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Tamarack Camps
Sign Of Hate?
Anti-Israel billboard raises ire.
Stacy Gittleman I Contributing Writer
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n intensely anti-Israel organiza-
tion — whose local avisory board
member has led Shabbat morning
protests outside an Ann Arbor synagogue for
the past 12 years — has placed a billboard at
Eight Mile and the Southfield Freeway that
reads "America First ... NOT ISRAEL"
"This billboard was placed to do one
thing: To drive a wedge between Israel and
the American people said Heidi Budaj,
Michigan regional director of the Anti-
Defamation League. "It follows the age-old
adage that falsely accuses Jews of not being
loyal to the countries in which they live."
The $3,000-a-month Lamar Advertising
billboard is paid for by the advocacy group
Deir Yassin Remembered (DYR) and will
be on display until Nov. 15. The organiza-
tion is trying to raise funds to keep it up
for successive months.
Since 2012, DYR placed similar ads in 12
major cities across the country intended to,
according to the ADEs Budaj, "unravel the
legitimacy of U.S.-Israel ties."
DYR, with an address in western New
York, is headed by Paul Eisen, a pro-Pal-
estinian British Jew who believes Israelis
committed slaughter of Arabs to drive
them out of their villages during the 1948
War of Independence. He styles himself as
a Holocaust denier.
Henry Herskovitz, a Jewish Ann
Arborite and member of DYR's board of
advisers, said, "While the ADL is accusing
us of creating a wedge, we think the wedge
already exists." Since 2003, he has led an
anti-Israel vigil Shabbat mornings outside
Ann Arbor's Beth Israel Congregation.
America First
NOT ISRAEL
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a33321-877
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The controversial billboard
6735 Telegraph Road, Suite 380, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48301
www.tamarackcamps.com • 248.647.1100
ACCREDITED
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Supported by
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16 .ovember 5.2015
Herskovitz's main grievances against
"the Jewish supremacist state" include the
lack of separation between church and
state, no voting rights for Palestinians and
penalties of the Israeli court system —
including prison time — for questioning
the "standard narrative of the Holocaust."
Herskovitz added, "There is no closeness
between the U.S. and the State of Israel. The
only reason Americans think this is true is
propaganda put out by the Jewish lobby."
A motorist, Robert Shaw of Oak Park,
spotted the ad on a recent drive, pulled
over, snapped a photo and placed it on his
Facebook page. The post was shared so
widely on Facebook that it was picked up
by national and international media, and
there is now a fundraising campaign to
place another ad to counter the original's
"disturbing" message, he said.
"I fully believe in First Amendment
rights because that is what makes America
strong; Shaw said. "But freedom of expres-
sion must be tempered with common
sense and dignity toward others."
Roni Leibovitch of West Bloomfield felt
the ad was not a political statement but
an attack on American Jews. He set up an
online petition asking the billboard com-
pany to take it down.
In the first five days, the petition, acces-
sible at chn.ge/1MOniLB, got some 800
signatures. It says, in part, "Please remove
this billboard which causes hatred of
American Jews and feeds off the same kind
of dual-loyalty accusations which were lev-
eled against the Jews by Nazis in the years
leading up to the Holocaust:'
DYR bases its name upon Deir Yassin,
one of the most controversial battles dur-
ing Israel's War of Independence in 1948.
There are conflicting reports on the cir-
cumstances that left more than 200 Arabs
from this village dead.
The New York Times report said more
than 40 were captured and 70 women and
children were released. No hint of a mas-
sacre appeared in the report. According
to www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org, many of
the Arabs who were killed were fighters
disguised as women or civilians. The DYR
website says the event was an outright
massacre of innocent Arab civilians.
DYR claims it has received support from
far-leftist British Labor Party leader Jeremy
Corbyn, according to London's Jewish
Chronicle. Corbyn is running for British
prime minister. *