6 | OCTOBER 3 • 2024 
J
N

1942 - 2024

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: Mark Davidoff, 
 Michael J. Eizelman, Larry Jackier, 
 Jeffrey Schlussel, Mark Zausmer
 
 Executive Director:
 Marni Raitt 
 Alene and Graham Landau Archivist Chair: 
 

 Mike Smith
 Founding President & Publisher Emeritus: 
 
 Arthur Horwitz
 Founding Publisher 
 Philip Slomovitz, of blessed memory
 
 The Detroit Jewish News 
 Foundation Giving Society

 The Rebecca and Andrew Hayman Giving Fund
 Nancy and James Grosfeld
 The Honorable Bernard Friedman

 Editorial 
 Director of Editorial: 
 Jackie Headapohl
jheadapohl@thejewishnews.com
Contributing Editors: 
David Sachs, Keri Guten Cohen
Senior 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, Gary Graff, 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: Ashlee Watkins 
 Circulation: Danielle Smith
 Billing Coordinator: Pamela Turner

| Production By 
 Farago & Associates
 Manager: Scott Drzewiecki 
 Designers: Kaitlyn Iezzi, Kelly Kosek, 
 

 Michelle Sheridan 

PURELY COMMENTARY

essay
Destroy the Jews, Destroy the World
A

s a 32-year-old American 
Jew, it didn’t take long 
after Oct. 7 to realize 
that my entire life had been 
predicated on one fantastical belief: 
Antisemitism was, on the whole, 
eradicated from 
Western society. 
Like many people, 
my first personal 
interaction with 
wildfire antisemitism 
was online. As my 
Instagram timeline 
became consumed 
with anti-Zionist rhetoric, my 
good friend from college reposted 
a video that shattered me. She 
shared a feature by a queer Jew 
expounding on all the reasons we 
Jews have been lied to by our own 
community. My friend, who is 
not Jewish, then wrote, “Jews who 
believe in Israel should take a hard 
look at themselves and get on the 
right side of history.” 

I immediately ached for the 
days growing up as a Jewish 
kid during the turn of the 21st 
century. This was a time when we 
learned about tikkun olam while 
trying to emulate Kobe Bryant on 
the basketball court. Where my 
non-Jewish classmates in Tampa, 
Florida, embraced my Judaism 
with curiosity and love, joining my 

family for Chanukah celebrations 
and becoming proud members 
of our school’s Jewish Awareness 
Club. No stranger called me 
sick for supporting a “genocidal, 
apartheid state.” No former crush 
marched down the street chanting 
threatening slogans manufactured 
by terrorist organizations. No 
friend brazenly and self-righteously 

claimed to understand my own 
history better than me. 
This was also a time when 
Holocaust survivors shared the hell 
they somehow managed to survive, 
and non-Jews remembered that 
they, too, had fought an existential 
threat to everything they value.
Unfortunately, Jews don’t 
have the luxury of forgetting. 
From slavery in Egypt to Oct. 7, 
millions of our ancestors have 
been humiliated, chased from their 
homes, tortured, raped and brutally 
murdered. And yet, we Jews 
survive. And not only survive — we 
thrive. We dream, create, educate 
ourselves and have a knack for 
turning coal into the most sought-
after diamonds on Earth. Men like 
Hungarian-American film-industry 
executive William Fox and the four 
Warner brothers built Hollywood. 
Ruth Bader Ginsberg advanced 
gender equality as the first female 
Jewish U.S. Supreme Court Justice. 

Daphna 
Shull
JNS.com

COTTONBRO STUDIO/PEXELS

