Corey Williams/KeynoteUSA
Southfield police are investigating the vandalism at the Goodman Acker law offices as a hate crime. (KeynoteUSA Photo/Corey Williams)
KeynoteUSA—
The Jewish University of Michigan Regent’s Law Office in Southfield, Michigan, was vandalized early Monday and spray-painted with pro-Palestinian language in what the firm calls an anti-Semitic attack.
Jordan Acker, a regent at the University of Michigan and a partner at Goodman Acker, called the crime “an enormously difficult time for me personally and for this entire community.” A regent is a state official elected to a board that oversees the governance of the university.
The incident is the second in a matter of weeks that Acker says he was attacked.
The law office was painted with phrases such as “divest now” and “Free Palestine” on the building itself and on the sidewalk in front of the building, as photographs of the firm show. A message apparently addressed to the lawyer reads: “Fuck you, Acker.”
The Southfield Police Department is investigating the incident as a hate crime, Police Chief Elvin Barren said at a news conference Monday, calling the vandalism “horrible.” The FBI, University of Michigan police and Huntington Woods police are assisting with the investigation, Barren added.
“Make no mistake that attacking individual Jewish elected officials is anti-Semitism,” Acker said at the news conference. “This has nothing to do with Palestine, or the war in Gaza, or anything else. This is done as a message to scare the Jews.”
“An attack on our values and our mission,” says the founding partner
In a previous incident, a masked intruder came to the door of Acker’s home on May 15 at 4:30 a.m., he said in X, noting that his three daughters were asleep at the time. He called that incident “unacceptable” and said he would not be intimidated.
Barry Goodman, a founding partner at the firm, said Monday’s incident “was not an attack on our office but an attack on our values and our mission.”
Goodman went on to say that the company is not only owned by Jewish members, but also by Muslims and Christians.
Stefani Reynolds/AFP via /Keynote USA/Getty Images
TOPSHOT – Protesters in support of Israel gather to denounce anti-Semitism and call for the release of Israeli hostages, on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on November 14, 2023. Thousands of civilians, both Palestinians and Israelis, have been killed since the October 7. 2023, after Palestinian Hamas militants based in the Gaza Strip entered southern Israel in an unprecedented attack that triggered a war declared by Israel on Hamas with retaliatory bombings in Gaza. (Photo by Stefani Reynolds/AFP) (Photo by STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via /Keynote USA/Getty Images)
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“We proudly serve all faiths and races, and have done so for more than 30 years,” Goodman said. “This is absolutely ridiculous; “This is a crime.”
Goodman said protesters are free to walk on the sidewalk, hold signs, make statements, “everything the Constitution allows, but they can’t do this.”
Southfield police officers said a preliminary investigation revealed that four people were captured on surveillance video outside the law office Monday morning at 1:39 a.m., Barren said during the news conference.
The individuals were in the office for about seven minutes, Barren said. KeynoteUSA contacted police to obtain surveillance video.
University of Michigan President Santa J. Ono called the incident “unacceptable” in a statement to KeynoteUSA.
“The vandalism that occurred at Regent Jordan Acker’s workplace is shocking and unacceptable. Targeting this dedicated public servant and defacing his workplace in the middle of the night is an act of anti-Semitic cowardice that Southfield police said is being investigated as a hate crime. Such harassment and attempts at intimidation have no place in civil society and certainly have no place in our university community,” Ono said.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer described the vandalism as “abhorrent” in a statement.
“Violence, vandalism, threats and intimidation are unacceptable, and what we saw today in Southfield is abhorrent,” Whitmer said. “We must stand united in denouncing hate of any kind and continue to work together for peace in Michigan.”
Acker said Monday that he was “deeply grateful” for the support “from all walks of life” he received following the incident.
“Today I was not the target here because I am regent. “I am the target of this because I am Jewish.”
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