jews d

in
the

Anti-Israel Ploy

Muslim student group posts mock parking
tickets to promote its views.

BARBARA LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

J

Mock parking violation
tickets were placed on
campus vehicles.

ABOVE: Students
at UM-Dearborn
recently found
mock parking
tickets on their
windshields.

ordan Wohl, a freshman at the
University of Michigan-Dearborn,
was in the Office of Student
Engagement March 22 when a number
of students came in, distraught after
finding “parking violation” tickets on
their cars.
The tickets said the vehicles were
going to be towed and possibly demol-
ished at the owner’s
expense. Police were
in the parking lot, and
the students didn’t
know what to do.
Wohl, recently
elected a senator of
the Central Student
Government, and Neil
Jordan Wohl
Cantor, director of
Jewish Student Life for
Hillel of Metropolitan
Detroit (HMD), went
to the parking lot.
Campus police were
indeed there, but they
were removing the tick-
ets, which had been put
on every car.
Neil Cantor
Wohl and Cantor
found one ticket on
the ground and quickly
realized this was a stunt carried out by
the anti-Israel group Students for Justice

in Palestine (SJP).
The document had “mock ticket”
in faint letters that were easy to over-
look; new wording had been pasted
onto an actual Dearborn Municipal
Court ticket dated Jan. 23, 2016.
After stating the vehicle would be
towed and possibly destroyed, the
“ticket” continues with a strident
anti-Israel diatribe, accusing the
Jewish state of being a racist colo-
nizer guilty of ethnic cleansing and
apartheid.
The “ticket” ends by promoting two
upcoming SJP events.
Cantor and the students he works
with at UM-Dearborn say they are
disappointed because
they have experi-
enced little anti-
Semitism on campus
and feel comfortable
there.
“I’ve never had a
problem, and I wear
my kippah when I’m
Ellana Collins
on campus,” said
David Solomon, a
senior from West
Bloomfield. “It’s very open, a good
campus to have dialogue.”
Ellana Collins, a junior from West
Bloomfield, noted that the Jewish

Student Organization (JSO) and the
Muslim Student Association co-spon-
sored a program last year called “Let’s
Talk About Peace,” featuring Jewish
and Muslim comedians.
Collins, JSO president, noted sadly
that this year the Muslim students
declined to do a joint program with
her group, possibly because of growing
pressure from SJP.
Cantor estimated UM-D has between
50 and 60 Jewish students.

IN VIOLATION

A letter to UM-D deans from a lawyer
with California-based StandWithUs,
an Israel advocacy organization, states
that “SJP’s mock tickets antics are
illegal: They are in clear violation of
both Dearborn Municipal Codes and
UM-Dearborn policy.”
The letter states that “Section
14-81(d) of the Dearborn Municipal
Code makes it unlawful to place a
handbill on any automobile or other
vehicle.”
It also says “according to
UM-Dearborn Posting Policy, all post-
ings must be stamped for approval by
the Office for Student Engagement.
These ‘mock tickets’ lack any stamp of
approval.”
Upset students, including many

continued on page 26

24

April 27 • 2017

jn

