Views

To make a donation to the 
DETROIT JEWISH NEWS FOUNDATION
go to the website
www.djnfoundation.org

The Detroit Jewish News (USPS 275-520) is published every Thursday at 

29200 Northwestern Highway, #110, Southfield, Michigan. Periodical postage paid at 

Southfield, Michigan, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: send changes to: 

Detroit Jewish News, 29200 Northwestern Hwy., #110, Southfield, MI 48034.

8 | JANUARY 2 • 2020 

1942 - 2020

Covering and Connecting 
Jewish Detroit Every Week
jn

Arthur M. Horwitz
Executive Editor/Publisher
ahorwitz@renmedia.us

F. Kevin Browett
Chief Operating Officer
kbrowett@renmedia.us

| Editorial
Associate Editor: Jackie Headapohl
jheadapohl@renmedia.us
Story Development Editor: 
Keri Guten Cohen
kcohen@renmedia.us
Digital Editor: Allison Jacobs
ajacobs@renmedia.us
Multimedia Reporter: Corrie Colf 
ccolf@renmedia.us
Staff Photographer/Videographer: 
Derrick Martinez
dmartinez@renmedia.us

Social Media Coordinator: 
Chelsie Dzbanski
cdzbanski@renmedia.us
Editorial Assistant: Sy Manello
smanello@renmedia.us
Senior Columnist: Danny Raskin
dannyraskin2132@gmail.com
Contributing Editor: Robert Sklar
rsklar@renmedia.us
Contributing Editor: David Sachs
Contributing Arts Editor: Gail Zimmerman
gzimmerman@renmedia.us

Contributing Writers:
Nate Bloom, Suzanne Chessler, Louis 
Finkelman, Stacy Gittleman, Esther 
Allweiss Ingber, Alan Muskovitz, 
Mike Smith

 

Advertising Sales
Vice President of Sales and 
Business Development: Carol Kruemmer
ckruemmer@renmedia.us
Sales Manager: Keith Farber
kfarber@renmedia.us
Account Executives: 
Kelsey Cocke, Annette Kizy
 
| Business Office
 Operations Manager: Andrea Gusho
 agusho@renmedia.us
 Operations Assistant / Event Coordinator: 
 Ashlee Szabo
 Circulation: Danielle Smith
Billing Coordinator: Pamela Turner

| Production By 
 Farago & Associates
Manager: Scott Drzewiecki 
Designers: Jessica Joannides, 
Kelly Kosek, Michelle Sheridan 

| Detroit Jewish News
Partner: 
Arthur M. Horwitz
ahorwitz@renmedia.us
Partner: 
F. Kevin Browett
kbrowett@renmedia.us
Partner: 
Michael H. Steinhardt

How to reach us see page 11

commentary
Why Are Jewish Groups Ignoring 
Anti-Semitism from the Mainstream Right?
T

here are the makings 
of a rebellion brewing 
in the mainstream 
American Jewish community.
It’
s not a “Jexodus,” the right’
s 
quixotic dream that Jews will 
migrate en masse 
to the Republican 
Party.
It is a potential 
rebellion of 
the median 
Jew: pro-Israel, 
pro-two states 
and perfectly 
comfortable sitting among 
the 71 percent of Jews who 
voted for Hillary Clinton. The 
sort of Jew who is concerned 
about left-wing anti-Semitism 
on college campuses but 
knows well enough to be more 
concerned about deadly right-
wing anti-Semitism.
The issue is simple: The 
Republican Party, from Donald 
Trump on down, has a huge 
anti-Semitism problem. Yet 

too many American Jewish 
organizations, which purport 
to represent the Jewish 
mainstream, are tiptoeing 
around it.
When pressed absolutely up 
against the wall, they might 
issue a timid plea to “speak 
more carefully” — a mild 
rebuke that still usually comes 
wrapped in an insulating layer 
of gratitude for pro-Israel 
gestures.
Most Jews are not fools. We 
know there is a connection 
between the scare-mongering 
about Soros globalists and 
“cultural Marxists” and 
“cosmopolitan elites” — 
rhetoric that has become the 
conservative movement’
s 
primary tool of political 
mobilization — and the surge 
in anti-Semitic harassment, 
marginalization and violence 
that has plagued Jews in recent 
years.
We’
re tired of our own 

establishment organizations 
talking a big game about 
fighting anti-Semitism 
wherever it lies, only to 
supplicate themselves to a man 
and a party who has regularly 
and consistently trafficked in 
anti-Semitic tropes in pursuit 
of a political vision radically 
antagonistic to the values of 
American Jews.
The latest group to abdicate 

its duty? The American Jewish 
Committee.
Eyes fell on the AJC in 
December after President 
Trump, in remarks to the 
Israeli American Council, 
suggested that Jews aren’
t “nice 
people,” would vote for him 
primarily to protect our own 
“wealth” and are disloyal to 
Israel. He even threw in an 
anti-Native American racial 

David 
Schraub
JTA

President Donald Trump addresses the Israeli American Council National Summit 
at the Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood, Fla., Dec. 7, 2019. Some took some 
of his comments as anti-Semitic. 

MANDEL NGAN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

continued on page 10