Suburban Detroit Post Office Says No Mail to Israel

They Got Mail: Kibbutz members are getting mail from the U.S. as usual. One Detroit-area post office branch mistakenly told customers it was not delivering to Israel because of the war. Image by getty images
The metropolitan Detroit regional office of the U.S. Postal Service issued a clarification to its branches after a local post office said it could not accept mail sent to Israel.
A post office in Southfield, Mich., had told clients that mail was not deliverable to Israel because of the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Ed Moore, a spokesman for USPS in the region, said Thursday that the inaccurate information shared with clients reflected a misunderstanding; during a 36-hour Federal Aviation Administration ban on flights to Tel Aviv last week, USPS offices had been instructed to tell clients that Global Express mail was unavailable, and the Southfield branch had taken that notice to mean that all mail was banned.
“We apologized for any inconvenience for our customers,” Moore told JTA. “We put out a message to post offices throughout the Detroit metro area.”
The FAA ban was instituted after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed a mile from the airport. After complaints from Israel and pro-Israel groups, it lifted the ban.
Did you know that only 2% of Forward readers donate to support our nonprofit newsroom? That 2% make it possible for millions to read the Forward without a paywall or subscription — removing any barriers to the full and fair Jewish story.
But while the Forward is free to read, it isn’t free to produce. Big stories — like deep dives into the antisemitism data, political scoops or reporting trips to college campuses — take months of research and fact-checking. All while we keep you informed of what you need to know each day.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Forward Publisher & CEO
