FOCUS
Christmas in
Schools Still
An Issue In
Bloomfield
Hills.
KIMBERLY LIFTON
Staff Writer
L
Bloomfield Hills Andover librarian Shirley Noetzold talks with teachers Ed Brouchard and Mary Vennettilli at
, the Institute on Judaism.
Breaking
the Barriers
KIMBERLY LIFTON
Staff Writer
ntil last year, Edward
Brouhard displayed a
Christmas tree in his
classroom each holiday sea-
son.
But when the
demographics of the Bloom-
field Hills school district
began to change over the
past decade, Brouhard, a
learning disabilities teacher
at Andover High School,
started to re-evaluate the
meaning of the tree.
"A lot of kids — even the
Jewish ones — seemed to
like it. But the tree still
gives a subtle message say-
ing the Christmas tree is for
the dominant religion,"
Brouhard said. "I think the
Christmas tree has seen its
day in the schools."
Brouhard was one of 150
teachers, principals and
other educators who attend-
ed the annual Institute on
Judaism sponsored by the
sisterhood of Temple Israel.
The program was designed
Temple Israel's Institute on
Judaism aims to show
teachers how to tear down
the walls of
misunderstanding.
to build bridges of better
understanding between
educators and their Jewish
students.
Questions about
Christmas, Chanukah,
Judaism and its relationship
to other religions and
cultures brought the
teachers together. Joining
the day-long conference were
33 teachers from Bloomfield
Hills schools, which in the
past year has been the
battleground for a small
Christian group trying to
put religion back into the
schools.
Teachers came from
Berkley, Clarkston, Farm-
ington, Novi, Rochester,
Southfield, Troy, Walled
Lake, Waterford, West
Bloomfield, Oak Park and
Birmingham. Also attending
the conference was Birm-
ingham Groves Principal
Robert Lentz, whose school
made headlines this past
year over a few anti-Semitic
and racially motivated in-
cidents.
As issues surrounding
religion and racism thrust to
the forefront in the schools,
educators in the suburbs of
northwest Detroit are look-
ing for ways to ease growing
tensions among their
students. Like Bloomfield
Hills and Birmingham, the
suburbs have become a
melting pot of cultures.
Oakland Intermediate
School District -statistics
show that minority enroll-
ment in the county's schools
has increased 18.5 percent in
the past eight years, while
total enrollment has declin-
ed by 7 percent.
Black, Chaldean and
Japanese students comprise
the biggest increase in
minority enrollment,
Oakland school officials
said. Add to the list Jewish
students and teachers who
are faced with a dilemma that
is not exclusive to December,
when Christmas and
Chanukah are celebrated.
After the workshop, many
teachers from districts with
several Jewish students said
they learned why Chanukah
and Christmas cannot be
compared. The only simi-
larity is the season in which
they fall.
"It is really inappropriate
to make Chanukah into an-
other Christmas," Temple
Israel Rabbi Harold Loss
warned.
ittle Rebecca
Nathan won't be br-
inging home-made
potato latkes to her first-
grade classroom in
Bloomfield Hills when
Chanukah begins next
month.
It will be the first time
since Rebecca started
school that her mother,
Mindy Nathan, won't
send the youngster to
school with potato pan-
cakes, traditionally eaten
during the eight-day fes-
tival.
Nathan, a member of
the Bloomfield Hills
parent teacher organiza-
tion, is upset over the re-
cent mass mailing of an
anonymous letter that she
and school board officials
said was filled with anti-
Semitic overtones.
The letter, received by
staff and PTO members a
day before the Rev. Jim
Lyons spoke against
religion in the schools to
the Bloomfield Hills PTO,
is thought to be the work
of a disbanded group that
calls for the celebration of
Christmas in the schools.
Nathan's view has
changed dramatically
since she and other
Jewish parents mustered
forces last November to
fight the group called the
Taxpayers Organization
to Restore Cultural
Heritage (TORCH).
"I've changed my
mind," Nathan said.
"From the time the sea-
son starts, we are all tied
up in knots. It is
stressful."
Nathan realizes that
not making latkes is ex-
treme, but she said the
right place for even a
small tradition like latkes
is at home.
"If you can't satisfy
everybody, take it out of
the school," she said.
"We don't know if
TORCH people sent the
letter, but it is consistent
with literature they have
sent in the past," said
Bloomfield Hills Deputy -
THEDETROILIEWLS.H NERS
6L
.