and nearly a dozen other members of his group it’s another day of protest.As they begin to set up along Washtenaw Avenue outside the synagogue, they each pick which messages they’ll be carrying this day.
Signs with attention-grabbing statements like “Zionism Enabled Nazism,” “Israel: No Right To Exist,” and “Is Ethnic Cleansing a Judaic Value?” eventually line the sidewalks as congregants make their way inside for their weekly Sabbath morning services.
Other signs in the protesters’ arsenal read “End Jewish Supremacism in Palestine,” “Israel: Not Good for the Jews,” and “Ethnic Supremacism: Wrong in Germany, Wrong in Israel.”
“I just think this is the most unjust issue there is everywhere and I think it’s misunderstood a lot,” she said of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Everybody seems to think the Jews are just so holy that you can’t say anything about them or to them, but they’re not, and what they’re doing is not right.”
Several cars honk their horns as they pass by, which the protesters take to mean they have some support in the community, but they also have their fair share of detractors.
Rabbi Robert Dobrusin of the Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor poses for a portrait inside the synagogue on a recent morning.
Over the past decade, members of the Beth Israel Congregation have witnessed literally hundreds of protests outside their synagogue.
Some congregants describe the wall of anti-Israel protesters as “the gauntlet,” and they say it’s taken a toll on the congregation over time.
“It’s just disappointing for a community of this kind that this is the way these opinions are being reflected,” said Rabbi Robert Dobrusin. “There are serious discussions that can be had about what’s going on in the Middle East, but this is not the way to have them.”
Herskovitz and members of a group he founded called Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends have used Beth Israel as the venue for their anti-Israel demonstrations since 2003, as they’ve called attention to the plight of Palestinians and what they describe as brutal actions by the Israeli military.
The group’s behavior is once again being scrutinized as Sept. 13 marks the 10th anniversary of the protests. Herskovitz said they have no plans of relenting.
“The real suffering is happening in Palestine,” he said. “We’re not stopping anybody from praying and we’re not harassing anybody.”
Congregation leaders, including Rabbi Dobrusin, said they still don’t see why the protesters choose to target their synagogue since they don’t control the Israeli government.
A coalition of local faith leaders is calling on the Ann Arbor City Council to mark the 10th anniversary of the protests by taking a renewed stance against the group.
The council has publicly denounced the group’s behavior before, though city officials acknowledge what the protesters are doing is constitutionally protected free speech.
“Without overstepping our bounds on the freedom of speech rights of those who protest, there’s nothing we can do about it legally,” said Mayor John Hieftje.
Hieftje added, “I think it’ll only stop when the people who are out on the street become sensible and agree to be reasonable about the issue — and start to understand that trying to affect an international issue by picketing a local place of worship is the wrong way to get anything done.”
Henry Herskovitz, who proudly flies an anti-Israel flag in his front yard and has butted heads with everyone from his neighbors to city officials, says he might be the most-hated man in Ann Arbor. His shirt features the cartoon character Handala, a symbol of the Palestinian struggle for justice.
Herskovitz said his group isn’t blaming the synagogue for the actions of a foreign government — just holding the congregation accountable for supporting the state of Israel.
He said there’s no better venue for the protests than a place whose name in Hebrew means “House of Israel,” and a place that displays the Israeli flag in its sanctuary and prays for the state of Israel.
“Everybody in that building is culpable, responsible for their support of a racist, apartheid state,” he said. “Clearly they don’t pull the levers of the Israeli government, but who does? That’s in large part the Israel lobby in this country, of which Beth Israel is a huge part.”
Congregants have responded in different ways to the protesters. Most have chosen not to engage them. Barry Gross actually helped organize a system whereby congregants pledge to donate money to humanitarian causes for every protester who shows up on Saturdays.
“It’s a shame we have to do stuff like this, but we at least feel better about it,” Gross said. “We’ve tried to make this into something good.”
Gross said they’ve raised more than $ 180,000 over the years for Magen David Adom, which is the Israeli Red Cross, and Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, a cooperative village jointly founded by Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinian Arabs to show they can live side by side in peace.
Jeff Bernstein, past president of the congregation, laments that his 9-year-old son has never experienced a Saturday morning service without protesters. Bernstein has served on the congregation’s protest response committee for the past decade.
“As a committee, we’ve dealt with things as they’ve come up, but really we cannot make this end,” he said.
Bernstein said people come to synagogue for various reasons. Sometimes it’s for a wedding, a bar/bat mitzvah, or a funeral.
“And every Saturday for the last 10 years — whether you have been in a celebratory, contemplative or sorrowful mood — there are people standing outside holding signs that compare us to Nazis, and holding this congregation and its members accountable for things we have absolutely no control over,” he said.
Matt Kaplan, the current president of the congregation, and Bernstein both believe the protesters’ messages have become increasingly anti-Jewish.
“What I’ve seen over the past 10 years is a group whose message has gotten more and more hostile, and more and more offensive,” Kaplan said.
“At the beginning, a lot of this rhetoric talked about Israel. But over the years it’s now talking more about Jews and Judaism, and that’s not an insignificant shift,” Bernstein said.
Herskovitz noted he himself is Jewish, though he said he had a falling out with his faith years ago. He said he used to attend Beth Israel, but he hasn’t been to a service in years. He was turned away from attending a holiday service in 2004 because of his protesting.
“We’re not protesting Jews per se or Judaism per se,” he said. “We are protesting the strength and power of the Jewish community and how they lend their power to supporting the state of Israel.”
The congregation’s board of directors issued a statement July 31 supporting the resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The congregation has on several occasions voiced support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Dobrusin also signed his name to a letter sent to U.S. Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, urging the U.S. to engage both sides in a process to draw borders to create a viable and contiguous Palestinian state. Once the border and security arrangements are agreed upon, the letter stated, Israel should withdraw from all territories designated for the Palestinian state.
“A peace treaty between the Palestinians and Israelis, resulting in a Palestinian state, we hope will free Palestinians of any kind of oppression,” Dobrusin said.
Ann Arbor resident Shirley Zempel, who waved a Palestinian flag outside the synagogue on Saturday morning, said a yearning for justice drives her to protest Israel.
Herskovitz and his group aren’t interested in a two-state solution. They’re calling for elimination of Israel altogether and creation of a Palestinian state.
“You can’t say ‘free Palestine’ without saying ‘end Israel’ because it’s a zero-sum game,” he said. “It’s kind of like rooting for Ohio State and Michigan — one only wins if the other loses.”
Herskovitz has been flying an anti-Israel flag outside his home for more than a year. Several of his neighbors have pleaded with him to take it down, but he refuses.
He filed a police report recently after someone allegedly snuck into his yard and snapped the flag pole. The flag was wired with a padlock, he said, so it wasn’t taken.
Herskovitz said he would agree to stop the protests outside Beth Israel if the congregation would take down the Israeli flag inside its sanctuary.
Congregation leaders said they feel no obligation to respond to the protesters’ demands. Dobrusin said the Israeli flag, which is not far from an American flag in the sanctuary, was there before he arrived 25 years ago and he sees no reason to remove it.
“It does not mean we endorse every decision made by the Israeli government,” he said. “To me, what it’s about is our identification with the people of the state of Israel, our hopes for their security and their prosperity, and our recognition of what Israel means to our people.”
Herskovitz acknowledged his group’s protests have waned over the years. There used to be about 15 protesters each Saturday, he said, and now there’s about seven on average.
Members of the anti-Israel group Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends begin protesting outside the Beth Israel Congregation on Saturday morning. They point to a recent Congressional Research Service report that shows the United States has provided $ 118 billion worth of assistance to Israel since 1949, mostly in the form of military assistance.
“Death has claimed four,” he said. “I’m 67 and I’m the youngest guy out there now. One of our ladies, Lee Booth, she’s 83 years old.”
In the early days, Herskovitz said, the police were out at the protests every Saturday, but they’ve since left the group alone.
The group is planning to celebrate the 10th anniversary privately, Herskovitz said, but they won’t be doing anything publicly other than “business as usual.”
Congregants said they’ve been thankful to see consistent support from the community. The mayor visited the synagogue last year and expressed his regrets about the continuing protests.
“I’ve been working on this issue for years,” Hieftje said. “We’ve worked with our attorneys. We’ve looked into it deeply. We’ve tried to do everything we can.”
Council Member Jane Lumm, an Independent who represents the 2nd Ward, said she wants the city to continue exploring possible solutions.
“I’ve got to believe there are some incremental things we can do so that they can exercise their freedom of speech and not do it in such an in-your-face, offensive way,” she said.
Anti-Israel protester Rudy List sits next to a sign urging an end to U.S. aid for Israel.
In late 2012, the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice called for an end to the protests. City Council Member Chuck Warpehoski, D-5th Ward, is the director of that group.
“All the analysis that I’ve done tells me it’s constitutionally protected speech, and I personally don’t want to go anywhere close to restricting free speech,” Warpehoski said. “But if it’s reprehensible, I’ll say it’s reprehensible.”
Kaplan said the protests have felt more and more like harassment of a single institution as time has gone on.
“The question is how long does this go on and what does it say about Ann Arbor?” he said. “What if this kind of behavior spreads to other places in Ann Arbor? I just think it’s really negative for our congregation and for civic culture here and it accomplishes absolutely nothing.”
Bernstein said the only person who can stop the protests is the person who started them, and that’s Herskovitz.
“We at Beth Israel remain true to who we are,” he said. “We certainly didn’t ask for this. We certainly don’t enjoy it. We wouldn’t wish it upon anybody. We hope it ends.”
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