DETROIT

B'nai B'rith Will Cut Funds
For Metro Detroit Hillel

NOAM M.M. NEUSNER

Staff Writer

Photo by Glenn Triest

A

Soviet emigres Segey Mikhaylovsky, Andree Semenov and Alla Shapiro
volunteer on the phones.

Sunday Was Super
For Allied Campaign

PHIL JACOBS

Managing Editor

n a day when the
recession, economic
hardship and even
hazardous weather could
have spoiled it all, the Allied
Jewish Campaign's 12th
annual Super Sunday event
turned into an overwhelm-
ing success.
The day collected $830,000
in pledges from 2,400 per-
sons, and represented a 12
percent increase from last
year. Over 350 volunteers
came out in the snow and ice
to work the telephones. At
times, the phone room was
so active it was difficult to
find a place to make a call.
Also, volunteers were
trained to help callers who
were having economic prob-
lems by directing them to
agencies for special assis-
tance.
Some of the callers had
volunteered for years; others
were new Americans who
came to volunteer for their
first time. At least one
caller, Allan Gale, the asso-
ciate director of the Detroit
Jewish Community Council,
might have saved a person's
life during the effort.
Mr. Gale was talking to an
elderly lady who told him
that she was alone, and that
she was having a dizzy spell.
When she had to hang up,
Mr. Gale called 911, which
responded to the person's ad-
dress. It turned out that the
woman needed medical
attention.
Also among the phone vol-
unteers were teen-agers rep-
resenting the Community
Jewish High School, United
Synagogue Youth and B'nai

O

14

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1991

B'rith Youth Organization
AZA and BBG chapters.
"We live in an incredible
Jewish community," said
Super Sunday co-chair Linda
Leer Chairmen for the event
were Ms. Lee, Ronald Riback
and Jeffrey Sternberg.. "I
think one of the major
reasons for the success of the
day was that people were
talking about local needs.
Agencies such as Jewish
Vocational Service, Jewish
Family Service and others
are seeing people who have
never had to come to them
before.
"We know," she con-
tinued, "that in order to

"I think one of the
major reasons for
the success of the
day was that
people were
talking about local
needs. We know
that in order to
support Israel, we
have to keep our
local community
strong."

Linda Lee

support Israel, we have to
keep our local community
strong."
Mr. Riback called the re-
sponse "absolutely wonder-
ful. We were a little worried
going in, but our community
lived up to its reputation as
the best in America."
Mr. Riback said a special
mailing will go out to those
who were not at home Sun-
day to take calls. Plus, other
phonathons will be schedul-
ed in the upcoming mon-
ths.

❑

nother round of
budget cuts i s send-
ing a chill through
B'nai B'rith Hillels on
several campuses across the
country.
The Hillel Foundation of
Metropolitan Detroit, which
serves Jewish students at
the campuses of Wayne
State University, Oakland
University, Oakland Com-
munity College and
Lawrence Technological
University, stands to lose
$40,000 out of its budget from
the cuts.
The total budget for the
Metropolitan Detroit Hillel is
approximately $175,000.
The cuts will represent a
significant amount of the
current Hillel budget, said
Larry Ziffer, planning direc-
tor for the Jewish Federa-
tion of Metropolitan Detroit.
The 1991 Allied Jewish
Campaign contributed
$73,600 to the Metropolitan

Detroit Hillel's budget, and
other sources of income —
student fees, alumni con-
tributions — make up the
difference.
The B'nai B'rith Hillel
Commission, the governing
body for college Hillels, has
decided to cut the budgets at
16 Hillel foundations across
the country, starting in July
1992.
The cuts are aimed at
preventing a financial crun-
ch down the road, since
B'nai B'rith International is
expected to cut its $3.2 mill-
ion outlay to college Hillels.
The cuts are anticipated
because of a drop in con-
tributions, said Art
Shulman, B'nai B'rith
International's director of
communications.
With those funds in doubt,
the commission, which is
chaired by Detroiter David
Bittker, decided to prepare
for the worst.
"We're literally between a
rock and a hard place," he
said. "We have gone through
a process of analyzing all our

foundations across the coun-
try."
The commission will help
the local Hillel Foundation
adjust to the loss by supply-
ing planning and develop-
ment expertise.
"We're not looking to
abandon anybody," he said.
"We have to work around
it."
Rabbi Eli Finkelman, who
heads the Wayne State
Hillel, could not be reached
for comment. B'nai B'rith
Hillel has a national budget
of close to $18 million, which
funds Hillels at over 100
campuses. Another 300
campuses have part-time
staff.
Of the close to $18 million,
$8 million comes from Jew-
ish federations, $6 million
comes from fund raising and
student fees and $3 million
comes from the interna-
tional organization.
Last year, B'nai B'rith
International instituted a 10
percent cut across the board
on all Hillel budgets. ❑

Looking For Spirituality, Rabbi
Discovers Torah, Tarot, Tantra

ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM

Assistant Editor

F

irst, take the phone off
the hook. Then lie
down. Take a deep
breath.
Now relax. Your hands.
Your neck. Your forehead.
All relaxed.
You come to a familiar cor-
ridor. There's a door marked
"Where the Wise One is."
You enter, introduce
yourself. The Wise One tells
you its name.
You have an important
question. The Wise One an-
swers it. It also has a gift for
you. You accept the gift.
Now, you will leave.
Close the door. Walk back
down the corridor. Start
counting backward.
Open your eyes.
Welcome back from the
world of New Age Judaism.
This exercise is part of a
new book, Torah, Tarot and
Tantra by Sacramento,
Calif., hypnotherapist Rabbi
William Blank. The former
assistant director of the
Wayne State University
Hillel Foundation, Rabbi
Blank said he wrote this ex-
ercise and his book to help

Rabbi William Blank:
"Tell me what you experienced."

Jews rediscover Jewish
spirituality.
"Spirituality is at the core
of Judaism, but it has been
lost in our struggle to sur-
vive and in our emergence in
the modern world," Rabbi
Blank said. "We need to stop
worrying about how many
people go to synagogue and
wonder instead what makes
people go to synagogue."
Rabbi Blank said his quest
for Jewish spirituality
started when he was a child

and became significant
while he was a student at
the Hebrew Union College-
Jewish Institute of Religion.
"I had a typical suburban
Cleveland Jewish upbring-
ing," he said. "Then I got
turned on to an academic
study of religion (as an
undergraduate) in college."
He took courses in com-
parative religion and "did a
lot of meditating."
He enrolled at HUC-JER in
the late 1960s, where Rabbi
Blank was disappointed to
find little discussion of or in-
terest in Jewish spirituality.
"There were about half a
dozen times the word 'God'
was even mentioned in my
classes," he said. "We learn-
ed about Israel; we learned
Talmud; we learned about
Maimonides. But nobody
ever said, 'Tell me what you
experienced when you felt
close to God.' "
Spirituality is often more
obvious in other religions, he
said. In Torah, Tarot and
Tantra, Rabbi Blank draws
parallels between other
faiths' spirituality and
Judaism.
One chapter, for example,
discusses Hindu, Buddhist