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January 31, 1992 - Image 6

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1992-01-31

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

EDITORIAL

'A Most Complex Issue'

Jewish federations all over the country
are coming to terms with the issue of what
to do with the constituent agencies that
govern their religious school programs.
With numbers defecting to day schools
and synagogue-based programs, the issue
becomes larger than just maintaining
enrollment. Now, with the walls of recession
and assimilation closing in, federations are
looking at other options to maintain educa-
tional programs while reaching out to the
unaffiliated.
Detroit Federation President Mark
Schlussel called it "a most puzzling and
complex issue." Some federations are in-
deed faced with the prospect of putting
their educational agencies out of business.
Detroit chose to close down AJE's
elementary program. The agency will be
redefined in the coming years as a consor-
tium. The difference is that the Federation
will be seeking to work more closely with
the synagogues. The goal is to provide a
quality brand of Jewish education. Edu-
cation is seen as a route or map to reaching
and keeping the unaffiliated part of the
Jewish community.
Nobody can discount the job that that
AJE has done through the years to educate
Jewish youth. However, a change had to be
considered. Afternoon religious school is
not just a place to drop the kids and hope
they learn something Jewish. After-

noon religious school is part of a Jewish
way of life that involves the student and
also involves the family. Afternoon re-
ligious school is a place where all students
need to be treated and trained as individuals
with the goal of preserving the child's im-
age of Judaism and his or her image of
where each fits into our faith.
The Federation wants teachers and ad-
ministration trained. But Federation also
wants the student to come home and expe-
rience the values he or she learned in re-
ligious school.
Religious education is not just about a
handful of hours, often made unproductive
after a tiring day at secular school. It's
about what happens when the child comes
home. If a child sees his or her parents
learning and growing Jewishly, the value
of the Jewish educational experience rises.
If this causes interest in an unaffiliated
family, then there is a greater possibility
family will become involved in the Jewish
community.
If religious school, however, is no more
than an afternoon drop-in where parents
assuage their guilt and hope that someone
does their job for them, then our numbers
of unaffiliated or dis-affiliated will grow.
This is what concerned the Federation.
They were correct to take notice and
responsible to take action.

Coffee Table Judaism

There's a new magazine which will soon
grace the coffee tables of Jewish homes
throughout North America. Mosaic will
colorfully and attractively focus on Jewish
art and culture, and according to the New
York Times, will steer clear of controver-
sial topics like religion or politics.

What makes Mosaic unique is that it is a
collaborative effort with the Council of
Jewish Federations, the umbrella group for
nearly 200 federations in North America,
including Detroit's. The magazine's
publishers expect to start with a circula-
tion base of 400,000, derived from lists pro-
vided via the CJF of givers of more than
$100 annually to local federation cam-
paigns. In exchange, CJF would receive a

percentage of the publication's profits,
should it have any.
Just two months ago, the CJF presented
a mission statement at its General
Assembly, which attracted more than
3,000 delegates from across North
America, acknowledging that it could no
longer shy away from the divisive issues of
intermarriage and the general decline in
Jewish religious and communal identifica-
tion. Yet that's exactly what Mosaic will be
doing.
We encourage CJF leadership to re-read
their mission statement and insist the
publishers of Mosaic spare the candy
coating and tackle the real issues confron-
ting Jewish life — and survival — in North
America.

Institute For The Righteous

Fifty years ago, almost to this day, Hitler
and his villainous leadership sat down and
discussed the terms and details of the Final
Solution, the annihilation of Europe's
Jews.
Now, the Federal Republic of Germany,
in a joint declaration with the Holocaust
Memorial Center, has announced plans to
participate significantly in the formulation
of the International Institute of the Righ-
teous.
The Holocaust Center does leave all of us
with powerful images of mankind at his
very lowest. The new institute will show

6

FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 1992

that while there was a dark side, through
history there are always righteous people
who perform heroic acts in hopes of
creating a compassionate, more tolerant
world. Dr. Detlof von Berg, Detroit's Ger-
man consul general, has worked hard with
Rabbi Charles Rosenzveig of the Holocaust
Center to make his government's contribu-
tion to this project happen. At a time when
anti-Semitism and racism are legitimized
once again by men in suits running for of-
fice here and in Europe, Dr. von Berg and
his government's efforts deserve a place in
the institute they are helping to build.

OPINION I--

Wildness In America:
Antithesis Of Judaism

ALDEN M. LEIB

R

ecently, Barbara Wal-
ters interviewed film
star Richard Gere. She
asked him if he were to have
a son how he would raise him.
Gere appeared to reflect in-
wardly for a moment and
responded in a self-satisfied
tone, "I would raise him to be
wild."
Two years ago, several New
York teen-agers attacked a
young woman who was jogg-
ing in Central Park. She was
raped repeatedly and beaten
to near death. The youths,
when apprehended, casually
claimed that they had been
"wilding."
To be wild appears to be in
the mainstream of American
desires — desire that has
found acceptance from the
street gangs of our major
cities to the affluent,
sophisticated Hollywood
stars.
rIb be wild is the ultimate
goal of a generation raised
with permissiveness, instant
gratification and hedonism, a
generation raised to do "its
own thing."
"Wild" is the expression of
obligation to no one, to no
belief, to no order. "Wild" is
contrary to civilization.
"Wild" is the antithesis of
order. It is the opposite of
Judaism.
A few months ago, Rabbi
David Wolpe of the Jewish
Theological Seminary spoke
in the Detroit area. He was
asked whether a parent's goal

Dr. Leib is a periodontist and
lives in Bloomfield Hills.

should be to raise children to
be happy. The rabbi paused,
thought, and slowly
answered, "No, we should
raise our children to be holy
and happiness will be the by-
product?'
The Torah tells us that
Jacob was a holy man and
because of his holiness he was
favored by God and Jacob's
progeny became the nation of
Israel. Jacob's twin brother,
Esau, was not holy but wild,
and his progeny became all
the other nations of our
world.
We, as Jews, should aspire
to raise our children to be ho-
ly — to be righteous, to be
moral and to be free from sin.
This is to be Jewish. This is
not to be wild. This is not per-
missiveness but a structured
life bounded by laws, obliga-
tions and responsibilities that
have preserved the Jews for
4,000 years.
The Jewish way of life and
the Jewish mind has allowed
us to survive pogroms, disper-
sion, holocausts and plagues.
And it has defined civiliza-
tion.
It is our obligation as Jews
and Jewish parents to define
the proper direction for our
children. We can not leave the
definition of these paths to
our secular philosophers.
They have failed us. Freedom
has overstepped its bounds. It
has become limitless, self-
destructive and anti-Jewish.
In our eagerness to accept
America's invitation to live
freely as Jews, many of us
have chosen the additional
"freedom" to live as non-Jews.
It is time to take a Jewish
direction.



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