by dan pine
staff writer
“I don’t want to hear one more word about Islam,” said conservative talk radio host Michael Savage on the air this past October. “Take your religion and shove it up your behind. I’m sick of you.”
Now an interfaith coalition is sick of Savage, and has launched a campaign to urge advertisers to drop their support of the syndicated radio program.
Calling itself Hate Hurts America, the campaign has succeeded in persuading companies like Office Max, Wal-Mart, Sears and AT&T to drop “The Savage Nation.” The show originates from KNEW in San Francisco and airs on more than 400 stations across the country.
According to a Hate Hurts America press release, Savage has lost at least $1 million in revenue as a result of the campaign.
The coalition includes Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders, including two local rabbis, Harry Manhoff and Pamela Frydman Baugh.
“Michael Savage has been a concern of mine for many years,” said Manhoff, rabbi at Temple Beth Sholom in San Leandro and president of the Board of Rabbis of Northern California. “I think that some of his messages are very hurtful, and with the intent to entertain, his words are often hateful for their shock value.”
Though his name appears on the Hate Hurts America list of interfaith partners, Manhoff has some reservations about the group’s tactics.
“I don’t support this effort to remove advertisers,” he said. “I think it’s a two-way street, so what can happen is Jewish organizations can find the same kind of [boycotting] effort directed at them, and I don’t want to see that. What I support is the effort to request that Michael Savage moderate his language about Muslims, Islam and other Middle East concerns.”
Frydman Baugh, who serves as administrative director of the Ohala, the association of Jewish Renewal rabbis, agrees with her colleague.
“I am also concerned about that aspect,” she noted. “It’s the one thing that caused me to move a bit slowly to Hate Hurts America. But it’s extremely important to raise consciousness about this kind of thing. When an advertiser is aware it supports this kind of rhetoric, I think it’s appropriate for an advertiser to boycott.”
The daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Frydman Baugh, of San Francisco, says she felt compelled to take part in this effort. “For me, whenever someone is being hated in a public form, it’s important that we as Jews stand up and support the victim.”
“We’ve noticed an increase in hate speech on talk radio,” said Hate Hurts America coordinator Sabiha Khan. “The best way to affect change in terms of curbing the hate we hear is not supporting it, and in this country that translates to advertisers.”
Khan is a former staffer with CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is a member of the interfaith coalition. She said Hate Hurts America is a separate entity, but that CAIR asked her to join the campaign.
In a letter to advertisers, Hate Hurts America wrote, “While Mr. Savage has a First Amendment right to spew hatred, people of conscience have no obligation to purchase the goods or services of companies that offer financial support to that hate.”
The letter went on to cite other quotes from Savage. For example, in 2004 he said on the air, “I think [Muslims] need to be forcibly converted to Christianity … It’s the only thing that can probably turn them into human beings.”
Savage, born Michael Weiner, is Jewish and lives in the Bay Area. Calls from j. to Savage’s producer were not returned.
Some Jews have criticized CAIR as a front for more militant views, including support of Hamas. Savage recently filed a lawsuit against the group, claiming it violated his rights by quoting him on its Web site out of context.
Khan said she welcomes Jewish support in her interfaith coalition.
“I know many people in the Jewish community who are as outraged as anyone else,” Khan noted. “It doesn’t surprise me that people of the Jewish faith, Christian faith, Latinos and Asians are joining the coalition. [Hate] is something we all worry about.”
Though Khan said her campaign’s aim is not to censor Savage or end his career, she wanted to make her point clear. “We want to keep asking advertisers to pull out,” she said. “We don’t know what will happen, but I won’t lose sleep if he is off the air.”
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California