Howard Lovy

Tag: Michigan

  • Palestinian Activist Huwaida Arraf Wants Seat in Congress

    Palestinian Activist Huwaida Arraf Wants Seat in Congress

    The Jewish Telegraphic Agency ran a feature I wrote about Huwaida Arraf, a longtime anti-Israel activist.

    Now running for Congress in Michigan: a Hebrew-speaking Palestinian Christian who is married to a Jew and spent time living on an Israeli kibbutz before rejecting coexistence efforts in favor of advocating for Palestinian resistance.

    The onetime organizer of the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian group that recognizes the right to “legitimate armed struggle” against the Israeli occupation, Huwaida Arraf has alarmed Detroit-area Jewish and pro-Israel groups with her plans to enter a crowded Democratic field ahead in the August 2022 primary in Michigan’s 10th Congressional District.

    Rabbi Asher Lopatin, executive director of the Michigan-based Jewish Community Relations Council of the American Jewish Committee, called Arraf’s past statements about Israel “hateful, destructive and antisemitic.”

    For her part, Arraf has condemned antisemitism in pro-Palestinian advocacy and says she encourages Jews to approach her with any questions and not to believe everything they read about her.

    “Know that I will always stand for people’s rights,” she said. “And when we come together to defend the rights of all people — not really based on ethnicity or religion — we will find ourselves on the same side.”

    Read the rest of my feature on Huwaida Arraf at JTA, the Jerusalem Post, or the Times of Israel.

    Also, on my Substack Newsletter Emet-Truth: Shooting the Messenger on Huwaida Arraf.

    Read more of my Jewish News and Commentary here.

     

  • Michael Moore: National Leftist, Local Capitalist

    Michael Moore: National Leftist, Local Capitalist

    Michael Moore
    Michael Moore

    Love or hate his politics, filmmaker and liberal activist Michael Moore has done one thing that local folks of all political stripes can agree on (for the most part): his Traverse City Film Festival, and refurbishing of the local State Theater, has helped my hometown with its economic revival. It took me a little while to get Moore to agree to an interview for a capitalist publication like Crain’s Detroit Business, where I wrote freelance business articles for a little while, but I finally pinned him down in 2012 for this feature story.

    It is Thursday night and the State Theatre is packed to the balcony with attendees of the Traverse City Film Festival, who are catching “Louder Than Love,” a documentary about Detroit’s Grande Ballroom.

    Outside, the downtown sidewalks along Front Street are filled with folks walking elbow to elbow, patronizing restaurants and shops. Inside the theater, Michael Moore stands in the lobby, dressed in shorts and his trademark baseball cap, greeting filmgoers with shy smiles and bowing his head modestly as he speaks.

    But beneath his bashful manner, Moore’s tongue is as sharp as ever. And it is aimed directly at his sworn enemies — what he calls “greedy capitalists.”

    “I’m teaching Capitalism 101 to all the capitalists here,” he says in an offhand response to a question. “I’m not sure they get it.”

    Then Moore amends his comment. “In Traverse City, they get it.”

    In this way, the native Michigan director of documentaries — including the sarcastically titled “Capitalism: A Love Story” — transitions from his persona as a progressive firebrand on the national stage to the local guy who many in the business community in Traverse City say has done more than any other person to boost the economy of his adopted hometown.

    Read my full feature story on Michael Moore in Crain’s Detroit Business.