Opinion Editorials are posted and archived on JNonline.us . Greenberg's View George Cantor's Reality Check column will return next week Editorial A Fair To Remember ...And Inspire L ast week's "A Fair to Remember" proved once again that Israel is a tremendous unifying force among the Jewish people, and particularly among our Jewish community. The fantastic Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit event, with all its music, food, rides, activities, attractions and performances, wouldn't have been anywhere near what it was without Israel's 60th anniversary as its unifying theme. While some narrow-minded and, in retrospect, laughably out of touch critics of Israel and our Jewish community tried to paint us as illegitimate usurpers of both Israel and the Michigan State Fairgrounds in Detroit, the view inside from the corner of "Dizengoff and Ben-Yehudah" was much more real. There were the JCC Maccabi kids and coaches, 3,200 strong from across the U.S. and beyond, adding a special energy to the event. There were the young families with wide-eyed little kids looking at amusement rides and cotton candy, and the older folks basking in a sense of community whose visibility has faded, but whose resilience and reality was once again so evident. You were more likely to see 10 or 20 people you knew than just one or two. It was hard to walk three feet without seeing someone you knew. It didn't matter if you were from Trenton, Bloomfield Hills, Oak Park, Southfield, Grosse Pointe, Detroit, West Bloomfield or Novi or wherever our increasingly far-flung Jewish community lives: It was like old-home week. A family reunion. The organizers were correct to keep it a family affair. While the importance of pro-Israel forces in the political sphere is not to be underestimated, the definition of pro-Israel is flexible. We've seen Israeli military action and unilateral withdrawals fail to deliver what the proponents of each had hoped for. The beauty of what Israel and the American Jewish community has achieved in the past 60 years is that even eternal vigilance doesn't require us to forgo celebrations. While we've come together in times of adversity and crisis, the health of our community and the real- ity of all we have achieved require us to also come together in celebration and joy. From the concert with Israeli musician Noa and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at a packed Max M. Fisher Music Center in Detroit in May, to the 16,000-person strong "A Fair to Remember;' to the Family Mission to Israel this December, Federation deserves plaudits and grati- tude. Its legions of volunteers and dedicat- ed professionals garnered the community and financial support to make it all possi- ble. The lineup for Detroit Jewry's yearlong Israel At 60 celebration may not have met all the diverse needs in the community, but it didn't have to. We are blessed with strong Jewish institutions and organiza- tions that celebrated, educated, activated and advocated in as many different ways as folks in our community desired. What the Federation did was show once again why it is the central address of our com- munity for planning and giving while the breadth of community offerings show that it isn't, nor need be, the only address. So when we look back on last week with the successes of "A Fair To Remember" and the Metro Detroit-hosted JCC Maccabi Games, made possible by hundreds and hundreds of dedicated volunteers and pro- fessionals, we can kvell but we can't rest. May what we've achieved inspire us, and give us the confidence and even the chutz- pah, to do even more for ourselves and our children, our families, our community, our state, our nation, the State of Israel and our world. L'Chayim! ❑ Undermining Community Relations T he Arab American News, which claims to speak for Metro Detroit's Arab American com- munity, published a guest commentary on Aug. 9 filled with numerous anti-Semitic references. It was a transparent effort to generate incitement within Detroit's Arab American community, manipulate the African American community to support the author's call for the destruction of Israel and stimulate the turnout of anti-Israel protestors outside the Jewish community's Aug. 21 celebration at the Michigan State Fairgrounds of the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel. The article clearly failed regarding the protest: Only a handful of demonstrators showed up. It also failed to deter the hun- dreds of African Americans who turned out to join in the Jewish community's celebration. But we have reason to be concerned about how readers in the Arab American community responded to the incitement. From its opening headline, "Detroit Jewish Federation: Celebrating racism and making money at it," the article (page 14) A30 August 28 2008 contained a litany of stereotypes of Jews, implied that Jews are responsible for the economic disparities in Metro Detroit and rewrote the his- tory of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. rights to all of its citizens. • It accused Israel of subjecting its own Palestinian citizens to a system of institutionalized discrimina- tion, whereas the Israeli govern- ment is committed to reduc- ing the economic disparities Consider These between its various population Here are just a few examples of groups. Opinion polls of Israeli the article's hate speech: Arabs show an overwhelm- • It portrayed Palestinian ing percentage of them would Arabs as victims of "genocide" rather remain Israeli citizens and "ethnic cleansing;' when than become citizens of a new Robert Cohen in reality it is Israel's citizens Palestinian state. Comm unity whom Palestinian terrorists • It labeled Jews and Israelis Vi ew have deliberately targeted for as racists, ignoring the Jewish murder while eating in pizzerias, shopping community's central role in the civil rights and celebrating religious holidays. Not movement and Israel's status as the only only was there no policy of ethnic cleans- nation in history to have rescued a black ing by Israel during the 1948 war, Jewish community — Ethiopian Jews — from residents in Haifa and other cities also impoverishment and brought them into begged their Arab neighbors to remain as freedom. free residents of the new state. • It highlighted Malcolm X's anti-Zionist • It used emotionally charged words stand and ignored that Dr. Martin Luther such as "apartheid" that have profound King Jr. strongly supported Israel and said meaning. Israel is a multi-racial, multi- that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. ethnic society that guarantees freedom, • It denied Israel's right to exist as a non-discrimination and equal political Jewish state, ignoring the U.N.'s recogni- tion of Israel's sovereignty and Israel's six decades of efforts to achieve peace with its Arab American neighbors. • It made numerous references to the wealth of Detroit's Jewish community. In fact, Detroit's Jewish community has a significant population of poor and under- privileged, and the number of economical- ly distressed Jews amongst us has grown dramatically during the current economic downturn. • It conveyed the stereotype of the greedy Jew by juxtaposing statements about the wealth of the Jewish community with baseless claims that the Federation had snared a sweetheart contract with the state and would make a great deal of profit on the event. In truth, the state stood to earn as much as $100,000 in bonus rev- enue from the deal, and the Federation hoped to break even on its event costs. Much of the article reads as if it were ripped from Hamas or Hezbollah propa- ganda documents. Which should come as no surprise considering Arab American News publisher Osama Siblani likes to describe Hezbollah as "freedom fighters;' not terrorists. But if it is not surprising,