Michigan Editorials Called Anti-Semitic

Editors of the Michigan Daily--a student newspaper at the University of Michigan--will meet tomorrow with protesters who have called some of the paper's editorial positions anti-Semitic

Senior Bradley W. Kertzberg, one of the demonstration's five organizers, said recent editorials about Zionism and Israel's conduct in the Middle East were full of "lies and half-truths about Zionist history. They went beyond the political realm and started to slander the Jewish people."

Two weeks ago, 200 students and faculty members from the school's Ann Arbor campus held a 45-minute rally in front of the building that houses the Daily.

Junior Adam J. Schrager, editor-in-chief of the Daily, said the paper has appointed a panel of six editors who will meet tomorrow with Jewish leaders on the Michigan campus to talk about their complaints.

Kertzberg said he hopes the meeting will remedy the problem, stressing he does not wish to encourage censorship. "They have the right to do it, but we're not going to take it lying down," he said.

The Daily reported two weeks ago that a press release dispatched by the protesters said, "The Michigan Daily's editorial board has...contributed to an atmosphere of bigotry toward Jews at the University of Michigan."

According to the Daily, demonstrators marched across campus chanting, "Print facts, not slander" and "Print the news, don't bait the Jews."

Todd Endelman, a history professor at UMich and the director of the University's Judaic studies program, told the Michigan paper that it "is obsessed with Zionism; one would think that it's the only conflict going on between two groups."

But Betsy D. Esch, co-editor of the Daily's opinion page, said the editorials attacked the policies of Israel, not the Jewish people.

"We're not anti-Jewish," said Esch. "We're critical of the state of Israel."

"The distinction people are failing to make is the difference between Judaism and Zionism," said opinion page co-editor Amy Harmon.