Floridian’s fight was not lost cause
HOLLYWOOD — His rabbi told him it was a lost cause. His wife thought he was wasting his time fighting City Hall. Even old-timers from Hollywood’s black Liberia neighborhood thought he was tilting at windmills.
But Benjamin Israel, for months the lone voice demanding that his South Florida city change three street names honoring Confederate leaders, paid them no mind.
Israel, an African-American, Orthodox Jew and native New Yorker who moved to Hollywood in 1979, says he knows a wrong when he sees one. And it was wrong to have streets in Hollywood named after Confederate commanders like Robert E. Lee, John Bell Hood and, above all, Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was also the first grand wizard of the KKK.
For two years, city leaders turned a deaf ear. But Israel kept the issue alive, motivated by the words a Hebrew phrase meaning “repairing the world.”
The father of eight eventually got help from hometown activists, the Anti-Defamation League, Black Lives Matter and prominent elected officials, including Sheriff Scott Israel and U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who issued a statement last week urging Hollywood to change the names of the streets.
But long before then, it was Israel’s voice ringing out at Hollywood commission meetings, fighting for new street names — not because it was a Hollywood issue, but a national one, as he put it. Israel’s battle was not in vain. On July 3, Hollywood commissioners agreed to rename the streets. Under the current plan, Lee Street will become Louisville, Hood Street will become Macon and Forrest will change to Savannah.
A final vote is coming on Aug. 30 — and people on both sides are lining up like soldiers on a battlefield, just in case city leaders change their mind.
Israel, for one, plans there.
All three streets extend through the entire city, but only two — Forrest and Hood — run through Liberia.
The controversy made headlines two years ago when vandals painted over the street signs.
A similar call 15 years ago went ignored. At that time, it was longtime Hollywood resident Barry Sacharow who had taken to be up the cause.
“I just focused on Forrest. He was a polarizing figure,” said Sacharow, now a retired Broward College professor.
Sacharow says Hollywood commissioners told him to survey residents who live on Forrest Street to see whether they wanted the name changed. Many felt it was not important.
“So I stepped away,” Sacharow said. “Benjamin Israel never stepped away. I have an enormous amount of respect for him.”
Joseph Israel, a younger brother who lives in Los Angeles, was not at all surprised by his brother’s dedication in the face of defeat.
“As a boy, he was spirited,” Joseph Israel said. “For most of our lives, he’s been a very determined individual about what he thinks is right and wrong.”