Robert A. Sklar
Editor

All he wanted to do was help Temple Israel promote Eretz Yisrael Day and its Israeli art fair on Sunday, Aug. 29. Instead, he became a victim of an anti-Zionist rant. The upshot is that the anti-Israel undercurrents sweeping the world are igniting more and more sparks here in Jewish Detroit.

I applaud the victim’s willingness to put his storefront business on the line to support a Jewish cause. This Greek-born Christian backed down only when his livelihood became threatened. I was taken by his sincerity as we chatted this past week. His store is in a strip center on Orchard Lake Road. Rabbis are among his large Jewish clientele. He asked that I conceal his name and that of his business because he fears a boycott and picketers would cripple his ability to support his family.

Some might say he buckled to anti-Zionism. But I can’t fault him for thinking first of his wife and 16-month-old daughter. It’s unfair to try to compare him with Jim Hiller, who has boldly continued to sell Israeli foods at Hiller’s Markets despite anti-Israel picketers toting signs of hate outside his Ann Arbor store.

The Orchard Lake Road storeowner felt compelled to take an Eretz Yisrael Day poster out of his front window when a man he didn’t know walked in about two weeks ago and threatened to organize protests similar to what Hiller’s Markets are enduring. The poster indicates all profits from the day will go to Israel.

The man called Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian territories “terror” and asked the storeowner how he’d like it if pickets descended on his store. “The conversation lasted all of 30 seconds, but I know what those guys are capable of and wanted nothing to do with them. So I immediately took down the poster. The guy then left,” the storeowner said.

Having Perspective

Thankful for the freedoms of America’s melting pot, the storeowner has assisted Temple Israel many times over the past few years, often providing auction items. He and his employees were shocked that a poster for an Israeli art fair at a West Bloomfield synagogue could bring hate to their doorstep “in this day and age.” Until then, they had been immune from the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The storeowner favors Palestinian statehood under the right conditions, but defends Israel’s right to protect itself from Palestinian-inspired terror.

Two days before the poster was taken down, a regular customer cast the poster’s logo as a symbol of Israeli terror toward the Palestinians. The storeowner listened attentively but left the poster up. “He talked about how Israel was planting trees in the occupied territories, cultivating the land for a number of years, then claiming the land as theirs under Middle East law,” the storeowner said.

“I remember thinking, ‘What is he talking about? Why make a big deal over an art fair?’ I remember thinking, ‘Let politics be. Let art be. Keep them separate.’”

“It was a political lecture,” the storeowner said. “He was nice and made no threats.”

Since July 26, Eretz Yisrael Day organizers have put up 18 posters in West Bloomfield. In the only other incident, a poster at a coffeehouse was torn down but replaced.

Temple Israel’s Sisterhood and Israel Committee are co-hosting Eretz Yisrael Day. The free community event will celebrate and benefit Israel in various ways. Temple profits specifically will go to Meir Panim, an Israeli organization that feeds hungry kids; they won’t go to a political agenda.

“What we’re doing is only for a good cause,” said Sue Dumond, the fine art chair. “That’s what really hurts.”

“I was really shocked,” she added. “Never in my life have I experienced such anti-Semitic acts.”

The heart of the hate over the poster is the logo; the artwork beautifully expresses “Strength, Courage, Wisdom, Torah.” I asked the local artist, Karen West, what it meant. She said she took the basic design of two lions and two trees against a Star of David, a symbol of the State of Israel and of Judaism, from a photo of a 1920s paper cutting of a chanukiah.

She explained: “I interpreted the lions, who symbolize power and majesty, as representatives of strength and courage. Trees traditionally symbolized Torah and spiritual and intellectual understanding of Torah.”

Like any civilized person, the Orchard Lake Road storeowner who felt pangs of anti-Zionism believes that “teaching little kids to hate, like the Palestinians are doing, is disgraceful.”

“I want my daughter to accept everybody for who they are, without stereotype or bias,” he said. “I came here some 30 odd years ago when I was 3. I want Greek culture to be part of our family, but we’re Americans first.”

Stand With Israel

The best way to demonstrate our outrage at the anti-Zionist sparks hurled at this sweet man sensitive to Israel’s rights is to attend Eretz Yisrael Day at Temple Israel — on Walnut Lake Road, east of Drake. Between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Aug. 29, do business with Israeli artists, buy Israeli food, make a donation or at least spend $10 on a T-shirt.

We can’t let the fear left at the storeowner’s doorstep linger.

We must learn from Jim Hiller, who is standing up to those who would have you believe Israel is the aggressor in its battle against 46 months of Palestinian terror. Terrorism has murdered nearly 1,000 Israel residents and visitors.

Complacency would be our worst enemy.

Over the past week, the Anti-Defamation League Michigan Region has fielded at least seven anti-Semitic complaints, up from a typical week of two such incidents.

On Monday, Betsy Kellman, the ADL’s top professional, told me: “Where before we had whispers, now we have people ready to blatantly take action against the Jews and do something in front of us.”

She cited the Presbyterian Church’s Israel divestment vote and the Detroit black community’s embrace of avowed anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan as a role model for teenagers.

Her conclusion should rattle every Jew. “We’re girding up because we’re not just seeing a rise in global anti-Israel feelings, but also in local animosity toward Jews,” she said. “I’ve been at the ADL close to three years and this is the most uncomfortable any of us here have felt over that time.”