78
Friday, November 22, 1985 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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FURTHER REDUCTIONS
up to
Coming Of Age
Continued from preceding page
Jewish past and present in all
its forms; (2) the broader con-
cerns of all Americans, and (3)
the concerns of Jews interacting
with the broader culture.
"But," he warned, "if we do
this without an awareness of the
positive and negative implica-
tions, we do it without doing our
homework. We need to come
back to a vision of the institu-
tions we want to create."
In that context, Ruskay posed
five issues for thought:
• Art, he said, cannot be effec-
tively presented by committee.
It must be delegated to gifted
professionals.
• Cultural institutions should
not be created for utilitarian
purposes, but for enrichment.
• We need a new Jewish cul-
tural synthesis (he did not
specify what it would be or how
it could be achieved).
• It may be necessary to start
again from scratch "to reinvent
the wheel" — in creating effec-
tive Jewish cultural institutions.
• The most significant action
in Jewish education and Culture
exists at the local level.
"People," said Ruskay, "can only
experience culture locally."
• Jews are the wealthiest, best
educated, most politically con-
scious group in the nation.
• Most Jews are either
entrepreneurs or professionals,
and highly independent. But
more and more Jews are moving
into the corporate world. They
may thus lose their indepen-
dence.
• The impact of political ac-
tion committees (PACs) has in-
creased.
• The Jewish community still
supports a liberal agenda.
• Jews have become single-
issue oriented.
Involved
Detroiters
Demographic
Changes
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The percentage of Jews in the
general U.S. population has
shrunk from 3.8 percent in 1951
to 2.5 percent, according to Al-
bert D. Chernin, executive di-
rector of the National Jewish
Community Relations Advisory
Council, speaking in a workshop
on "Mobility and Demographic
Changes."
But, he said, "pessimistic re-
ports about the shrinkage of the
Jewish population are exagger-
ated." In fact, the U.S. Jewish
population has increased.
Chernin challenged predic-
tions that the Jewish population
of America would be less than a
million in the year 2076, fore-
casting that the number of Jews
in the United States would be
between 5.5 and 5.8 million by
the turn of the century. He said
he doubted that the Jewish
population would shrink to the
point of political impotence.
New York's Jewish population
has apparently dropped by about
a million, said Chernin. But it
has dispersed, and the dispersal
has enhanced. Jewish political
clout. Some 54 percent of the
U.S. Jewish population still
lives in the Northeast, but the
number of Jews has dramati-
cally increased on the West
Coast. Log Angeles' Jewish
population has almost doubled.
Jewish political representa-
tion has increased tremen-
dously. There are eight Jewish
Senators in Congress, and about
20 non-Jewish Senators consis-
tently support Jewish causes,
Chernin pointed out.
Chernin cited several demog-
raphic concerns and patterns:
• While the Jewish voting
pattern is heavy, younger
Jewish voters are not voting as
heavily as their elders.
Dr. Conrad Giles
Detroiters played a major role
in the hundreds of sessions at
last week's 54th General As-
sembly of the Council of Jewish
Federations.
James August, Dr. Conrad
Giles and Dr. Allen Juris were
involved in several sessions
dealing with the Jewish poor
and the elderly. Dr. Juris, of the
Jewish Welfare Federation staff,
discussed the Detroit communal
response to the 1981-1983 reces-
sion, saying there are as many
as 500,000 fewer jobs in Detroit
now then there were in 1981.
An Optimistic Note
The next-to-last plenary ses-
sion of the General Assembly on
Saturday night honored Ambas-
sador Samuel Lewis, former
U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Max
Kampelman, who headed the
pre-summit team of negotiators,
and Senate Majority Leader
Robert Dole spoke, advocating
support for Israel and steady
pressure for peace.
Lewis, who is now teaching at
the Johns Hopkins School of In-
ternational Relations, and in Is-
rael, offered an assessment of
trends in Israel:
(1) The Israel economy is beg-
ging to turn the corner, despite
a deepening recession and in-
creasing unemployment.
(2) The temperature of domes-
tic political jousting is rising.
(3) Israeli political leaders are
beginning to think that some-
thing may happen in the way of
peace negotiations in the Middle
East.