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