LUP FRONT I
Soviet Couple Ties the Knot
To Celebrate Valentine's Day
SUSAN GRANT
Staff Writer
U
Michael and Tanya Fingerman
Men's Clubs Told
To Push For Justice
ALAN HITSKY
Associate Editor
S
ocial justice must be a
major ingredient on
the Jewish communal
agenda if the United States
is to continue to be a haven
for Jews.
Speaking to the 57th an-
nual Intercongregational
Men's Club dinner last week
at Temple Israel, Rabbi
David Saperstein of the Re-
ligious Action Center in
Washington, D.C., asked the
300 metropolitan Detroit
synagogue men's clubs
members in attendance to
become more involved in the
Continued on Page 16
nlike other brides-to-
be, when Tanya
Paretskya decided to
get married on Feb. 14 she
didn't attach any
significance to the date.
"We wanted to get married
in mid-February. I looked at
the calendar and Feb. 14 was
a little blacker than the
other dates. I didn't know
why. I thought Wednesday
was a good day to get mar-
ried on. It just turned out to
be Valentine's Day," said
Paretskya, who has been
engaged to Michael Finger-
man since June.
While Valentine's Day is a
well-known holiday in
America, it is not celebrated
in the Soviet Union where
Paretskya, 30, and Finger-
man, 29, met.
"The closest thing we have
is March 8 - Women's Day
where boyfriends send
flowers to girls," Paretskya
said. "It's a government
holiday. It's sort of like Val-
entine's Day."
Although the couple never
celebrated Valentine's Day,
it's a day they won't forget.
During a ceremony at Tem-
ple Emanu-El Wednesday,
Paretskya, wearing a blouse
and a velvet skirt instead of
the traditional long white
gown, stood under the
chuppah with Fingerman as
Rabbi David Feder pro-
nounced the couple man and
wife.
Only a few friends were
there to witness the event.
His family stayed in Boston,
while her parents remained
Although the
couple never
celebrated
Valentine's Day,
it's a day they won't
forget.
in the Soviet Union. In Mar-
ch, the newlyweds will
honeymoon in Boston to visit
his family.
The couple met in Moscow
in the spring of 1988, four
months before Fingerman
left the country with his
parents and brother to join
his aunt and uncle in
Boston. He admitted he was
reluctant to start a court-
ship.
"When you leave a country
which has been your home
for 27 years it's not so easy,"
Fingerman said, adding he
hated to leave someone he
loved behind.
The couple dated a few
times in Moscow but were
unsure of their future.
Paretskya wanted to leave
the country, but, did not
apply for her visa until
September — a month after
Fingerman left.
Throughout their separa-
tion, Fingerman and Paret-
skya wrote letters, occa-
sionally called and fell in
love — with each other. On
June 1, Paretskya arrived in
Boston. They had three
weeks together before
Fingerman left for Detroit to
accept an engineering job
with Borg-Warner
Automotive Inc.
Paretskya did not join her
fiance in Detroit until late
July. As a translator, Paret-
skya knew English well but
wanted help finding a job
from Boston's Jewish agen-
cies.
"I almost enrolled in a
Continued from Page 16
ROUND UP
PLO Issues
'Passports'
Amsterdam (JTA) — After
failing in several attempts to
win diplomatic representa-
tion in various international
bodies, the Palestine Libera-
tion Organization this mon-
th began issuing "passports"
to the "State of Palestine."
The first such document,
issued by Afif Safieh, PLO
representative in The
Hague, was presented to
Mariam Khoury, a former
resident of Bethlehem. She
is the mother of the late
Georges Khoury, the first
PLO representative to
Holland.
Safiah said he hopes all
500 Palestinians living in
the Netherlands will apply
for a "passport," which costs
the equivalent of $100.
Maimonides' Diet:
Worth The Weight
Jerusalem — Here it is:
just what you've been
weighting for! Sound diet
advice from one of Judaism's
greatest scholars.
Advice about good nutri-
religious authorities of all
time but also laid down very
specific guidelines as to how
to maintain health through
proper diet and exercise.
Steinberg says that
Maimonides advocated a
whole-grain, low-fat, fresh,
food diet, frowned on snack-
ing between meals, favored
drinking in moderation and
believed in the importance of
physical exercise.
Maimonides, who also was
a physician, advised against
eating fried food or too much
salted fish, meat and cheese.
Moses Maimonides:
Fresh food, a little wine and
exercise.
tion Maimonides gave some
800 years ago is as valid to-
day as it was then, according
to Hebrew University nutri-
tionist Connie Steinberg.
Steinberg, who serves as
adviser to the university's
sports medicine unit, found
that the Spanish-born
Maimonides was not only
one of the greatest Jewish
Egyptians Study
The Holocaust
Tel Aviv (JTA) — Gila
Almagor, one of Israel's
leading actresses, seems to
have succeeded in raising
the consciousness of young
Egyptians about the Holo-
caust.
Almagor, the daughter of a
Holocaust survivor, recently
lectured 'in Cairo at the in-
vitation of the city's Israel
Academic Center, estab-
lished in 1982 to faciliate
research by Egyptians stu-
dying Hebrew and Jewish-
related subjects.
The lecture marked the
first time many in the au-
dience had been exposed to
the effects of the Holocaust
on Israelis.
Almagor used as her
centerpiece The Summer of
Aviya, an autobiographical
movie in which she starred.
The film deals with a girl's
relationship with her
mother, who is mentally
scarred by the Holocaust.
Student Yahya Said told
The Jerusalem Post she had
"only read a little bit about
the Holocaust before seeing
the film. Now I see that we
really must study the Holo-
caust to understand who the
Israelis are."
UAHC Makes Torah
A Fixed Habit
New York — The cor-
respondence school, offering
training or education by
mail, is a time-honored
American tradition.
Now the Union of Ameri-
can Hebrew Congregations
has initiated a new program
designed to extend that idea
to instruction in Judaism,
particularly for those living
in small or isolated Jewish
communities where Jewish
education facilities are not
normally available.
KEVA-by-Correspondence
provides individualized
courses of study with a
rabbi, cantor or educator
through telephone, letter
and audiotape communica-
tions. Upon completion of
100 hours of study, par-
ticipants receive a certificate
from the UAHC.
"We took the name KEVA,
which means 'fixed' or
`regular' in Hebrew, from
the rabbinic injunction to
`make your study of Torah a
fixed or regular habit," ac-
cording to Rabbi Howard
Bogot, director of the
UAHC's department of re-
ligious education.
For information, contact
Rabbi Bogot at the Depart-
ment of Religious Education,
Union of American Hebrew
Congregations, 838 Fifth
Ave., New York, N.Y. 10021,
(212) 249-0100.
Compiled by
Elizabeth Applebaum
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
5