
Press or of the University of Michigan."
— UMP Executive Board Statement, Oct.
24, 2007

0

ver the last few months, the
board of the University of
Michigan Press (UMP) has
claimed that it would never approve and
publish the unscholarly polemics of the
UK's Pluto Press.
The UMP director likened one 2007
Pluto title to hate speech. Yet two weeks
ago, the UMP board decided to continue
its exclusive distribution contract with
Pluto and remain the sole distributor for
many of the most radical anti-Semitic and
anti-Israel texts available in the United
States today.
UMP had reviewed its relationship
with Pluto after StandWithUs-Michigan
and others drew attention to Pluto's
Overcoming Zionism by Joel Kovel.
The book verges frequently into anti-
Semitic propaganda and to the anti-
Semitic works of the late Israel Shahak.
Both are staples of Pluto's offerings on the
Middle East.

A34

November 8 • 2007

In a statement issued to weeks ago, the
mission. Even UMP officials could not
executive board justified its decision with
support some Pluto titles. They found
misleading arguments and by altogether
them indefensible, concluding that the
avoiding the most troubling issues.
university should not countenance them
The board claimed that UMP has simi-
even in a "limited distributive capacity."
lar contractual relationships with four
StandWithUs-Michigan also questioned
other "publishers," but there is no similar-
UMP's judgment in establishing its unique
ity. Pluto Press is the only publisher with
contractual relationship with Pluto Press
which UMP has a distribution agreement,
in the first place.
along with an understanding that UMP
Finally, UMP justified its decision on
does not vet the works that Pluto submits
the grounds that the agreement with
and adds them, without review, to its
Pluto was "undertaken strictly as [a] busi-
distribution lists.
ness relationship."
Furthermore, the four
According to the
other presses are uni-
Michigan Daily, the
versity-affiliated and
university's press
would likely meet
earns approximately
scholarly standards
$1 million per
as they include two
year selling Pluto
university centers, the
books, making up
American Academy
16 percent of their
in Rome, and the uni-
annual returns.
versity's own English-
Pluto Press likely
as-a-second-language
earns substantially
program. In contrast,
more, and therefore
Pluto Press is an
UMP directly sup-
independent politi-
ports Pluto polem-
Community View
cal publisher with
ics. Should financial
an explicit ideological agenda, describing
considerations justify supporting a press
itself as "one of the world's leading radical
that promotes anti-Semitic canards and
book publishers."
other narrow radical agendas?
The executive board also justified its
The UMP board's decision to distrib-
decision as a principled defense of free-
ute books that it would not countenance
dom of speech, but free speech is not at
or endorse with the UMP logo solely for
issue. Rather, StandWithUs-Michigan
financial reasons is deeply disturbing.
questioned why UMP would make the
The UMP-Pluto Press exclusive distri-
choice to promote and distribute Pluto
bution agreement also violates the stated
books when they have no scholarly merit
principles of the executive board: promot-
and do not meet UMP's standards and
ing different views and encouraging the

free exchange of ideas.
Not one of the books published by
Pluto Press presents a scholarly or sym-
pathetic view of Israel, Zionism, Jews or
Judaism.
UMP's entire Pluto catalog offers only
one political framework that is dog-
matically anti-Israel and frequently anti-
Semitic.
If Pluto's output showed the same uni-
form bias against African-Americans,
Muslims, gays or other minorities,
responsible citizens would have undoubt-
edly protested loudly long ago and the
UMP and university officials would have
addressed the problem.
Yet, university President Mary Sue
Coleman has not made a single public
statement justifying or explaining why
UMP is distributing such material in the
university's name.
Students, parents, stakeholders and
donors to the University of Michigan
should know what is occurring.
StandWithUs-Michigan and other con-
cerned citizens will take this issue before
the Board of Regents on Thursday, Nov. 15.
We encourage all those willing to confront
anti-Semitic and anti-Israel polemical
texts being distributed by our public uni-
versities to join us in the Founder's Room
in the Alumni Center, 200 Fletcher Street,
on the Ann Arbor campus. Ell

Jonathan Harris is director of the Michigan

chapter of StandWithUs. Roberta Seid is the

education director of Los Angeles-based

StandWithUs, a pro-Israel education and advo-

cacy group.