1942 - 2023 Covering and Connecting Jewish Detroit Every Week To make a donation to the DETROIT JEWISH NEWS FOUNDATION go to the website www.thejewishnews.com The Detroit Jewish News (USPS 275-520) is published every Thursday at 32255 Northwestern Highway, #205, Farmington Hills, Michigan. Periodical postage paid at Southfield, Michigan, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: send changes to: Detroit Jewish News, 32255 Northwestern Highway, #205, Farmington Hills, Michigan 48334 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. VISION STATEMENT The Detroit Jewish News will operate to appeal to the broadest segments of the greater Detroit Jewish community, reflecting the diverse views and interests of the Jewish community while advancing the morale and spirit of the community and advocating Jewish unity, identity and continuity. DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 32255 Northwestern Hwy. Suite 205, Farmington Hills, MI 48334 248-354-6060 thejewishnews.com Publisher The Detroit Jewish News Foundation | Board of Directors: Chair: Gary Torgow Vice President: David Kramer Secretary: Robin Axelrod Treasurer: Max Berlin Board members: Michael J. Eizelman Larry Jackier, Jeffrey Schlussel, Mark Zausmer Executive Director: Marni Raitt Senior Advisor to the Board: Mark Davidoff Alene and Graham Landau Archivist Chair: Mike Smith Founding President & Publisher Emeritus: Arthur Horwitz Founding Publisher Philip Slomovitz, of blessed memory Editorial Director of Editorial: Jackie Headapohl jheadapohl@thejewishnews.com Contributing Editors: David Sachs, Keri Guten Cohen Staff Reporter: Danny Schwartz dschwartz@thejewishnews.com Editorial Assistant: Sy Manello smanello@thejewishnews.com Digital Manager: Elizabeth King eking@thejewishnews.com Contributing Writers: Nate Bloom, Rochel Burstyn, Suzanne Chessler, Shari S. Cohen, Louis Finkelman, Samantha Foon, Yevgeniya Gazman, Stacy Gittleman, Esther Allweiss Ingber, Barbara Lewis, Jennifer Lovy, Rabbi Jason Miller, Alan Muskovitz, Karen Schwartz, Robin Schwartz, Steve Stein, Nathaniel Warshay, Julie Smith Yolles, Ashley Zlatopolsky Advertising Sales Director of Advertising: Keith Farber kfarber@thejewishnews.com Senior Account Executive: Kathy Harvey-Mitton kmitton@thejewishnews.com | Business Office Director of Operations: Amy Gill agill@thejewishnews.com Operations Manager: Andrea Gusho agusho@thejewishnews.com Operations Assistant: Ashlee Szabo Circulation: Danielle Smith Billing Coordinator: Pamela Turner | Production By Farago & Associates Manager: Scott Drzewiecki Designers: Kaitlyn Iezzi, Kelly Kosek, Michelle Sheridan 6 | NOVEMBER 2 • 2023 J N PURELY COMMENTARY continued on page 7 D uring his whirlwind visit to Israel in the wake of the attack by Hamas on the Jewish State, President Joe Biden made a profound observation which means a lot to me. Biden stated, “You don’t have to be Jewish to be a Zionist.” No words could be more true. My own Zionist background dates back to the Yom Kippur War in 1973 (when I was 13 years old). The leadership of Golda Meir made an impression on me. She remains my favorite Israeli prime minister in history. But my Catholic boyhood still shielded me from the reality of antisemitism (mitigated as anti-Zionism). It was not until my years at Wayne State University when anti-Zionism/antisemitism got my attention. Northern Israel had been the object for years of PLO shelling and raids conducted from Lebanon. When Israel invaded Lebanon to rid the world of the PLO menace in 1982, the Jewish state was the object of rebuke from all corners, including from the Reagan Administration. Not that the situation should have been a surprise. Israel had destroyed Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor in 1981, only to be condemned by the late Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Ronald Reagan’s Ambassador to the United Nations. Israel also received spurious blame for the Christian Phalangists’ massacre of Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatilla during the war in Lebanon. Nowhere was the anti- Israel vitriol more acute than on the campus of Wayne State University. In 1983, the university was host to French diplomat Charles Crettien, who, on behalf of France, chastised the Jewish State for defending itself. My rebuttal to Crettien, which appeared in The South End (the student newspaper at Wayne State University), was greeted with utter hostility. Friends could only be found at the campus John O’Neill guest column I, Too, Am a Zionist!