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in
the
JAMIE FELDMAN
Countering
HATE
Event at Holocaust Memorial Center
brings community together in wake
of violence in Charlottesville.
TOP: Docent Toni Babineau leads a group
around the museum. About 200 people attend-
ed the event. MIDDLE: Rabbi Dan Horwitz and
Isaak Gazman. BOTTOM: Eli Zucker and Rev.
Kenneth Flowers.
T
he invitation to join Rabbi Dan
Horwitz at the Holocaust Memorial
Center Zekelman Family Campus
appeared as a post on Facebook. Yet it
was not just a post; it was a spark that
mobilized the Metro Detroit community
to discuss and process the uprising of
hate groups and anti-Semitism in the
United States.
An email followed, “Given this past week-
end’s events in #Charlottesville, coupled with
the New England Holocaust Memorial being
vandalized twice in the past 6 weeks, it seems
appropriate to process with community.”
The community agreed.
On Wednesday, Aug. 23, approximately
200 people gathered at the Holocaust
Memorial Center in Farmington Hills.
Reflecting on the event from the call to
action to the occasion itself, Horwitz
said, “In a relatively short period of time,
we were able to organize and execute a
content-rich, meaningful program that
attracted a diverse crowd and provided
people with the opportunity to process
30
August 31 • 2017
jn
JAMIE FELDMAN
GENIA GAZMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
the events of the previous week with
community. It was heartwarming to
see so many people make the time
to be with us and particularly mov-
ing to see members of the Muslim
and Christian communities with us
as well.”
The evening activities took guests
in small groups on a circuit through
the Holocaust Memorial Center. At
each stop, exceptionally informed
docents shared the history of
events prior, during and after the
Holocaust.
Docent Michael Leibson said, “At
a molecular level, race does not
exist. Nonetheless, racism is real …
based on a falsity.”
Eli Zucker, a master’s of social
work student in the Jewish
Communal Leadership Program at
the University of Michigan, came
as a facilitator. Zucker stressed
the importance of the evening and
discussed Charlottesville and the
wave of recent hate crimes target-
ing Jewish communities bridging
the past and present. He said it is
important for people to recognize
how Jewish identity operates across
time.
After the center tour, guests filled
a hall to listen to speakers as well
as form small discussion groups.
Among the speakers, Rev. Kenneth J.
Flowers of Detroit’s Greater New Mt.
Moriah Missionary Baptist Church
brought the audience to its feet as
his booming voice filled the room
with a message of the importance of
strengthening the coalition between
the Jewish and African American
communities.
Rabbi Rachel Schmelkin of
Congregation Beth Israel in
Charlottesville, Va., joined the event
via Skype. She shared her first-per-
son account of the day’s violence.
She also spoke of the strain on her
congregation to come up with funds
for additional security measures and
how she worried whether to relo-
cate the congregation’s Torah scroll
that had survived the Holocaust to
avoid possible vandalism.
In closing, Horwitz reflected why
it is especially appropriate to meet
at the Holocaust Memorial Center
for this event. “Thank goodness
we have these museums and sup-
port them so that they can reach as
many people as possible,” he said,
“because in a country of roughly
330 million, only a few hundred Alt-
Righters made their faces known in
Charlottesville. Imagine the thou-
sands upon thousands who might
have shown up absent the efforts of
these core communal institutions.”
The closing message for the evening
was Olam Chesed Yibaneh. Horwitz
called on the community to together
“build a world filled with lovingkind-
ness.” To never be bystanders. To be a
part of the solution. •