10 Friday, January 25, 1985 THE DETROIT JEWI§I-CNEWS LOCAL NEWS BAUME & MERCIER GENEVE Bikel Opens AJCampaign BAUME & MERCIER DOES IT ALL IN THE LINE OF BEAUTY His and hers are 18K gold and steel, water- resistant to 99 feet with sport engraved line motif. LAWRENCE M. ALLAN Singer-actor Theodore Bikel demonstrates his talent to Campaign and Federation leadership. Pictured with him are, from left: Stanley Frankel, Robert Naftaly and Joel Tauber. PRESIDENT NORMAN ALLAN Founder/Consultant Established 1919 AWARDED CERTIFICATE BY GIA IN GRADING 8 EVALUATION - GEMOLOGIST/DIAMONTOLOGIST FINE JEWELERS 30400 Telegraph Rd. Birmingham, MI 48010 Suite 134 Phone: 642-5575 Daily til 5:30 Thurs. til 8:30, Sat. til 5 One less thing to worry about "Your office can be complete immediately" GREAT SAVINGS ON OFFICE AND JANITORIAL SUPPLIES 10600 Galaxie • Ferndale, Michigan 48220 • 399-9830 BY HEIDI PRESS Local News Editor Highlighted by a concert of songs in many languages and anecdotes by singer-actor Theo- dore Bikel, the Allied Jewish Campaign kicked off its annual drive Wednesday night at Shalom Synagogue. Entertaining an audience of more than 400 persons, Bikel sang in English, Hebrew, French, Russian and Spanish. He gave his own rendition of the Purim story and peppered his concert with some social commentary and humor. He called for Jews to be "active Jews, not reactive Jews," adding that "we are a noble people and we cannot hang our identity on some- thing that our enemies do, we cannot wait, mustn't wait for the threat of annihilation or holocausts or wars in the Middle East or the obliteration of Israel before our Jewish muscle asserts itself. "Because if we wait for anti- Semites to yell for Jewish blood before we assert our Jewishness, then we allow the anti-Semites to define our Jewishness for us." He elicited laughter from his audience when he described his program for the evening. "I sing a lot of Jewish songs to non-Jews and a lot of non-Jewish songs to Jews on the simple theory that the non-Jews are entitled to a glimpse of the Jewish world and the Jews are entitled to a glimpse of the world." The theme of the evening and of the AJCampaign was "Partners" and Jewish Welfare Federation President Joel Tauber em- phasized the theme when he enumerated the services provided by the funds gained in the drive. In particular, he cited the re- scue of Ethiopian Jews, nicknamed Project Moses, which helped bring more than 14,000 persons to Israel. "This is simply another demonstration of the partnership of Jews," Tauber said. Following a slide presentation entitled, "Partners," describing the Federation's agencies funded by the AJCampaign, Robert Naf- taly, 1985 Campaign chairman, listed pledge totals realized in pre-Campaign activities. Naftaly said that $14,908,000 had been pledged to date, showing an increase of $1,600,000 on a person-to-person basis over 1984. Tile five-year total for Project Re- newal stands at $6 1700,000 while $640,000 had been pledged for Project Moses. Naftaly said that although therewas an increase in contributors during the pre- Campaign phase of the drive, the community-wide phase is show- ing a downward trend. To offset this trend, Naftaly said that con- tributors must be encouraged to increase their pledges and "we must seek out new people to broaden our base." Tauber said last year's cam- paign marked a record, raising $21 million in cash. Naftaly said this year's goal is $22.5 million or more. Rabbi Lane Steinger of Temple Emanu-El recited the invocation, substituting for Adat Shalom's Rabbi Efry Spectre. Naftaly's Campaign co-chairman, Stanley Frankel, introduced Bikel, who was accompanied on the piano by Elliot Finkel. NEWS Bible For Blind New York — The Jewish Braille Institute of America has launched a historic project to pub- lish large-print Hebrew and English editions of the Five Books of Moses for free distribution to severely visually-limited persons, according to Dr. Jane Evans, JBI president. The new editions are intended for distribution exclushrely to the visually-impaired rather than to institutions. Synagogues and lib- raries are urged to refer such per- sons directly to the Jewish Braille Institute, 110 East 30th Street, New York 10016.