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River & Drake Orchard Lake & Thirteen Mile I Browse Bookstore Warren Rx Orchard Lk. & Northwestern Middlebelt & Fourteen Mile — ANN ARBOR — Blue Front Newspapers Community News Center 701 Packard at State 330 E. Liberty THE JEWISH NEWS No ?AAA 14 FRIDAY, MAY 13, 1988 Hadassah Editor Tigay Scans Globe For The Exotic ELIZABETH KAPLAN Staff Writer T he typical traveler sets out on a trip for Paris. He just can't wait for some of that Perrier and a croissant. He's carrying a big bag filled with maps of the metro and he's on his way to have his portrait made at Montparnasse. And then there's Alan Tigay. Tigay, executive editor of Hadassah Magazine and editor of The Jewish Traveler prefers, well, the more uncom- mon route when gallivanting the globe. In Japan, where he lived for three months, Tigay worked as a folksinger. In Israel, he studied Hebrew at an absorp- tion center for Soviet im- migrants, and in India, he dined on the most expensive meal in the city. It cost 50 cents. The Detroit-born Tigay was back home this week to ad- dress the 42nd annual meeting of the Women's Divi- sion of the Jewish Welfare Federation. In an interview, Tigay discussed some of his travels, which have included Hong Kong, Thailand, Mozambi- que, South Africa, Lebanon and Sri Lanka. It was Sri Lanka that got Tigay started in the first place. He had planned on becom- ing a demographer. Then he entered the University of Michigan and decided to ma- jor in sociology. After his graduation in 1969, Tigay joined the Peace Corps. Assigned to work on a public health program in Sri Lanka, Tigay said that through this experience, he "got a glimpse of what the world is really like." Tigay returned to the United States and settled in Chicago where he met his wife, Lois. Like Tigay, Lois was in- terested in traveling. So the two worked for 18 months, saving half their entire earn- ings' for the next 18 months, when they set out for adven- tures in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The couple spent three months in Kyoto, Japan, where Tigay worked as a folksinger in a new cafe with a "Western-style motif." One of his most interesting experiences while in Japan occurred on Pesach. He and his wife were cer- Alan Tigay: Looking for a Jewish gondolier. tain they would find just a small group at the synagogue in Kobe, where they were in- vited for the first seder. In- stead, they were greeted by a large crowd that included visiting South Africans, members of the Pittsburgh Symphony on tour and "every Israeli from within 100 miles," Tigay said. For Tigay, the seder was memorable not only because it took place in a country so different from his own, but because he witnessed a com- mon tradition shared by all participants, despite the diversity in their nationality. Last year, Tigay returned to Japan. The synagogue in Tokyo, where he and his wife had attended services, was half its former size. He said 50 percent of the land on which the synagogue was built had been sold, so as to establish an endowment fund for the Jewish community there. And while the sale did generate a great deal of money for the fund, Tigay said, it also meant sacrificing the gardens by the synagogue — and therefore much of its charm. Tigay's travels finally brought him back to the United States and to Colum- bia University, from which he holds a master's degree in journalism. He soon found positions with Near East Report, where he served as editor of the weekly publication which ex- amines U.S. policies in the Middle East. He also worked as New York correspondent for the United Feature Syn- dicate, where he covered politics, the United Nations and arts and business. In 1980, Tigay was named executive editor of Hadassah Magazine. Don't ask. He's already heard it. A man, in charge of a magazine which serves what is essentially a women's organization? Hadassah Magazine, which has the largest circulation of any Jewish publication, does not address only issues of in- terest to the women's Zionist organization. It "covers the entirety of the Jewish world" including arts, culture and society, Tigay said. It also provides a forum for telling stories that might otherwise have remained unearthed. This is just the sort of thing Tigay relishes. "It doesn't happen often, maybe once or twice a year," he said. "We find an entirely unique and an entirely ex- citing manuscript from so- meone who is not a profes- sional writer." But before arriving on Tigay's desk, these articles must receive • approval from another editor — and compete with the literally hundreds of other manuscripts that tome in each year. Not surprisingly, Tigay also admits to a soft spot when it comes to travel articles, which he often writes himself. He recently visited Europe, where he met with the small Jewish community living in Germany. Many of the Jews there, he said, are transplants from countries like Poland who came to Germany to escape their memories of the Holocaust. Tigay described the unset- tling situation as one in which survivors associate the Nazi era only with the coun- try of their birth, whereas Germany can appear to them as without a stain of evil. In his meetings with Jews in Germany, as in all travel stories that run in Hadassah Magazine, Tigay wants to draw out the ways in which Jews reflect the country where they live and how they have made an impact on it. When he sent a reporter to Venice, for example, he asked her to find a Jewish gondolier. In Switzerland, Tigay sought a Jewish chocolate maker. And in Chicago, he went for the Jewish gangster. Despite the vast differences that separate Jewish com- munities throughout the world, it is, in the end, their similarities which Tigay said are most binding. "There's something that ties us all together," he said. "And that's what I like to em- phasize."