10 | JUNE 25 • 2020
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Citizen Protests and the
Jewish Community
While the country is consumed
by the murder of George Floyd
at the hands of members of the
Minneapolis police force and
the resulting organized protests
staged throughout our country,
the press coverage of the totality
of the events has been narrow in
its scope.
While the protests through-
out the country were mostly
peaceful, the uptick in criminal
activity throughout the Fairfax
neighborhood in Los Angeles
went unreported by most media
outlets. According to JTA, one
of the very few media outlets
to report on this activity, the
targeted area is the home of
Jewish community institu-
tions, synagogues, temples and
Jewish-owned businesses, many
of which were vandalized with
anti-Semitic and anti-Israel graf-
fiti. Vulgar and obscene slogans
were plastered on synagogue
walls. Many Jewish-owned busi-
nesses found their doors and
windows broken and their stores
looted and set on fire.
These actions were committed
while citizens peacefully pro-
tested the shameful murder of
an American citizen. Under the
guise of such protests, vandals
attacked the Fairfax neighbor-
hood with an onslaught of hate-
ful, inciteful and vicious anti-Se-
mitic epithets.
The walls of Congregation
Beth Israel, Temple Beth El
and Baba Sale Congregation
were defaced. The language
used was vicious and obscene.
Congregation Shaarei Tefila and
the Shalhevet School for Girls,
among others, were also target-
ed, according to Aram Goldberg,
vice president of the Jewish
Federation Council.
As a result of the extensive
damage and mayhem inflicted
on the Jewish community of the
Fairfax neighborhood, the Jewish
Free Loan Association of Los
Angeles is providing “looting
loss loans” for the damages or
destruction which resulted from
the fires and looting.
While failing to report on
the extent of the damage and
destruction levied on the Fairfax
Jewish community, the national
media was shamefully negli-
gent in their responsibilities.
Additionally, and as importantly,
it is equally shameful — and
embarrassing — that the Jewish
media failed to do so also. The
question in both cases is the
same: Why?
Robert S. Rollinger
West Bloomfield
L. Brooks Patterson
Deserved Better
Your disparagement of the good
name and memory of my late
departed law school classmate,
prosecutor-colleague and 50+
year friend, L. Brooks Patterson,
is unbecoming of the Jewish
News.
You stated in your June 11-17
editorial that Brooks disparaged
Detroit and its citizens “in vile,
heinous language, calling the
city ‘
an Indian reservation’
”; and
thought nothing of Detroit’
s
majority-black population and
that, to him, these black lives
didn’
t matter.
While it certainly was true that
after Detroit Mayor Coleman A.
Young urged Detroit’
s lawbreak-
ers to cross Eight Mile Road,
Brooks and Young developed a
public repartee of poking fun at
each other.
Remember, under Young’
s
administration, the upper- and
middle-class taxpayers fled the
city to the suburbs, drug-dealing
gangs came to power and the
crime rate skyrocketed. Under
his black-power style of leader-
ship, he left the city of Detroit a
fiscal and social wreck.
Brooks, on the other hand,
led Oakland County, first as
prosecutor for 16 years, then as
executive for 27 years, with a
multi-year balanced budget and
a Moody’
s AAA Bond Rating,
admired as one of the safest and
most desirable counties to live
and work in the United States.
You also neglected to mention
all the good he did for Oakland’
s
black and Jewish communi-
ties and his legendary sense of
humor, much of it self-depre-
cating. He even prayed with us
at Temple Israel following the
massacre at Pittsburgh’
s Tree of
Life Synagogue.
The citizens of Oakland
County elected and re-elected
Brooks over and over again,
holding him in high esteem. His
funeral last year was attended
by thousands of friends from all
walks of life, white and black,
from all faiths and nationalities.
In short, he was a revered leader
of men and a public servant.
Brooks grew up in the city of
Detroit. He always loved Detroit,
despite the tit-for-tat relationship
he had with Young. And the
upper and middle class that fled
Young’
s Detroit became fans and
loyal supporters of Brooks. They,
like all of us, valued their neigh-
borhoods, their schools, their
shopping districts, their public
safety and Brooks’
leadership
qualities.
You could have written your
Jewish News opinion challeng-
ing Jews to stand up for justice
and equality in the wake of the
unfortunate killing of George
Floyd and the resulting protests,
organized looting, burning and
wide-spread destruction of busi-
ness districts across metro areas
of the United States, without
disparaging the memory of L.
Brooks Patterson in the process.
It is this kind of inflammatory
attack on one individual, who
you did not know, that causes
further dissention in our com-
munity.
Jeffrey M. Leib
West Bloomfield
Speaking Out Against
Racist Chief
I sent the following letter to
every member of the Shelby
Township board, local media
and others:
To Whom It May Concern:
In the flood of 2014, my dad
went missing. My mom attempt-
ed to report him missing and
no police departments would
take a report. My parents lived
in Southfield, and the Southfield
Police Department was par-
ticularly cruel and insensitive,
especially my interaction several
months later with then-Deputy
Chief Robert Shelide.
I wrote a letter to the
Southfield Police Department
outlining what had occurred
with my dad and where I felt
they had failed in serving and
protecting. I received a phone
call from Shelide. Amongst other
things, he told me that the steps
I was requesting wouldn’
t have
letters
continued on page 12
L. Brooks
Patterson