UP FRONT
A New York Opera Star Returns
To Perform For The Home Crowd
RONELLE GRIER
Special to The Jewish News
T
he vivacious brunette
with the rich soprano
voice gives a saucy toss
of her head as she finishes the
aria by the dying Mimi and
begins the high-spirited waltz
sung by Musetta in La
Boheme.
In a performance more
befitting Carnegie Hall than
the Jimmy Prentis Morris
Jewish Community Center,
Detroit-area seniors enjoyed a
free concert Jan. 10 given by
professional opera singer and
former Detroiter Rena Joffe
Panush.
"I got the idea for the con-
cert the last time I was in
Detroit and my mother took
me visiting," said Panush. "I
Project Sherut
This week's list for Pro-
ject Sherut, which mat-
ches community
organizations' needs with
donations from the public,
is found on Page 103.
realized I do a lot of concerts
for people I've never met.
Why not do one for the people
who've known me since I was
a child?"
Many in the audience were
old friends who remembered
Rena Panush:
From psychology to La Boheme.
Rena Joffe from northwest
Detroit, where she lived with
her parents, Boris and
Miriam.
Both Rena and her hus-
band, Dr. Richard Panush,
come from a long legacy of in-
volvement in the Detroit
Jewish community. Boris
Joffe served for many years as
executive director of the
Jewish Communty Council of
Metropolitan Detroit.
Richard is the son of Anne
and Bernard Panush, former
Detroiters now in Clearwter,
Fla. Bernard Panush and his
three brothers were involved
in Jewish education in the
Detroit area for more than 30
years.
Rena attended Cass
Technical High School, where
she sang in various choir and
madrigal groups, including a
harp and vocal group that
performed more than 30 con-
certs a year. She never con-
sidered a professional singing
career, however.
"I always assumed you had
to be born with this in-
credibly beautiful voice, and,
while I had a very nice sing-
ing voice, it wasn't excep-
tional," she said. "What I
didn't realize is that most
singers aren't born with
gorgeous voices; their voices
Continued on Page 10
Rena Panush is center stage
Michigan Students
Fight Anti-Semitism
SUSAN LUDMER-GLIEBE
Special to The Jewish News
T
hirty University of
Michigan students
formed an organiza-
tion last week to fight campus
anti-Semitism. "In the
university environment all
types of minority groups have
anti-discrimination groups,"
explained U-M junior Ari
Blumenthal. "Jews should
have a voice as well."
Students Fighting Anti-
Semitism (SFA) hope to use
education and awareness to
combat anti-Semitism on
campus. Several students who
attended the meeting cited
articles in the Michigan Dai-
ly and a swastika painted on
Continued on Page 13
ROUND UP
Hand In Hand
For Justice
"When people criticize
Zionists, they mean Jews.
You're talking anti-
Semitism," were words ut-
tered not by a Jewish
spokesman, but by the late
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Now, King's support of
Soviet Jewry and Israel is
part of a exhibit, "Hand in
Hand for Justice," being
displayed at area schools.
The Jewish Community
Council notified schools that
the panel, which highlights
the collaboration between
the black and Jewish corn-
munities during the Civil
Rights movement, would be
available for display during
Black History Month this
February.
The response was so great
that the panel has been
booked through the 1991
school year. Part of the
Council's lending library,
the exhibit includes 19
panels of photos and text.
A copy of the exhibit, pro-
duced by the American-
Israel Committee To Com-
memorate Martin Luther
King Jr., has traveled across
the United States, thanks to
the efforts of Lenore
Siegelman. Siegelman, who
died earlier this month, was
a founder of the committee
and the King memorial
forest in Israel.
Dill-and-caraway vodka,
that's what.
Hiram Walker Inc., based
in Windsor, Ontario, is in-
troducing in New York this
month a kosher, dill-and-
caraway flavored vodka to
go with a corned beef on rye.
The new brew will be
called Stuart Katz's Deli
Vodka, named in honor of a
fictional deli owner.
Abu Ghosh at the Elvis Inn,
a truck stop just off the Tel-
Aviv-Jerusalem highway,
according to The Jewish Post
and Opinion.
The dinei-, owned by
Jerusalem-born Uri Yoali,
boasts 728 pictures and
posters of the Pelvis, plus
license plates, mugs, calen-
dars and busts with the fam-
ed singer's picture. Yoali re-
cently commissioned a 12-
foot, 500 lb. plaster statue of
Elvis, to be modeled after
Michaelangelo's David.
But there's more. Much
more. The Elvis Inn also is
home to Yaacov Toubi, an
Israeli Elvis impersonator
who, the paper says,
"neither looks nor sounds
like Elvis."
Lovin' Him Tender
In Israel
A Rare Monument
Of Two Sisters
Thinking of a visit to
Israel? Why dine at the King
David Hotel when you can
drop in for a bite with an-
other king — the King of
Rock-and-Roll himself, Elvis
Presley.
A Presley monument
stands in the Arab village
Minsk, Detroit's sister city
in the Soviet Union, is the
home of a curious monu-
ment: one of the Communist
nation's few testaments to
the Nazi slaughter of Jews.
Almost hidden between a
hotel and an apartment
complex, the memorial
What Is Brewing
At Hiram Walker?
New Prayer Book
Causes A Furor
The monument to Jews murdered
by the Nazis in Minsk.
carries a message in Yiddish
and Russian that thousands
of Jews were murdered on
that spot in 1942.
Visitors regularly come to
the site and leave bunches of
fresh flowers, their
multicolored petals falling
gently over the base of the
dark monument.
Jews in New Zealand are
in a furor over a new prayer
book, issued by the Church
of New Zealand, that ex-
cludes virtually all refer-
ences to Zion and Israel. The
Jews claim the prayer book
is anti-Semitic and il-
lustrates anti-Israel sen-
timents.
Church officials insist the
prayer book, which was 20
years in the making, is a
more authentic version of
the original text. Since
"Zion," first referred to
Jerusalem's Mount Zion, it
has been translated to
"God's holy hill" or
"mountain of the Lord,"
they say.
But Jewish leaders are not
convinced. Wendy Ross,
president of the New Zeala-
nd Jewish Council, respond-
ed: "The only precedent for
this was the German church
during the Nazi era that
wanted to de-Judaize the
Scriptures."
Compiled by
Elizabeth Applebaum
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
5