The Anti-Defamation League is protesting the hiring of a security service affiliated with the Black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan to patrol a federally subsidized housing project in the Venice area of western Los Angeles.
A contract between the Alliance Housing project and Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam security branch, not yet signed but described as a “done deal,” was negotiated under guidelines monitored and approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
In a letter to HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, ADL’s national director, Abraham Foxman, said, “The Nation of Islam and its leader, Louis Farrakhan, have a record of racism, anti-Semitism and hate matched by few groups.”
“It would be as inappropriate for the Ku Klux Klan or any other racist group to be providing security under government contract as it would be for the Nation of Islam,” he said.
Foxman said there would likely be heightened tensions between the guards and non-minority people in the racially mixed project and neighborhood, if subjected to the Nation of Islam’s authority.
David Lehrer, the ADL Western states director, said that Farrakhan’s security service “does not have a stellar record, and its employment would be like asking the fox to guard the chicken coop.”
Irv Rubin, national leader of the militant Jewish Defense League, said his group would demonstrate in front of HUD offices and seek an injunction before the contract goes into force.
Under terms of the $54,000-a-month contract with Nation of Islam Security, seven pairs of guards would patrol the project’s 15 subsidized apartment buildings overnight from Wednesday through Sunday, according to ADL officials and a Los Angeles Times report.
The apartment buildings, infested with drug dealing and sporadic gang violence, are in a once predominantly black neighborhood now undergoing a process of gentrification. During the recent Los Angeles riots, several new condominiums in the area were vandalized and one was torched.
According to the Times, a HUD spokesman in Washington said he had not yet seen the ADL letter, but that any reports of anti-Semitism or racism would be “investigated and dealt with.”
Six months ago, a similar controversy erupted when the housing project’s management announced it would hire the security firm. After Jewish protests at the time, HUD ordered the reopening of bidding for the guards.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
