William Russell vs. Detroit's Jews
Schwartz, Dannel
WILLIAM RUSSELL VS. DETROITS JEWS DANNEL SCHWARTZ William Russell is a caricature of what you'd want your local Nazi to look like and be. William Russell is a joke in his tight tee shirt,...
...Some elements of the Jewish community pressed for discretion, for the silence of the past...
...He was sure the station would proffer the apology, and therefore the various non-Jewish organizations were not even asked to intervene or help...
...The apology was accepted by the various official agencies of the Jewish community and an uneasy peace was reached...
...And that's when the fireworks started...
...Christianson and his staff complained about Jewish power and influence, insisted on freedom of the press and First Amendment rights...
...But despite pleas from ADL and various other Jewish agencies to support Channel 56, their annual auction has fallen far short of its estimated goal...
...But the station manager did not comply with the ADL's request...
...Scott had shown Russell before, but now the Nazi issue was hot...
...There were demands for Christianson's resignation...
...A colleague of hers had interviewed the leader of the Chicago Nazi Party...
...The incident was handled quickly and quietly, and Ms...
...ORT's Michigan chapter president called for action against 56's auction, while the Jewish War Veterans called for the total crippling of the station...
...And then William Russell opened his bookstore...
...He just sat back and let the cameras, the reporters and the news come to him...
...Christianson stated that "we have been concerned by the resistance of people to contribute to this station who are normally generous...
...He claims to be the head of the National Socialist Movement of Detroit...
...Every newspaper and every television station in Michigan carried the story...
...Jews in Detroit always thought that they knew how to handle anti-Semitism—that is, until William Russell opened his small Nazi bookstore in a predominantly non-Jewish neighborhood...
...So the debate continues...
...As the weeks of January moved into February, many were saying that ORT and the Jewish War Veterans were just pressing the boycott to justify their own existence and keep themselves in business...
...Pamphlets were distributed to students, evoking images of the Hitler youth passing out propaganda materials...
...The Jews of Detroit always knew that "it can happen here" better than most others...
...Christianson continued to stand fast, and William Russell continued to win by doing nothing...
...But a Detroit Councilwoman declared that Holocaust studies should be included in the Detroit City School system...
...He looks like the local bully on the street corner: all brawn and no brains...
...He's unshaven, unable to utter a sentence without at least one expletive...
...Within three days of the Scott program, the Jewish community of Metropolitan Detroit became mobilized—and polarized...
...The story of the impending telecast was leaked to the local newspapers and Lobenthal went into action again...
...There are some who say that William Russell's appearance has unified the Jews and heightened concern among all groups about the KKK and the American Nazis...
...One result of all the noise: in several suburban school systems Nazi clubs were formed...
...He was accused of being a Nazi...
...Native Detroiters are known for always forgiving but never forgetting...
...Finally, Christianson relented and the show was squelched...
...When asked why he' was apologizing, Mr...
...Meanwhile, Russell, the Detroit Nazi, was getting prime time coverage every night, on every Detroit station...
...And discretion was always the best policy...
...So how is it that William Russell has the Jewish community up in arms...
...The hearing for eviction, normally back page news—if that—was brought up front in every daily paper, and William Russell, of course, was loving every minute of it...
...A young Rabbi demanded a total boycott of Channel 56's annual auction which was to take place in six weeks...
...Russell, by doing absolutely nothing but showing up at a television station and being himself, succeeded in doing what neither Arab propaganda experts nor Coughlins nor Fords had ever been able to do: he almost ripped the Detroit Jewish community apart...
...More editorials came out telling the community that responsibility for the death of public broadcasting in Detroit would be on Jewish heads, and that to destroy Channel 56 for putting on a Nazi was "akin to killing the messenger for bringing the bad news...
...Detroit Jews are used to anti-Semitism...
...his tape recorder was smashed and thtx man himself, who says that he has always "wanted to make Hitler look like a humanitarian," was beaten with chairs...
...Finally, on February 22, forty-one days after the January 12 show, James Christianson, the head of Channel 56, called a news conference and apologized for the "mental anguish" the program caused "some" viewers...
...Still, the boycott was working: Channel 56, which had more than 120 hours per year of Jewish subject matter, was losing its major Jewish contributors...
...The Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Community Council cried "foul," and demanded a public apology...
...A black PBS broadcaster, Ron Scott, decided that he wanted to air a Nazi show on his black news program...
...He did not rebut anything the Nazi said, nor did he give equal time to the racial and religious groups who were maligned during the live broadcast...
...The police had to be called to break up the melee at the suburban Temple where the meeting was being held...
...I mean, contributions do account for 85 percent of our $2.8 million budget...
...And then—the next day—all hell broke loose...
...They lived through Henry Ford I and his daily anti-Semitic diatribes in the Dearborn Independent...
...And Christianson persisted in his refusal to apologize...
...What moved Christianson to agree with the ADL Director was the pressure applied rather than the various scenes on the show of Russell carrying his Luger and signs saying "Nigger Beware...
...And the non-Jewish organizations, which at first had been helpful to Lobenthal and the ADL, now took their time in examining what they chose to view as a totally Jewish problem...
...Local newspaper editorial pages carried byline articles specifically telling the world that Channel 56 is "a friend, not a foe, of the Jewish community...
...In trying to recruit membership for the National Council of Jewish Women, one officer reported that almost everyone who called said that she would join only if Council came out for the boycott of 56...
...William Russell is a joke in his tight tee shirt, supported by a huge stomach, which sticks out six inches over his belt...
...Newscasts showed every inch of the bookstore, complete with swastikas and signs, and of course, a smiling William Russell in the same tee shirt he always wears...
...Payne, a local black newscaster, walked off the air during a news program...
...He mobilized organizations such as the Christian Communication Council, the Archdiocese of Detroit, the NAACP, the Detroit Round Table of the National Conference of Christians and Jews in order to sway the management...
...But the lesson of the Russell affair, and the real fear it begets, is that if a William Russell can throw the Jews into such disarray, what would happen if someone with half a brain ever came along...
...A minor incident, after all...
...Quickly and quietly he cajoled and pleaded with the station manager, Jim Christianson, that Nazis on this particular program "violated the guidelines for those acceptable to be shown on the public access time...
...The apology was given and accepted...
...Lobenthal wanted the station to apologize for its duplicity in sneaking a show on the air when he had been promised that no such program would ever appear...
...On the night of January 11, the Detroit Jewish community rested easy...
...Then on January 11, the local Public Broadcasting Station, Channel 56, taped an interview with William Russell on a show called, "It's Your Turn...
...Outside there were a number of pickets from the local community—mostly Blacks, Latinos and non-Jews...
...And the looks are not deceiving...
...They can still mimic Cough-lin's screeching "Jews and Communists" speeches, which they heard on the radio every Sunday, as if 1938 were just yesterday...
...Richard Lobenthal, the energetic and usually soft-spoken Director of the ADL in Michigan, spoke with the landlord, who proved eager to begin eviction proceedings against Russell...
...Still the unofficial boycott continued, and expanded, now with letters condemning the newspaper articles in favor of Channel 56...
...They wanted to know why Nazis were on the air in the first place...
...But at a meeting of concentration camp survivors (on the subject of Skokie) not long after the Payne incident, a known anti-Semite showed up to tape the proceedings...
...Most people didn't care about the issue of duplicity...
...They had always assumed that they could handle the problem quickly and quietly...
...It knew how to take care of its problems in its own way...
...It all started when Beverly Dannel Schwartz is Rabbi at Temple Beth El in Birmingham, Michigan...
...at almost every Jewish meeting during a very cold January in Detroit, the issue was raised and heatedly debated...
...One columnist cautioned Jews that they had every right to be enraged at the public broadcasting station, but "it's also important that Jews remember who their friends are...
...The Jewish community went on its way, quietly and with restraint...
...There are still others who think that certain elements within the Jewish community not only overreacted but flew off the handle and ruined years of positive Jewish community relations in one short 42 day period...
...Channel 56 had been brought to its knees...
...Payne was reinstated with a public apology from the station...
...Emotions boiled over...
...Without any advance publicity and with a small audience, he interviewed Russell, one of Russell's cohorts, a black community leader and a representative of the ACLU...
...Father Coughlin is still alive and well in a Detroit suburb, where he supposedly just purchased his first $500 Israel Bond...
...The issue was sharply posed: either you were with the unofficial boycotters, or you were against them, whether you were Jewish or not...
Vol. 3 • May 1978 • No. 6
