UP FRONT

Why Spend $2 Million
To Produce A Eunuch?

LEONARD FEIN

Special to The Jewish News

R

eaders of the front
page of the business
section of the New
York Times the other day
must have perked up when
they read that there will
soon be a new Jewish maga-
zine in the land.
Any new contribution to
our communal culture would
seem to be welcome, and one
that promises an up-front
investment of $2 million and
an initial audience of
400,000 subscribers — why,
that's miracle-time.
The old editor in me
salivates at numbers like
those. Salivates, but is skep-
tical. I do know something,
after all, about the
difficulties of attracting
masses of readers to a quali-
ty product, having spent a
dozen years at Moment try-
ing — and failing — to get
just 10 percent of the reader-
ship that the new magazine,
Mosaic, promises it will have
from day one. There must,
then, be a kicker.
And kicker there is: A
deal's evidently been cut —
so the report in the Times in-
forms us — between the
publisher of the new maga-

Leonard Fein is the former
editor ofilloment magazine.

zine and the Council of Jew-
ish Federations, according to
which anyone who con-
tributes $100 or more to
his/her federation campaign
will receive a free subscrip-
tion to Mosaic. (The CJF gets
to keep a share of the an-
ticipated profits.)
Well, almost anyone: The
Philadelphia federation has
declined the opportunity;
Boston has turned it down,
and New York is "still con-
sidering."
My guess is that the
gleaming prospect of
400,000 will soon be

Federations tend to
believe they need
to shield donors
from unpleasant
truths.

whittled down to a much,
much smaller number. And
so it should be. Why?
Try this: While Michael
Schneider, the publisher and
editor in chief of the putative
publication, says that the
magazine will be "indepen-
dent," he does acknowledge
that the CJF will "fact-
check" each article. In con-
text, that means that
there'll be both self-
censorship by Mr. Schneider
and a second level of censor-
ship by CJF.

It doesn't take much
imagination to figure out
what the product will be. In-
deed, we have it from Mr.
Schneider himself: The
magazine will avoid such
controversial subjects as pol-
itics and religion.
A more preposterous edito-
rial notion for a Jewish
magazine would be hard to
come by. We are about to be
presented with a new Jewish
airline magazine. Or is it a
Jewish airhead magazine?
I haven't seen the sample
issue; from the description, I
don't think I've missed
much. The magazine, Mr.
Schneider tells us, is design-
ed to make "people feel good
about what they are doing"
when they contribute to
Jewish causes.
The very last thing that
our community needs these
days is Dr. Feelgood as its
purveyor of information.
That's not to say that we are
not entitled to some celebra-
tion now and then. But what
the community plainly and
painfully needs is a maga-
zine that will tackle ge-
nuinely serious issues, that
will provide cogent and com-
pelling arguments, that will
serve as some sort of a
beacon around which folks
can collect and from which
they can gain strength.
Not the kind of strength
one gains from a tran-

The cover of a recent Mosaic magazine.

quilizer, but the kind of
strength one- gains from
knowing that there are
others who share your con-
cerns and your hopes and
your journey. The kind of
strength one gains from
talking politics and talking
religion and talking all the
other hard things that con-
front us, that we are bound
to wrestle with.
The Council of Jewish
Federations should know

.

that. Trouble is, federations
tend not to take their own
contributors seriously.
The general assumption
they make is that Jews can't
be trusted with serious stuff.
After all, look at the
"demographic crisis" and all
that. We need to attract peo-
ple, and it would be too risky
to level with them; they
might walk away in disgust.
Well, better disgust than
boredom, which is what we

ROUND UP

Two Local Temples
Cited By UAHC
Temple Emanu-El in Oak
Park and Temple Israel in
West Bloomfield were
among 21 congregations
singled out recently by the
Union of American Hebrew
Congregations for their so-
cial action programs.
Emanu-El was cited for its
programs to address the
issue of acquired immune
deficiency syndrome. Tem-
ple Israel was cited for its
efforts to establish a rela-
tionship with the Chaldean
community.

Iranian Stamp
Promotes Hatred
Iran has issued a postage
stamp to commemorate the
United Nations' Interna-
tional Day of the Child. It
shows a youngster throwing
a rock at a Star of David.
The Anti-Defamation

League of B'nai B'rith has
asked UNICEF, the United
States Postal Service and
the International Bureau of
the Universal Postal Union
to publicly protest the
stamp.
Abraham Foxman of the
ADL said, "It is rather in-
congruous that a stamp that
depicts and incites children
to violence should be used in
relation to children's hu-
manitarian concerns."

Battle Of Religions
Under Microscope
It used to be the Christians
against the lions in the
Roman Coliseum. Now it
will be the minority faiths
against the Protestant
mainstream in America.
With an $83,000 grant
from a Philadelphia trust, a
Brandeis University resear-
cher will lead an ecumenical
team in a study of how Jews,

Catholics, Mormons and
black Americans maintain
their identity in the face of
the Protestant majority.
The religious historians
are Jonathan Sarna of
Brandeis, Edwin Gaustad of
the University California -
c Riverside, David O'Brien
of the College of the Holy
Cross, and Albert Raboteau
of Princeton.

Campus Import:
Israel's Elections
Electioneering in advance
of Israel's June 23 elections
will take center stage on
American college campuses,
if the American Zionist
Youth Foundation has its
way.
The AZYF is distributing
its "Campus Israeli Election
Guide" to stimulate interest
and knowledge about
Israel's democracy and elec-
toral process. The guide

comes complete with
background information,
sample ballots, even sample
news stories that can be run
by the campus newspaper.
Also included: step-by-step
instructions on how to
implement the elections,
party platforms and
graphics.
Student groups can obtain
a free copy of the 18-page
"Campus Israeli Election
Guide" by calling the AZYF
toll-free, 1-800-27-ISRAE(L).

JDC Food Parcels
Sent To Russia
The American Jewish
Joint Distribution (JDC) has
begun shipping 20,000 food
packages to Russia. The first
shipment, from Israel, was
being sent to Moscow, St.
Petersburg, Odessa and
Kiev.
The agency plans to estab-
lish additional food storage
centers in Ekatarinberg and
Tashkent, to provide wider
geographical distribution. It
has a team of 14 workers in
the former Soviet Union to
ensure that the parcels
reach the needy.
JDC was forced out of the
Soviet Union by Stalin, and
just returned to the Soviet
Union last year. Much of its
work is funded by the United
Jewish Appeal (locally, the
Allied Jewish Campaign).
Compiled by
Alan Hitsky

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

11