EDITORIAL

Staying In Southfield

Southfield may be undergoing change,
but Southfield is still the focal point for
metro Detroit's Jewish community.
The problem is the future. In Southfield,
Jews often ask one another where they
think they'll be five years from now. The
answer is usually West Bloomfield, Farm-
ington Hills, even Oak Park, but many
times somewhere else.
All it takes is a headline in a newspaper,
like those covering the recent gunshots at
Northland Mall, and Jews leave Southfield
or choose not to move into Southfield.
The goal of our three-week series on
Southfield, beginning on Page 22, is to
show that Jewish opinion is mixed. Many
Jews have given up and moved. Many Jews
have chosen to stay. We learned there are
as many reasons why people move as why
they stay.
Southfield has some of the metro Detroit
area's best services and offers a unique op-
portunity for racial and ethnic quality of
life, if only we take advantage of it. The
difficulty comes in perceptions. That's why
we call on the Federation, be it through the
Jewish Community Council or through
Neighborhood Project, through syn-

agogues, through the Jewish Family Ser-
vice, to facilitate the meeting of residents
— Jewish and black, white, Chaldean — in
each other's homes, on streets, in busi-
nesses and places of worship.
We can examine together' the school
system, which is still considered one of the
state's best, and make it even better. The
Jewish News can help bring community
residents together. While we're at it, we
can examine our differing cultures, find
out together why it's better that blacks,
Jews and other Americans remain as
neighbors in Southfield.
We believe in the Federation's Neigh-
borhood Project. We believe in the future of
the synagogues there. But let's move for-
ward. Let's meet over coffee with our
neighbors. Let's talk about this. There
really is no reason why we have to witness
the death of another Jewish community.

Southfield should not be the place where
five years from now only elderly, Orthodox
and Soviet Jews are buying in. It's a place
where business can — and does — thrive.
But more importantly, it's a place where
Jews can continue to live happily.

Make Sunday Super

At Monday's special Allied Jewish Cam-
paign dessert for donors of $2,500 or more,
co-chairman Lawrence Jackier revealed a
number that hit close to home.
Mr. Jackier said that of the Detroit metro
area's 96,000-plus Jews, five percent were
living lives at or below the poverty line. He
talked about Jews buying food with food
stamps, Jews desperately trying to hold
onto their homes; Jews, he said, who don't
live in the inner-city, but who have ad-
dresses in Southfield, Oak Park, Birm-
ingham, Bloomfield Township.
The recession, he added, has hurt many.
This Sunday, Jewish families will receive
phone calls from Campaign Super Sunday
volunteers for pledges. The Campaign has
a three-fold challenge this year. First, the
recession is very real and could show up in
the form of reduced pledges on Sunday. Se-
cond, with the recession comes a greater
need at home, here in our community.
Third, the Campaign is going to ask that at
least partial payments be made on pledges
immediately because of a cash flow prob-
lem it is experiencing.
We're asking the Jewish community to
seek out ways to make pledges and in-
crease them this year. Maybe instead of go-
ing to dinner as a family, you stay home
just one time and donate that money to the
Campaign so that a fellow Jew can have a
decent meal. Maybe take the money in-
tended for movies or bowling or any other
form of entertainment for one week and
donate it.
If none of this is possible, and if families
find themselves in a state of silent despera-
tion, the Campaign is asking them not to

6

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1991

be embarrassed. When a volunteer calls on
Sunday, if a family needs help, all they
need to do is tell the volunteer, and infor-
mation and follow-up help will be offered.
But whatever the situation, remember
when a volunteer calls, consider yourself
part of this Jewish community if you can
help or if you need help.
Israel and world Jewry need us, but if you
can't relate to that, just remember: Now it
could be the guy next door.

CURIE ' S

VV2124. , L_ ID

"O.K., Guys — It's your turn to hold her!'

fop ii

LETTERS

Jewish Media
And Propaganda

Words matter. Arabs turned
the tables against Israel by
adopting the name of the an-
cient Philistines. When they
started calling themselves
"Palestinians" back in the
1960s, and the world let them
get away with it, they won a
new history, a fraudulent
identity, and legitimacy for
their anti-Semitism. The
romance of history's Third
Jewish Commonwealth pales
beside the story of the Jews'
cruel interference with the
suddenly-ancient real estate
claims of Palestinians.
Now the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency, a newspaper wire ser-
vice, has adopted more PLO
terminology. Saddam lost his
war, so Hebron's Arabs are
"demonstrating for peace"
(Jewish News Nov. 29).
Israel's Arab parties, the
Citizens Rights Movement
and the (Marxist) Mapam, are
identified as part of "the
peace bloc." In fact, the CRM,
which refused to criticize Sad-
dam and campaigns to
abolish the Jewish Right of
Return, is now "the strongest
of the peace parties."
Fervently opposing "peace,"
I see, are "the far right" par-
ties of Tehiya and Tsomet.
But if you think that Tehiya
is bloodthirsty, the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency calls at-
tention to "the extremist
Moledet," or Homeland party,
of Rehavam Ze'evi.
Strangely, Jewish News
foreign correspondent Helen
Davis profiled General Ze'evi
recently (March 29), and he
didn't sound extreme then.
His party demands equal
rights and obligations for all
citizens. A libertarian and a
committed democrat, he's
famous for insisting that
Arab leaders treat their so-

called brothers decently. But
JTA reporters have smeared
him with Newspeak.
The United Jewish Appeal
sponsors the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency. So long
as the JTA follows the PLO's
program of deforming plain
English to defeat common
sense, I plan to do my giving
elsewhere.

Michael Dallen

Detroit

Sinai Hospital
And Current Events

Now that affiliation talks
are well under way between
Sinai Hospital and the
Detroit Medical Center, I
have two strong emotions
which I would like to share.
First of all is a sense of gra-
titude to the Hunter Group, a
consulting firm which has
been helping to manage Sinai
Hospital for the last several
months. In addition to solving
several of our financial pro-
blems, the Hunter Group has
helped us negotiate an affilia-
tion with the constant under- <
standing that Sinai Hospital
has certain very strong re-
quirements for affiliation.
These include a strong com-
mitment to the Jewish com-
munity and to education and
research.
K
Thanks to the Hunter
Group, and to many dedicated
and unbelievably hardwork-
ing members of the board and
medical staff, Sinai has a
bright future.
My other strong feeling is
that of relief. For a time there
was a debate in the Jewish
community as to whether we
needed a Jewish hospital, as
we did in the early 1950s
when this hospital was
founded.
However, I have learned a
Continued on Page 10

