Celebrating 50 years of growth with the Detroit Jewish Community THE JEWISH NEWS 8 AV 5752/AUGUST 7, 1992 Agenda Members Plan On Keeping The Faith NJA will carry on, even without its national headquarters. ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM ASSISTANT EDITOR Yet in June the national NJA of- hen the phone rings at the national New Jewish Agenda office, some- fice shut its doors. ?Mays some- thing • of an outsider among body from Ann Arbor always an- ,organized, mainstream Jewish or- swers. It's part of a plan by NJA chap- ganizations — Agenda members ters nationwide to keep the orga- have been vocal, often vociferous nization alive in the midst of news in their condemnation of Israel's policies toward the Palestinians just weeks ago that their national — NJA cited monetary woes as the office in New York City had closed. Ann Arbor NJA has made a phone reason for closing shop in New available; Philadelphia is provid- York. "We fell the financial victim to ing a post office box. hard times," said Ira Grupper, na- With Israel now headed by tional co-chair of NJA. "A lot of the Labor's Yitzhak Rabin, who has expressed an interest in trading organizations that had given to land for peace, it should have been progressive causes like ours are a banner year for NJA. Es- now giving instead to soup kitchens." tablished in 1980, the group was In place of its national office the first Jewish organization to call for a two-state solution to the staff, NJA has established a sev- en-member volunteer steering Arab-Israeli conflict and to advo- committee, including Rebecca cate dialogue with the Palestine Kanner of Ann Arbor, to handle Liberation Organization. A self-styled "progressive voice administrative, financial, political in the Jewish community and a and programmatic decisions for Jewish voice among progressives," Agenda. "It's the same organization," Ms. NJA has 50 chapters in the United Kanner said. "We'll just be relying States and Canada. Loosen that collar and put your feet up here is some recommended ading for those lazy ummer days. more on volunteers." "What we're doing is going through a restructuring," added Michael Appel, a member of the Ann Arbor NJA steering commit- tee. "And I think we can make this change into something very posi- tive." About 100 members belong to the Metro Detroit NJA, with an- other 100 in Ann Arbor. The decision to close the na- tional office was made last April and later discussed at a conven- tion that drew NJA members from throughout the country. At that point, Agenda leaders "decided to mainstream ourselves as an in- ternational organization, but scale back on what we do programmat- ically," said Mr. Grupper, who lives in Louisville, Ky. Before its dosure, national NJA had been involved in a myriad of issues, ranging from fighting racism and poverty in the United States, to gay issues to the envi- ronment and global disarmament. It often hosted talks by pro-PLO speakers and joined in demon- strations against the Israeli gov- ernment. Because of these activities, NJA frequently came into conflict with the mainstream Jewish commu- nity. In 1984, in response to then- Secretary of State Elliot Abrams' • ins And Losses The voters had final say in Tuesday's primary. page 14 JEWISH AGENDA/page 30 Helping The IPO An ex-Detroiter is invited to do rrangements for Israel's Philharmonic. t ge 67 AROUND TOWN Bat Mitzvah Young Israel's league attracts t scores of players. page 91 Contents on page 5