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Troubling Silence About Anti-Semitism
At The University Of Michigan

F

or many Jewish students at the
For another thing, the fact that SAFE’s
University of Michigan, their cele-
actions made no reference to “Jews”
bration of the Jewish New Year was did not make them any less offensive
unjustly marred by feelings of pain and
to Jewish students. Schlissel failed to
ostracism. On Rosh Hashanah, a campus
appreciate the land of Israel’s centrality
group called “Students Allied for
to Judaism and to Jews. Israel is
Freedom and Equality” (SAFE)
the historic and religious home-
erected a so-called “apartheid”
land of the Jewish people, where
wall and mock Israeli check-
Jews have lived for more than
points on the Diag, in the center
3,000 years. The land’s ancient
of the campus.
name was “Judea,” derived
As one Jewish student
from the same root a s the word
described it, the wall falsely
“Jew.” When Jews pray, they
depicted Israel as an apartheid
Morton A. Klein turn toward their holy city of
state and falsely painted the sol-
Jerusalem.
diers of the Israel Defense Forces
Even assuming Schlissel was
as vicious murderers.
unaware of these facts, it should
Many Jewish students
have been enough for him to
expressed how hurt, offended
know that Jewish students on
and marginalized they felt by
his campus were hurt by SAFE’s
SAFE’s actions. SAFE unapolo-
actions on Rosh Hashanah, with-
getically justified them, claiming
out parsing whether their pain
that the group’s goal was “to start
was legitimate.
a conversation about the oppres- Susan B.
Indeed, Schlissel showed a
sion of Palestinians under occu- Tuchman
more expansive and compas-
pation.” If that were true, then
sionate appreciation of what was
SAFE would have scheduled its anti-Israel offensive to students — when the offend-
demonstration on a day when Jewish stu- ed students were Muslim. Last year, the
dents could be part of the conversation.
movie American Sniper was going to be
Instead, as SAFE undoubtedly knew,
screened on campus. This was a drama-
many Jewish students were observing the tization of the life of U.S. Navy Seal Chris
holiday, either on campus or elsewhere,
Kyle who served more than four tours of
and were thus denied the opportunity to
duty in Iraq and received several medals
stand up for their Jewish homeland in
for his acts of heroism. But when Muslim
dialogue with others in the campus com- students claimed they were offended
munity.
by the movie’s content, the screening
More than 1,100 students signed a
of this inspiring movie was cancelled.
petition urging University President
Fortunately, the university recognized
Mark Schlissel to speak out. In addition,
that cancelling the movie would violate
four national organizations, includ-
the right of free expression and it was
ing the Simon Wiesenthal Center and
screened as scheduled. But both Schlissel
StandWithUs, co-signed the Zionist
and the vice president for student life
Organization of America’s (ZOA) letter to validated the feelings of Muslim students,
Schlissel, urging him to issue a statement issuing statements acknowledging that
condemning SAFE for erecting its “apart- while cancelling the movie was a mistake,
heid” wall and mock checkpoints on a
it was important to recognize that some
Jewish holy day. While SAFE had the legal Muslim students felt uncomfortable, mar-
right to hold its demonstration on Rosh
Hashanah, it was important for Schlissel
to acknowledge that SAFE’s actions had
hurt members of the Jewish community
and made them feel excluded.
But Schlissel has not spoken out.
Responding to the ZOA’s letter, he justi-
fied SAFE’s actions, not calling them
“pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel” but con-
taining “no specific or symbolic reference
to Jews.”
That characterization is troubling for
several reasons. For one thing, there was
nothing “pro-Palestinian” about SAFE’s
demonstration. It was an all-out attack on
Israel, presenting the group’s usual false
narrative that Israel is a brutal oppressor
and that Palestinian Arabs are Israel’s
innocent victims.

continued from page 8

ginalized and hurt by the movie’s content.
Why is Schlissel refusing to take the
very same steps when Jewish students feel
hurt and marginalized? As the president
knows, SAFE has a history of targeting,
threatening and causing pain to Jewish
students. Just last year, for example, SAFE
began a vendetta against a Jewish student
and called for his removal from student
government simply because the student
objected to the timing and appropriate-
ness of SAFE’s anti-Israel display on cam-
pus. SAFE erected it on the very day that
there were two terrorist attacks in Israel,
killing five people, including Jewish
American Ezra Schwartz.
The ZOA, with eight other national
organizations, including the American
Center for Law and Justice and American
Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists,
urged Schlissel to speak out then, not just
for the Jewish student who was being bul-
lied and harmed, but for all students. The
president needed to make it clear that
SAFE’s actions were wrong and that stu-
dents could not be harassed for exercising
their right to free speech and to challenge
anti-Israel conduct. But Schlissel wouldn’t
speak out then, either.
Schlissel’s silence when Jewish stu-
dents’ rights are at stake should be
troubling to all of us. Students, parents,
donors, alumni, the regents and members
of the community should be asking him
why he seemingly takes the feelings and
concerns of Jewish students less seriously
than the concerns of other students who
have felt hurt and marginalized on cam-
pus.

*

Morton A. Klein is the national president of the
Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). Susan B.
Tuchman, Esq. is the director of the ZOA’s Center for
Law and Justice. Both were named among the most
influential Jewish leaders by The Forward newspaper,
in the 1990s and early 2000s.

of others.
It is important to understand that there
are many agencies taking care of non-Jews,
but only a limited number of Jewish agen-
cies taking care of Jews only. Congregation
Shaarey Zedek in Southfield has done out-
standing work with non-Jews in the past. We
have fed the hungry and clothed those who
have had nothing. And we have done this
using funds raised by our synagogue. But,
what about the poor Jews among us?
Rabbi Starr was addressing the latter. Did
he mean that Jews should not help those of
all religions? Absolutely not. What he was
saying was let’s take care of our own, first,
not last.
That is it!

Gerald M. Pergament
Livonia

DISAPPOINTED IN JN’S
PRESIDENTIAL ENDORSEMENT
There are 321 million people in the United
States and the best we could come up with
are Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
I won’t bother to reiterate the negatives
against Clinton, enumerated by the Fox
News Channel, nor the oafish characteris-
tics of Donald Trump, enumerated by every
other news outlet (& Fox) in the country.
I will say that we need only to look at the
past eight years to picture what the next four
or eight years hold for a Hillary Clinton-led
nation. At least with Trump we’re not sure
what we will get. And that’s a plus!
I would have felt a lot better about the
editorial integrity of the Detroit Jewish News
if you had stated you could not in good
conscience endorse either candidate, but
encourage every reader to vote based upon
what he or she feels are the most pressing
issues facing us. (I voted for Trump … Oy!)

Steve Slater
Waterford

I was disappointed and surprised at the JN
editorial endorsement of Hillary Clinton for
president. Two-thirds of polled Americans
consider her to be untrustworthy and not
truthful. Her response to the Benghazi trag-
edy was to tell her daughter it was a terrorist
attack, and then tell the American people it
was a video problem.
We should expect more from our candi-
dates for president.

Dr. Gerald Sherman
West Bloomfield

Over the last few years, I have watched with
concern the increasing partisanship and left-
ist editorial tendencies of the JN. While this
is certainly acceptable in editorial pieces,
it should not be in the choice of opinion
pieces. Those tendencies apply not only to
U.S. policies, but also include, for example,

continued on page 12

10 November 3 • 2016

