EDITORIAL
Upgrading JPM
It has been at least 10 years since Oak Park
and Huntington Woods residents began for-
mally lobbying for an enhanced Jewish
Community Center and programming on 10
Mile Road.
Advisory committees were formed, letters
were written, appearances were made before
the JCC board, and appearances were chang-
ed at the Jimmy Prentis Morris building. But
Jimmy Prentis Morris — JPM — has been
little more than a senior center in the nearly
20 years since the Meyers-Curtis JCC was
sold to the city of Detroit.
With the opening of the Maple-Drake JCC
in West Bloomfield and the closing of Meyers-
Curtis, the major Jewish communities of Oak
Park, Huntington Woods and Southfield were
left with JPM.
Despite best efforts to include new classes
and family programs, JPM's small size, lack
of multi-purpose rooms, swimming facilities
and an air conditioned gym, have relegated it
to a useful role as a haven for the hundreds of
seniors living in Federation Apartments and
nearby housing complexes. More classes were
added and the nursery program expanded,
but the community perception has not chang-
ed.
The Jewish Community Center and the
Jewish Welfare Federation are now changing
the perception.
Air conditioning the gymnasium will make
JPM more attractive to teens and young
adults this summer. It will provide more com-
fort for health and fitness classes for all ages
and give JPM staff another option in schedul-
ing events for the community. In addition,
plans are moving forward for construction of
a swimming pool and health club.
The Jewish Community Center and the
Federation are following through on a policy
begun with the Neighborhood Project. They
are investing in an area which the Federa-
tion's demographic study says is the heart of
the Detroit Jewish community.
We applaud these efforts, and expect the
new facilities to make more than just a little
splash.
Who's In Charge?
There was no shortage of depressing news
from the Mideast this week. An Arab ter-
rorist bomb exploded in a busy marketplace
in Jerusalem, killing one man and wounding
nine others. At an Arab summit meeting in
Baghdad, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq
set the anti-American, anti-Israel tone by
warning of his readiness to use weapons of
mass destruction against "the Zionist enti-
ty." And as our Israel Correspondent Ze'ev
Chafets reports, a memo from Israel's Am-
bassador in Washington to Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir warns that the Bush ad-
ministration is becoming increasingly upset
with Jerusalem.
But Israel is virtually without leadership
these days, as Shamir and his rivals within
the Labor party are busy jockeying back and
forth in their seemingly endless efforts to es-
tablish a government.
--
Only when the politicians in Israel put
aside their petty concerns and deal with the
crisis at hand — a crisis of leadership, trust
and accountability — will there be any hope
for improvement.
I-1 LETTERS
The Correct Party
In JHA Lawsuit
I would like to point out an
error in your story "Home For
Aged Move Is Approved By
State" (May 18) regarding the
granting of a Certificate of
Need (CON) to the Jewish
Home for Aged for a new
212-bed facility in West
Bloomfield.
In the article you state,
"JHA is entangled in a
lawsuit over a CON that was
filed by the owners of the
West Bloomfield Nursing and
Convalescent Center," which
is holding up approval of the
move.
There is a lawsuit. However,
West Bloomfield Nursing and
Convalescent Center is not a
party to it. The lawsuit was
6
The vast majority of the people of Israel
favor electoral reform to eliminate the cur-
rent system, whereby the small parties bribe
the large parties into making self-serving po-
litical deals. But the parties themselves are
unwilling to change, underscoring the
frustration with — and need for — electoral
reform. Israel's political leaders are not ac-
countable to the people, but rather to their
own parties, and that is why they have stead-
fastly refused the increasingly shrill calls for
change. And that is why so few sincere and
qualified young Israelis are entering
government.
FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1990
filed by Oakland Hills Manor,
a Michigan Corporation,
which filed for its own CON
for a 236-bed facility on May
1, 1986.
Some of the owners of West
Bloomfield Nursing and Con-
valescent Center also have
ownership interests in
Oakland Hills Manor, but
they are totally separate en-
tities and should not be con-
strued, either legally or
operationally, as "sister
organizations."
John Bell
Vice President,
Oakland Hills Manor
Jews Must Stop
Israel Bashing
Israel is under siege again.
The media is having a field
day showing on TV Israeli
security shooting unarmed
civilians (?), children (who
throw stones, petrol bombs,
using sling-shots with deadly
accuracy), Arab women cry-
ing and wounded Arabs being
transported to hospitals. But-
nothing is shown, nor ex-
plained, about the mayhem
inflicted upon Israelis.
Israel is charged with
creating a climate of hate and
violence. Both on local and
national news the story is
repeated: Israeli soldier kills
Arabs. No one mentions that
the seven Arabs were killed
by a deranged man who had
been disciplined in the past
and was dismissed from the
army, or that Israelis every-
where expressed their shock
and revulsion at the killings
---
1LETTERS
and offered more than
sympathy to the bereaved.
President Bush responds by
severely criticizing the
Israelis, by accusing them of
sabotaging his peace efforts.
Secretary of State Baker, in
his desire to appease the im-
placable enemies of Israel, is
supporting the sending of a
"neutral" U.S. observer team
to be stationed in West Bank
and Gaza. We know what we
can expect in their reports on
"violation of human rights."
What we must do now is to
keep the pressure on the ad-
ministration via our con-
gressmen and senators. We
should write letters to sup-
port the retention of the $3
billion in foreign aid to Israel;
to condemn the sending of a
U.N. observer team to the
West Bank and Gaza; to re-
mind President Bush to resist
the hysterical Arab threats to
the immigration of Soviet
Jews to Israel; to denounce in
letters to the editor the un-
balanced stories of what is
happening in Israel; to call
TV stations whenever biased
pictures and stories are
broadcast; not to be silent but
to respond forcefully and
truthfully. We abhor violence
and hate and must fight it on
all fronts.
Louis Panush
Zionist Organization of America
Why Single Out
Gays, Lesbians?
I was enjoying your article
"European Gay Jews Urged
to Organize" (May 18) until I
got to the last paragraph.
(The article describes the
April European Conference of
Lesbian and Gay Jews. The
last paragraph states, "Had
the conference been held a
week later, it would have read
a Torah portion from
Leviticus that denounces sex-
ual relations between men as
an 'abomination.' ")
What possessed you to print
this snide commentary?
Most lesbian and gay Jews
are well aware of Leviticus
20:13 to which the comment
referred. It may well be the
scriptural passage most
frequently quoted out of con-
text. From a long list of "dos"
and "don'ts" people seem to
focus only on the single verse
alluding to gay male sexual
practices.
Modern Jews often disagree
about whether or not
homosexuality belongs on the
same list with adultery, inter-
course with menstruating
women, incest and bestiality.
According to modern science,
homosexuality is a naturally
occurring human variation
along with red hair and
left-handedness.
You don't have to accept
that, but if you don't, you
have to be fair. If you're going
to have a cuteness crusade to
offend your gay male readers,
why not go whole hog (the
treif allusion is intentional).
Every time you have an arti-
cle about people who may be
adulterors (quite a lot of your
readers, I'll bet), I expect to
see a reference to Leviticus
20:10, which is part of the
same Torah portion.
Given what we're beginning
to learn about ourselves as a
community, there may be as
many people among us prac-
ticing incest and child sexual
abuse as there are gay men.
I expect to see frequent
references in your pages to
Leviticus 20:11, 12, 14, 17, 19,
20, and 21, also from the
same Torah portion.
Marc Kaplan
Ypsilanti