Anti-Semitic Books Spark New Guidelines on Materials at City Festivals : Vendors: Voluntary cooperation is sought in excluding offensive materials at city-sponsored events.

In response to the recent criticism about the sale of two anti-Semitic books at a city-sponsored festival last month, the Cultural Affairs Department has set new guidelines designed to discourage the sale of such offensive materials at publicly funded events.

Adolfo V. Nodal, the city’s Cultural Affairs general manager, said that his department will not seek to ban the sale of such books but will encourage vendors to voluntarily exclude material that might be considered distasteful and not in keeping with the multicultural themes promoted by the city’s 42 cultural festivals.

“Our programs are not aimed at denigrating anyone’s culture, but they seek to celebrate the diversity of cultures among us,” Nodal said.

The new guidelines were implemented by the department after Nodal received a letter Sept. 19 from City Councilman Zev Yaroslavky protesting the sale of two anti-Semitic books by a vendor at last month’s African Marketplace, the largest and most successful festival the city sponsors.

The books, “The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem” by the late auto magnate Henry Ford Sr., and “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which originated out of czarist Russia, have been widely discredited for portraying Jews as the masterminds behind a sinister plot to take over the world.

The two offensive books displayed by Eso Won bookstore of Los Angeles were among 500 books the vendor had on display. And with 20 book vendors at the festival, the marketplace organizers said they were not aware that the books were being sold.

Despite the abhorrent nature of the books, Nodal said he would not ask that they be banned from city festivals because that would raise concerns about the issue of censorship.

“The books are horrible, but it would be more horrible to ban them,” he said, citing the need to balance freedom of expression with sensitivity toward the concerns of others.

Nodal said he wanted to avoid “feeding into the kind of frenzy” surrounding the National Endowment for the Arts with artists being asked to take oaths not to create obscene art in order to qualify for grants.

Instead, he said the city will stress the need for keeping a positive climate at its festivals and warn those who attend that the city does not endorse all views expressed. Committees of vendors will be set up to monitor and regulate the kinds of products on display. And the opportunity for alternative points of view will be allowed within the format of each festival.

“This puts the responsibility of control at the community level, where specific standards (for what is acceptable) will be set,” he said.

The new guidelines will be implemented at all 42 city-sponsored festivals, celebrating an array of cultures, including African American, Latino, Pacific Islander, Chinese and Jewish.

Yaroslavky said he supported the new guidelines. “They deserve every opportunity to run their course, and I hope they succeed,” he said. “The answer is not to ban books but to try to get people to understand how notorious these books are in the history of the Jewish community. . . . They are as ingrained in the people’s upbringing about persecution as the burning of the church in Alabama is to African Americans.

“The city is not in the business of censorship, but the city needs to be sensitive.” The books are in the Los Angeles Public Library and they are even in the libraries at some temples, Yaroslavky added.

Organizers of the African Marketplace also find the new guidelines acceptable. But they are concerned that the whole issue may have unjustly branded the festival as anti-Semitic just as the program is beginning to enlist corporate sponsors to make it more independent of the city.

More than 150,000 people attended this year’s festival to see 2,000 performers and shop among some 200 vendors at booths decorated in traditional African motif.

Nodal and others hope that eventually the African Marketplace will be more than just an annual festival but a permanent fixture in the city. “There is little in the city that celebrates African culture (on a permanent ongoing basis),” he said. “That is why the marketplace has been so successful.”

Yaroslavky agrees that his concerns should not be taken as criticism of the African marketplace.

“The African Marketplace is one of the most successful events the city sponsors. The city gets a lot more than its money’s worth,” he said. “The African Marketplace is not the villain. It’s the books that I’m concerned about. That’s the issue.”

In the meantime, Eso Won Bookstore reports that they have seen increased demand for the books since the current controversy began. “We have been getting a number of calls for the books,” said James Fugate, a co-owner of Eso Won. “One woman who said she was Jewish put in an order. She said she was not aware of the books but she felt it was important to read them to find out what they were about.”