THE JEWISH NEWS Serving Detroit's Metropolitan Jewish Community with distinction for four decades. Editorial and Sales offices at 20300 Civic Center Dr., Suite 240, Southfield, Michigan 48076-4138 Telephone (313) 354-6060 PUBLISHER: Charles A. Buerger ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: Arthur M. Horwitz EDITOR EMERITUS: Philip Slomovitz EDITOR: Gary Rosenblatt CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: Elie Wiesel ART DIRECTOR: Kim Muller-Thym NEWS EDITOR: Alan Hitsky LOCAL NEWS EDITOR: Heidi Press STAFF WRITER: David Holzel LOCAL COLUMNIST: Danny Raskin ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES: Lauri Biafore Millie Felch . Randy Marcuson Rick Nessel Danny Raskin OFFICE STAFF: Lynn Fields Percy Kaplan Pauline Max Marlene Miller Dharlene Norris Mary Lou Weiss Pauline Weiss Ellen Wolfe PRODUCTION: Donald Cheshure Cathy Ciccone Curtis Deloye Joy Gardin Ralph Orme ,c) 1986 by The Detroit Jewish News (US PS 275-520) Second Class postage paid at Southfield. Michigan and additional mailing offices. Subscriptions: 1 year - $21 — 2 years - $39 — Out of State - $23 — Foreign - $35 CANDLELIGHTING AT 4:45 P.M. VOL. XC, NO. 14 Act Against Assad When caught red-handed, how many thieves are praised for returning stolen goods? On an international level, the expert at this game is Syrian President Assad, who is awarded lavish praise every time he allows a hostage in Lebanon, whose fate he controls, to go free. Even though he's responsible for the kidnapping in the first place. The cases can be documented: after being implicated in the April, 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Assad muted American anger by arranging for the release of hostage David Dodge, the acting president of the American University of Beirut. The White House publicly credited Assad for his humanitarian effort. When Syria was implicated in the October 1983 bombing of the - U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, the U.S. launched an air strike during which Navy pilot Robert 0. Goodman was captured. Somehow, Assad became the hero when he released Goodman to Rev. Jesse Jackson. In June 1985, Syrian-supported terrorists hijacked a TWA jet and held it for 17 days. But when the hostages were released, the White House again credited Assad. And so it goes. Most recently, after proof that Syria was involved in the April attempt to blow up an El Al airliner with 340 passengers on board, and Britain was applying the pressure by severing diplomatic relations with Syria, Assad diverted attention away from himself. The Washington-Tehran connection was first made public in a Syrian-sponsored newspaper in Beirut. The Syrians released the information on Iran," says Mideast expert Daniel Pipes of the Foreign OP-ED A Daily Accounting System Tallies How To Be A Jew RABBI ELIMELECH GOLDBERG fter returning from the Council of Jewish Federation's 55th General Assembly in Chicago, a gathering dedicated to the theme of uniting a diverse people, I came home with two important conclusions. The first was that the issue of Who is a Jew" is not the single most important issue that we collectively face. The second was that there is a city colder than Detroit. As a people, I doubt that we will , soon reach accord upon a universal definition as to who is a Jew. As a multitude of scattered individuals in the body nation however, definition is important. The current labels Or- thodox, Reform, Conservative, Re- constructionist, Liberal, Traditional, Modern, Ancient, Black Hatted, Middle, Left or Right of Middle or Centrist Middle of some imaginery road are just not doing the trick. In fact, despite being known as the People of the Book which in the case of Jew-labelling is a thesaurus, the Bible takes a grim look towards such appellations. According to law, Jews are not allowed to be counted as numbers, a prohibition that required census takers to use indirect counts of the Jewish People. To place a number on a Jew is to rob him or her of the in- dividual qualities of greatness of that person. A label compels the holder of that title to conform to the ingredients on that package, never minding the particular elements of personality and soul that comprise all of us in a singular way. A Elimelech Goldb e rg is rabbi of Young Israel of Southfield and attended the CJF meetings as rabbinic award winner for community service of the Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit. Still, people require some quan- tifiable identity that goes beyond the general. The human social conditior requires us some means to guage ourselves and those we stand amongst. There is a trend today withir the social sciences of moving toward greater empiricism. I propose, there. fore, a personal identity systerr based upon a mathematical equa. tion. The final number would be variable daily rate and could be kep We all have to go back to work on the basic one, two and threes of Jewish life. We must reassess what moves us, what gives us strength and. motivation to do more. confidential from the rabbi, gabba or the IRS. The factors of the equation ax quite simple. It would require th multiplication of the quantity an the quality of our Jewish experi ences. In other words, we should as ourselves, today, what did I do as Jew? Did I pray, eat, talk or learn a a Jew? Was I kind, sensitive, chari* able or outspoken for justice as Jew? If the answer to this questio is yes, give yourself a point for- eve experience that was uniquely Jewis in your eyes. Then ask yourself the harder o the two questions. What did tha Jewish experience mean to me? Ho was I affected? Multiply your experi ence by how it made you feel close to God, the Jewish people, your fa ily, the world around you. Did yo walk out of the experience the ve same way that you walked in? Thi question is especially important f those who attend synagogue sery Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. And now Iran has completely obliterated Syria" in the minds of Americans as the leading terrorist offender. It took years for America to cast Libya's Kaddafi as a man dangerous enough to justify our air strike. And Assad is smarter, subtler, more shadowy than Kaddafi. But it is time for Washington to act against Assad, insisting that he free all American hostages or we will sever relations with Syria. It's a step long overdue. How many more hostages will be taken before we act? Tragic Lessons Ivan Boesky and Judge S. Jerome Bronson have become household names. The twin tragedies of Boesky's "insider" stock trading and the - accusation of bribe solicitation against Judge Bronson and his subsequent suicide have rocked both the Jewish and general communities. These episodes leave tragic lessons for the community. Both, apparently, were tied to greed, to a need for money, or its power, that were beyond the range of two men who were respected and admired. How can two men with means, with the respect of the community, violate the public trust? In Boesky's case, how much is not enough? In Bronson's case, an entire lifetime of public service is degraded and called into question, as is the court he served. /c. c c OMAN coArmouse LZEVINION