1942 - 2021

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6 | SEPTEMBER 30 • 2021 

MISSION STATEMENT The Detroit Jewish News will be of service to the Jewish community. The Detroit Jewish 
News will inform and educate the Jewish and general community to preserve, protect and sustain the Jewish 
people of greater Detroit and beyond, and the State of Israel.

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commentary
Justice Denied?

T

ry painting a swastika 
on the wall of a syn-
agogue, and you’ll be 
arrested and charged with 
vandalism and probably 
serve jail time for a hate 
crime.
But a fed-
eral appellate 
court has just 
gone out of its 
way to grant 
constitutional 
protection to 
signs bellowing 
“Resist Jewish Power” and 
“Jewish Power Corrupts” at 
those attending synagogue 
services every Sabbath morn-
ing for the past 18 years in 
Ann Arbor.
The judges didn’t bother to 
explain why menacing Jewish 

Americans coming together 
to worship is less intimi-
dating than cross-burnings 
were to church attendees in 
African American churches 
in the South. The Supreme 
Court said in 2003 (Virginia 
v. Black) that “cross burning 
carried out with the intent to 
intimidate is … proscribable 
under the First Amendment.” 
No sane American thinks 
otherwise today.
A decision rendered by 
three federal judges on the 
eve of Yom Kippur should 
send shivers down the collec-
tive spines of the American 
Jewish community. 
Since September 2003, 
a group of Ann Arbor 
residents has been harass-
ing Jewish attendees at 

Saturday morning services 
in Beth Israel Synagogue, a 
Conservative congregation, 
by gathering between 9:30 
and 11:30 a.m., and posting 
18 to 20 aggressive signs on 
grass near and opposite the 
synagogue.
The signs challenge 
“Jewish Power” and attack 
Israel as “apartheid” and as 
responsible for a “Palestinian 
holocaust.” They demand a 
boycott of Israel and an end 
to U.S. aid to Israel.
But their timing and loca-
tion demonstrate that they 

address Jews coming for reli-
gious observance, whether or 
not they support Israel. 
It takes only a rudimentary 
knowledge of history to recall 
that the Third Reich began a 
program that murdered mil-
lions with similar harangues 
against the Jewish religion by 
hostile hordes at the doors of 
Jewish synagogues.
Beth Israel’s members 
suffered these meticulously 
timed taunts and the city’s 
refusal to prevent them for 
years, but finally took their 
tormentors to federal court 

Nathan 
Lewin
JNS

PURELY COMMENTARY

Ann Arbor ruling is a threat to us all.

ALEX SHERMAN

An anti-Israel 
sign outside 
the synagogue

