Assail Anti-semitic, Anti-israel Propaganda at Wayne State University

The Jewish and Christian communities here were aroused by a wave of anti-Semitic, anti-Israel propaganda that has spread over the Wayne State University campus. The propaganda, apparently originating with the Arab Student Organization, was abetted by campus and off-campus adherents of the New Left, among them a number of Jewish students. It took the form of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish blasts in the campus newspaper, South End, and reams of anti-Israel material publicly displayed in the University library. Arab students and New Leftists also conducted a “teach-in” in which Israel was excoriated and the Arab terrorist organization, El Fatah, glorified.

The propaganda barrage was denounced by a group of Christian clergymen associated with the office of religious affairs on the WSU campus. Others in the community assailed WSU librarian Flint Purdy for refusing to remove the anti-Semitic propaganda from the library and criticized WSU president William R. Keast for his mild admonition to the campus editor, John Watson, a militant New Leftist. It was disclosed that Mr. Watson was not an enrolled student at the time he assumed the editorship of South End, a newspaper financed by Michigan taxpayers.

The Christian clergymen, headed by Rev. Hubert Locke, a Negro, affirmed their belief in freedom of the press. They added, however, that they “also cling to the hope that discussion in the academic community will be concerned with the ideas and actions of rational men and women, not their bigotries.” They called articles appearing in the student newspaper “manifest acts of racism, in this case, anti-Semitism.”

The Wayne State University Fund denounced the campus propaganda and declared that it presented a distorted image of the Wayne State community.

CHIDE JEWS FOR ‘SENSITIVITY’ AND ‘PERSECUTION COMPLEX’

A confrontation between advocates and opponents of the New Left and black militancy occurred at a campus forum last week. The subject was “Racism, anti-Semitism, Nationalism–is unity possible?” The forum was moderated by Father Michael Hunt, Catholic chaplain at WSU.

According to the Detroit Jewish News, Larry Hochman, a physics instructor at Eastern Michigan University and a self-proclaimed radical, chided the Jewish community for its “sensitivity and persecution complex.” He said the Jews cannot forget their history of torture and that organizational Jewry has a “paranoia” in which it sees itself besieged by Arabs in Israel and blacks in America.

Rev. Locke warned that only the forces of anti-Semitism and white racism stand to gain from the widening gap between Negroes and Jews. Such forces are not only “willing but gleeful to see black and Jew pitted against each other.” he said. He declared that unity “is not only possible, but indispensible.”

David Wineman, professor in the WSU school of social work, refuted the charge that Jews cannot take criticism. “If Jews as a group are vilified as a special form of white with the most hate-filled imagery known in the history of Jewish persecution, then that’s anti-Semitism.” he said.

South End editor Watson, a participant in the forum, denied that his paper or his New Left associates were anti-Semitic. He claimed, “If blacks would respond to criticism the same way Jews did, blacks would be burning down this city every day of the week.” He said the Detroit “establishment” personified by the Detroit News and the Chrysler Corp. were trying to crush his paper and were using anti-Semitism to do it. He said, “half if not all of these people are anti-Semitic themselves.” Mr. Watson claimed his group wanted to see “an independent and autonomous Jewish community and an independent and autonomous black community in cooperation.”

Otto Feinstein, professor at WSU’s Monteith College, said South End had walked unknowingly into a potential trap because the editors didn’t fully understand the feeling of the Jewish community stemming from its experience with genocide.