Fair Play

This week Witness for Peace has raised questions in the Ann Arbor City Attorney’s office for one of our signs that sent Assistant City Attorney Kristen Larcom out to photograph it. The sign reads

Prof. Victor Lieberman: “Heil Hitler!”

And is pictured below

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~hersko/Photos/Heil%20Lieberman-sm.jpg

A Short History

Why would WfP carry such a sign? Here’s the back story and explanation:

Back in 2012, this writer made the mistake of becoming frustrated at the continual stream of lies and yammering of congregant and University of Michigan Professor Victor Lieberman. In a moment of annoyance, words were uttered sarcastically, in the attempt to put an end to that day’s conversation. It worked; he left me alone.

But he held onto those words and started throwing them in my face every chance he got. When the verbal became written – in the Washtenaw Jewish News in 2015– I sent the following letter to that organization, with a copy to Lieberman:

September 26, 2015

Ms. Susan Kravitz Ayer
Editor and Publisher
Washtenaw Jewish News
Re: An open letter to an Ann Arbor hate group, WJN Sept. 2015

Dear Ms. Ayer,

To clear up any misunderstanding between our group and the local Jewish community, neither I nor anyone in our group believes that Jews “deserved” the suffering they experienced during World War II in Europe.

Thank you,

Fast Forward

Two events have recently been presented by our opposition: First, the Washtenaw Jewish News repeated the misleading allegation they knew to be so in their April 2017 issue, and Lieberman shouted “Heil Hitler!” at me during our vigil on March 18, 2017. Readers are invited to see and listen to those words here.

Was Lieberman serious about speaking those words, or, like me five years ago, did he say them facetiously? We just don’t know. It seems rather petty to hold a person to his words when the likeliness of sarcasm exists. But he and the larger Jewish community seem set on doing just that, and Witness for Peace will gift our sign to Lieberman when our above letter gets published in the WJN.

And that’s the whole story.

Comments?

Henry Herskovitz
Witness for Peace
America First Not Israel
Five vigilers
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