An Outburst of Antisemitism in LA

Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 9:41:10 am PDT

When Israeli-American Daphna Ziman was given the Tom Bradley Award for community service recently by the African-American fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi, keynote speaker Reverend Eric Lee reportedly launched into an antisemitic diatribe directed at her; Pajamas Media has the story in a video interview with Ms. Ziman: Reverend Eric Lee’s Anti-Semitism: A Personal Story [video]

After Ziman received her award, Reverend Lee, who is the President/CEO of the Los Angeles branch of Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, began his keynote speech. In the midst of this, after praising Malcolm X, he started staring directly at Ziman, according to an email she sent.

Ziman’s email states “[Lee] started talking about the African American children who are suffering because of the Jews that have featured them as rapists and murderers. He spoke of a Jewish Rabbi, and then corrected himself to say ‘What other kind of Rabbis are there, but Jews.’ He told how this Rabbi came to him to say that he would like to bring the AA [African-American] community and the Jewish community together. ‘NO, NO, NO!!!!’ he shouted into the crowd, ‘we are not going to come together. The Jews have made money on us in the music business and we are the entertainers, and they are economically enslaving us.’”

(An attempt to revive the “Black-Jewish Connection” is currently underway in Los Angeles, according to the L. A. Watts Times.)

Lee continued with his anti-Semitic diatribe, according to Ziman, at which time she could no longer tolerate it and left the room, where she broke into tears.

Most of the dignitaries had also left the room by the time of Lee’s speech but Assemblyman Mike Davis was still there. He told Ziman that he “did not hear” Lee’s words because he was engaged in another conversation. Mr. Davis did not return a call from Pajamas Media, seeking comment. Calls to organizers of the event were also not returned.