1 rid* October 6, 1918 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS . • A Mother's Anguish ONLY YOU CAN STOP IT! Reprinted from the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle , Dear Editor: You probably have a policy of not accepting anonymous letters. In my case, I hope you eill make an exception. I have al- most come to terms with my own sensitivity, but we are a well-known family in the greater Pittsburgh Jewish community, and I must consider the sen- sitivities of some of the other family members. I am not quite sure why I am writing this, whether it is a need to make a pub- lic confession of a sort, or to call to account those whom I hold responsible for my misery, or to al- truistically caution others to avoid my pitfall. We have a beautiful daughter, the oldest of our. four children. She is ev- erything a parent could wish for — beautiful, charming, and bright. At age 20 we had no reason to ever question her where- abouts or the company she kept. Several months ago she announced to us that she had become a Jewish Christian, having been associated with the Jews for Jesus group for some time. At first we did not know how to react. We are an average middle class Jewish family. Our Jewish identity is probably simi- lar to the majority of our peers: Temple member- ship; interest in Israel; Sunday school education for our children; etc. We have not had any in- terfaith marriages in our immediate family, but with the rather wide- spread incidence, we prob- ably would somehoW have made peace with an in- termarriage. To fall in love and in- termarry is one thing,.but to reject the family faith is another. Furthermore, it seems to us that this was not a conversion out of conviction, but an infatua- tion with a cult which is probably of the same gen- eral character as the Moohies. To make things so much worse, our daughter has begun to preach to our younger children • who have always looked up to her, and is attempting to sway, them into the Jews for Jesus group. Because we put out foot down and refused to allow her to influence our younger children, she has left home and has gone to live somewhere with her group. When we tried to dis- suade our daughter, she • NAME ADDRESS began quoting Scripture to support her position. She has become an avid stu- dent of the Bible. We thought that there was surely something emotionally wrong with her, and we asked her to get some counseling. The psychologist she saw could find nothing wrong with her, and told us that many of today's young people are searching for philosophies and something to give meaning to their lives. 'Some run into the drug scene, and some find meaning in various cults. If what the psychologist said is true, then we have been seriously remiss in not providing our daugh- , ter with a meaning for life, and as a result, we have lost our child. She tells us that she never really got to know religion or the Bible until she fell in with this group, and thatothe Sun- day school classes she. attended were just an empty experience. We are not evading our responsibilities as par- ents; and we assume the guilt for our derelictions. But after all, we are lay people who really 'do not know much, and our own religious_ training was scant. We look to our rab- bis for guidance. Why do our rabbis allow a system of teaching whiCh permits our children to grow up in virtually total ignorance of Jewish knowledge and heritage, and whicla leaves them prey to missionaries? How can our children answer the arguments which these missionaries make if they have no knowledge- able background? Why did my daughter's first con- tact with an intensive study of the Bible come from missionaries, and not from a Jewish educational system? When my daughter was about 10 or 11, she was befriended by some chil- dren from a religious Jewish day school, and wanted to join them. We did not favor this, because we were afraid that we would be asked to keep kosher and have other re- strictions wjiich would disrupt our life style. Maybe if we had been less preoccupied with our own comforts, we would not have lost our child. Our lives have been dealt a severe.blow with our child rejecting us and going off in what we feel is a destructive course. Per- haps others cap.be spared. our misfortune. -An Embittered Mothei Jewish community statistics .. . DIVORCE 45% INTERMARRIAGE 40% DRUGS 55% CULTS 15% ILLEGITIMACY 25% OUR TURN The challenge of the "Five Plagues" have been presented to com- munity leaders and par- ents. Jewish community statistics show 45% di- vorce, 40% intermar- riage, 55% -drugs, 15% cults, 25% illegitimacy. We asked "What are you doing about it?" Commu- nity leaders and parents replied; then the youth responded to their par- ents and to the COMIliti- nity leaders. ortions. How cold, how businesslike is our attitude: how cooly we examine the dollar figures in our ledgers — and proceed to "write-off' the fate of an entire genera- tion! Don't we realize that in twenty year's time these same children whom we havd failed to inspire Jewishly will be the ones sitting on the board of the Federation? Who guaran- tees that they will be in- terested in perpetuating our kind of Judaism at-all? Let us wake up to the Now it is our turn: To the Community Lead- facts: • Who will take responsi- ers: 1 We say that amount of bility for an entire younger dollars has been allocated generation abandoned with for education in this city, little or no Jewish con- and that .the amount will sciousness? • Who will take responsi- doubtless increase in the years ahead. We are told to bility for the youngsters be encouraged and hopeful daily lost to our .people that within 20 years the al- through intermarriage? - • Who will take responsi- location will enable every child to receive a full and bility for the Jewish chil- substantial Jewish educa- dren daily-40st to drugs in tion. This is a businesslike the morgues and funeral approach,, presented in chapels? • Who will take responsi- terms of percentages and increases and funds - AND bility for the youth daily THAT, DEAR FRIENDS, IS seduced away from our faith by other religions? ITSELF THE PROBLEM! Our children who are now IN THESE - CIRCUM- between the ages of six and STANCES THERE IS NO sixteen need urgent educa- SUCH THING AS "IN- tional help today. To say SUFFICIENT FUNDS." that they will receive this MONEY MUST BE help years hence is to say to TAKEN FROM THE CAP- dying patient that he will ITAL FUND ITSELF AND receive his medication to- USED TO LAUNCH morrow — in accordance EMERGENCY PRO- with the dictates of the hog- GRAMS OF SUBSTAN- -pital allocation budget! TIVE AND SINCERE The dearth of effective JEWISH EDUCATION Jewish education is the THROUGHOUT THE stated problem, but the ENTIRE COMMUNITY, problem of the community's SO THAT NOT ONE BOY attitude to this deficiency is OR GIRL IS LEFT OUT! a crisis of far greater prop- To the Parents We Say; a PHONE PARENTS UNITED FOR A JEWISH RENAISSANCE ❑ • The truth may hurt, but it is time to face the truth. The comments made in response to our ad (some of which were printed a couple of weeks ago) were comments of despair: "What could -I have done?" or, "I gave him everything I could, what more could I have given?" What was not said is that we have established a dis- torted foundation in our ap- proach to Jewish life and we have tried to maintain the Jewish tradition while adhering to that tilted base. It cannot work It will never work. The distorted foundation is this: That the observant' lifestyle and dedication to Torah of our grandparents and great-grandparents is untenalale, unworkable, in- convenient and therefore unthinkable in this day and age. Having made this axiom part and parcel of our lifestyle, we now seek for answers to our floundering youth without giving up on the axiom — for that would be quite uncomfortable. So let us rephrase our answers in light -of the truth. When we say, "What more could I have done?" we really mean, "What more could I have done without resign- ing myself to the irrefutable evidence that my grandfather's Jewish lifes- tyle is the only answer for myself and my family too." - Come now, let us be hon- est with one another? • We cannot have our' children learn one thing in Hebrew School -*and do the opposite in our homes. • We cannot talk about some of the Ten Com- mandments and reject the others. • We cannot have a home life that is identical with that of the gentile neighbor -- and then expect :our son or daughter to have some sort of mysterious "gut feeling" against marry- ing out. It is time to go back to basics We live in an age of science and technology. It is time to accept the guidance of empirical scientists who say the ultimate proof of a theory _is when it works. Torah works. Mitzvos work. Observance of Jewish val- ues in the home works. This is no longer a theory of years ago, a dream of the "Shtetl" for grandfather and grandmother. Today, in our very city, in our very own neighborhoods are hun- dreds of people living by the guidelines of Torah and Mitzvos. They eat only kosher food, in the home and outside. They do not work on Shabbos. They sit around the Friday night table united as a family.— grandfather, father and children. The grandparents need no old age home. They are a vital and vibrant part- of the family unit and have their t wri productive lives and Torah-study. Divorce, intermarriage, immorality, drug involvement, all of these plagues are virtually unknown in the Torah- observant household. Men- tal and emotional problems are of minimal, incidence . . . LET US NOT BE JEAL- OUS OF THEM — LET US JOIN THEM!, I am concerned, & I am intewsted in receiving guidance & assistance regarding my own & my child's jewish education.,_ ❑ I would like to assist in_this program 23011 Church; Oak Park, Mich. 48231; Phone: 546-1031