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