OPINION
I CONTENTS
14
FRONTLIN ES
TORCH Drive
CARLA JEAN SCHWARTZ
A local group
wants to bring Christmas
back into the schools.
22
CLOSE-UP
The Crisis
In Aging
KIMBERLY LIFTON
People are living
longer, leaving
more problems
for government
and Jewish leaders.
Sharansky with Shimon Peres: How to prevent a vacuum of faith?
Voting In My First Free Election
Raised Disturbing Thoughts
NATAN SHARANSKY
V
oting in the elections — my first
participation in this basic demo-
cratic process — reminded me of the
danger inherent in semantic similarities.
After all, the Soviet Union also holds "elec-
tions." They are festive affairs. Beautiful
music is piped into the election halls, and
books and goods unavailable anywhere at
other times are sold to those who arrive
first.
It is a holiday unencumbered by
decision-making: The only choice is to en-
dorse the party candidate. One can cross
out his name and write in another, but do-
ing that requires going conspicuously
behind a screen. Few dare.
The only time I voted in the Soviet
Union was when I was serving in the ar-
my. One of the soldiers ventured behind the
screen for a moment out of sheer curiosity.
He did nothing to his ballot — our unit's
score was a perfect 100 per cent for the par-
ty candidate — but for merely seeming to
contemplate a deviation, he was rewarded
with a week of latrine duty.
Not surprisingly, then, voting in Israel
was an exhilarating experience. Ensuring
my right to vote for the party of my choice,
in a free election for the first time in my
life, was one of those occasions which serv-
ed to remind me — almost three years after
my release — what a revolutionary change
my life had undergone.
The excitement gave way to contempla-
tion when the results first came in. To me,
the unexpected rise in the power of the
ultra-Orthodox indicated a serious short-
coming in Zionist education. For the Jews
of the Soviet Union, the inspiration of Leon
Uris' Exodus and the "Let My People Go"
slogan once used to suffice. But we soon
realized that to resist pressure and despera-
tion in a prison cell, we had to feel part of
our people's destiny, we had to know that
history was on our side. Without this feel-
ing, one cannot feel that Israel is the only
answer.
For many Israelis, too, Jewish history
seems to begin arbitrarily with the
Holocaust or, at best, with Theodor Herzl.
But a people needs more, and the uni-
queness of the Zionist experience and the
Jewish state demands much more. Only a
deeper and broader understanding of our
multifaceted heritage can prevent a
vacuum of faith, a reversion into diasporic
molds, and a hopeless rift between religious
and secular.
It did not take long for these contempla-
tions to be replaced by acute discomfort.
The ease with which all the candidates
seemed to discard their election promises
was disheartening. Even before the count
was finished, the religious parties declared
that "all the options were open" and that
they were waiting for the highest bidder;
the Citizen's Rights' Movement
demonstrated a willingness to abandon its
stand against religious legislation; Labor
indicated it could relinquish its most
cherished principle and central element of
its platform — the international conference
— and the Likud was willing to antagonize
World Jewry and change the Law of Return
to placate the Orthodox and gain power.
I supported neither the Citizen's
Rights' Movement position on religion nor
the Labor Party's idea of an international
conference. Nor do I believe that the "Who
is a Jew" question is as simple as the ex-
tremists on either side would want us to
Continued on Page 10
39
BUSINESS
Sweet Success
STEVEN M. HARTZ
A former Detroiter
heads West to
find his pot of chocolate.
59
ENTERTAINMENT
All The World's
A Jewish Stage
MICHAEL ELKIN
Jewish theatre is the
new show business hit.
82
ANN ARBOR
Speaking Out
SUSAN LUDMER-GLIEBE
Israel draws
strong criticism
from a group of women.
AROUND TOWN
101
Super Sunday
Allied Jewish Campaign
raises a record $1 million.
DEPARTMENTS
32 Inside Washington
34 Synagogues
54 For Women
84 Engagements
91 Births
114 Obituaries
CANDLELIGHTING
December 23, 1988 4:45 p.m.
Sabbath ends Dec. 24 5:49 p.m.
On Our Cover:
Irving Stepak at home with his wife, Pauline, who has
Alzheimer's disease. Photo by Glenn Triest.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
7