EDITORIAL
B'nai B'rith Youth:
A Shared Investment
This Saturday night at Shaarey Zedek,
the Michigan Region of the B'nai B'rith
Youth Organization (BBYO) will hold a
first-ever reunion.
Reunions, anniversaries and other
organizational simchas are commonplace
to the point where we almost take them for
granted, especially in a large, active Jew-
ish community such as this one.
But BBYO is an organization that we
have to view with a different look. Just
reading any Jewish or even secular news-
paper in the recent years, we've learned
that B'nai B'rith is not in its financial or
organizational heyday. B'nai B'rith Inter-
national has been under constant scrutiny
with questions surfacing about its future.
If there is a future for B'nai B'rith, it
becomes clear at an event such as the
BBYO reunion. BBYO remains a strong
central investment for B'nai B'rith Inter-
Dry Bones
national. Locally, the Michigan Region,
under the leadership of Arnold Weiner, has
taken in adolescent boys and girls and
helped turn them into self-assured young
men and women who will one day be
leaders in the Jewish and secular worlds.
BBYO is a place where Jewish
youngsters can meet one another on many-
different levels. The social experience
offered is always important. But what
BBYO also offers is a course in leadership
training, public speaking, and team play-
ing that major companies spend tens of
millions of dollars to duplicate with their
employees.
For B'nai B'rith, BBYO is a perfect in-
vestment in Jewish youth. But after
meeting the BBYO alumni in their 20s,
30s, 40s and above who are active and suc-
cessful in this community, we realize that
BBYO is an investment for all of us.
6
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The Other Guy's Worse
Spain And Germany:
Lessons Of History
Throughout history, the way in which
countries have dealt with Jews has been a
symbol of their sense of freedom and
human decency, or lack thereof. This week,
events in Spain and Germany revealed
how leaders respond to dark memories of
anti-Semitism.
In Madrid, King Juan Carlos marked the
500th anniversary of the expulsion of the
Jews from Spain by donning a kippah and
coming to a synagogue to pray in a gesture
of reconciliation.
Though the king did not apologize direct-
ly for the expulsion, he acknowledged that
Spain had known moments of "splendor
and decadence, periods of profound respect
for freedom and others of intolerance and
persecution for political, ideological and re-
ligious reasons."
He pledged that "never again will hate
and intolerance provoke desolation and ex-
ile." President Chaim Herzog of Israel took
part in the ceremony and described the rich
Jewish culture that thrived in Spain cen-
turies ago, a time when scholars created
"fundamental works of theology,
philosophy and literature." He noted that
while we cannot change the past, "we can
learn its • lessons and thus assure a better
future for ourselves and humanity."
In Germany, though, fewer than 50 years
after the end of the Holocaust, national
leaders still seem to have trouble learning
the lessons of its dark past. Chancellor
Helmut Kohl added insult to injury last
week when, after meeting with President
Kurt Waldheim of Austria, he lashed out
at Jewish leaders who criticized the
meeting as inappropriate.
Rather than providing moral stature to
Mr. Waldheim, who has been widely
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shunned since his role as a Nazi during
World War II was revealed in 1986, Mr.
Kohl brought shame to Germany by
greeting the Austrian president.
Since reunification, Germany has seen
an increase in right-wing political activity,
including neo-Nazi youth groups and other
expressions of anti-Semitism. Responsible
leaders should speak out against such ac-
tivity, rather than welcome a man who
symbolizes not only the Nazi era but a life-
long effort to conceal and deny any wrong-
doing.
Mr. Kohl would do well to read King
Juan Carlos' remarks delivered in a
Madrid synagogue. Then again, perhaps a
nation needs a few centuries to acknowl-
edge its past actions of intolerance, and
worse.
AAVOMIVAAW.
There's a story
told of a young
rabbi, officiating
at his first funer-
al, who is at a
loss for words.
He had never
met the de-
ceased, who was the oldest
and nastiest man in town.
At the funeral, the rabbi
explained to the assembled
townspeople that since he
did not know the deceased, it
would be appropriate for
someone in the audience to
come up and say a few kind
words.
No one moved.
The rabbi repeated his re-
quest.
Silence.
Finally, in desperation,
the rabbi said he would not
conclude the service until
someone came forward and
said something positive
about the deceased.
At that point an old man
stood up in the back of the
room and said, "His brother?
Worse."
That story comes to mind
when assessing the political
scene in both the United
States and Israel. In fact, the
one thing that American and
Israeli voters have in com-
mon during this election
campaign is that they're
angry and fed up with the
men in office — and not too
excited about those who
would unseat them.
Polls in this country have
shown that President Bush
is so unpopular now that any
nameless Democrat could
beat him. The trouble is,
once you put a name to a
Democrat, voter support
vanishes.
In Israel, Prime Minister
Shamir's Likud party, which
has been dominant since
1977, seems to be slipping in
popularity from day to day.
Labor party leader Yitzhak
Rabin, a dour 69-year-old,
looks fresh and cheerful by
comparison.
Israelis have become in-
ured to their skewed system
of electing a government,
where the smallest of parties
can make or break a coali-
tion. The good news is that,
in 1996, the prime minister
will be chosen in a direct
election, making him or her
accountable to the elec-
torate.
But for now, it's politics as
usual, which in Israel means
nasty, unethical and worse.
Israelis want a leader who
is tough but flexible when it
comes to dealing with the
Arabs, and the U.S.
Mr. Shamir meets the first
criterion, insisting that his
government will not make
territorial concessions to the
Arabs. But he appears to
lack flexibility in the stalled
peace talks and in losing the
$10 billion loan guarantee
on the grounds of principle,
refusing to put a freeze on
settlements in the ter-
ritories.
His chief opponent, Mr.
Rabin, is about as centrist as
you can get in Israel, a
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