Social Issues Highlight
NJA Conference
STEPHEN H. GOLDSTEIN
Special to The Jewish News
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WEST BLOOMFIELD • MICHIGAN
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16
FRIDAY, MAY 22, 1992
he Midwest Regional
Retreat of the New
Jewish Agenda drew
more than 35 people last
weekend to the University of
Michigan. "Ideas got seeded,"
said Michael Appel, one of the
organizers, as the retreat end-
ed Sunday. "That was pro-
bably the most important
result."
In a national platform
adopted in 1982, the New
Jewish Agenda "upholds pro-
gressive Jewish values and af-
firms that the goals of peace
and justice are attainable."
The retreat allowed NJA
members from seven of the
region's 12 chapters to discuss
their views on a wide range of
issues.
Ken Wachsberger, an Ann
Arbor author, educator and
tenants' activist, discussed
"Resisting the Agenda of the
Far Right: What We Can
Learn From Our History."
He drew parallels between
his attempts to find a
publisher for his book, Voices
from the Underground, about
the underground press of the
Vietnam era, and what he
said is the continued suppres-
sion of anti-war dissent by the
corporate world.
"History has shown that we
were correct in our overall
analysis" in the 1960s, Mr.
Wachsberger said. "The per-
sonal is political; interna-
tional politics shares a bed
with domestic politics. In fact,
we were too right .. .
"In time, and with access to
information, (people) can be
moved along a progressive
path," he said. "My own
father, for example, voted for
Richard Nixon in 1960; in
1980, he voted for Barry Com-
moner, okay, for what it's
worth." Chuckling with the
audience, he said, "He was
reading all my papers . . ."
Mr. Wachsberger said two
principal coalitions focus in-
dependently on economic
issues and religious issues.
For example, the organizing
effort of the past year of
residents of the manufactured
home park where he lives has
brought together people with
political and other dif-
ferences: Jews and others,
white collar and blue collar,
Willow Run auto workers
soon to lose their jobs and
owners of Japanese cars,
young families and senior
Stephen Goldstein is an Ann
Arbor journalist.
citizens, working poor, single-
parent families and two-wage
families on the political right
and on the left.
". . We need to demand
space to tell our stories on the
pages of the corporate dailies
and the Jewish weeklies," Mr.
Wachsberger said. "At the
same time, we need to support
our own independent, alter-
native sources; we need to
read them, write for them,
quote from them, give
subscriptions for Chanukah,
write letters to the editor, find
local distribution points."
The morning session Satur-
day, "Building Coalitions to
Resist the Far-Right Agenda,"
featured a panel presentation
and discussion of gay-lesbian
A regional retreat
draws 35 to Ann
Arbor.
concerns, anti-racist organiz-
ing, AIDS, poverty and con-
cerns of American Arabs and
Jews.
The panel included Pattrice
Maurer of the Ann Arbor unit
of the AIDS Coalition to
Unleash Power, Larry Fox of
the Baker-Mandela Center of
the University of Michigan,
Zana Macki of the American
Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee and Lois Levine of
the New Jewish Agenda.
Ms. Maurer discussed
power and privilege, stressing
the importance of deciding on
goals ahead of time.
Mr. Fox, of the Homeless Ac-
tion Coalition in Ann Arbor,
said his best allies in
coalition-building had been
the Gray Panthers and the
Women's International
League of Freedom, the oldest
peace group in the United
States.
Zana Macki of the Ameri-
can Arab Anti-Discrimina-
tion Committee talked of her
experiences during the Gulf
War, monitoring the speakers
on WXYT-AM, the Detroit
talk-radio station. She dis-
cussed how she and other
Arabs had to prove their
Americanism.
She discussed the Chaldean
community and said the
Jewish community had been
enormously supportive. For
example, David Gad-Harf,
director of the Jewish Com-
munity Council in Detroit,
calls when Arabs experience
defamation.
In one of the workshops
Saturday afternoon, Jesse
Gordon, a clinical psycholo-
gist and a board member of