In 1988 and 1989, the village was the center of a controversy that gained national media attention. In 1987, the Grafton Organization for Library Donations began a campaign to construct a new library facility and announced that the individual or group that gave the largest donation would have right to choose the building's name. Local industrialists Benjamin and Theodore Grob gave $250,000 to the campaign on that condition that the facility be named the USS Liberty Memorial Public Library in honor of thirty-four U.S. citizens killed by Israel during the Six-Day War. Milwaukee-based Jewish organizations protested that the name was antisemitic; although Israel claimed that the attack on the USS Liberty was an accident—a claim confirmed by a U.S. congressional inquiry—some right-wing groups such as the USS Liberty Veterans Association and the Liberty Lobby used the incident as a political lightning rod to promote anti-Zionist and antisemitic positions. However, the Grob brothers claimed that their intentions were patriotic and they wanted to honor victims who had received little official recognition. Media outlets including the Chicago Tribune and The New York Times reported on the story and made public the Grob brothers' ties to right-wing groups, including the Liberty Lobby, and an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal also found that Benjamin Grob had given money to the Ku Klux Klan, including a $500 contribution to David Duke's 1988 presidential campaign. In spite of the controversy and protests in the community, village president James Grant dismissed the allegations and proceeded to dedicate the library in June 1989, marking the twenty-second anniversary of the USS Liberty incident. Sixty survivors of the Liberty attended the dedication ceremony."History of the U.S.S. Liberty Memorial Public Library"
