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Potok Speaks To Hillel
SHEILA JELEN, SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
1
Lisa Weinshenker and Scott Weinick, now married, met each other at another hayride sponsored five-and•a-half years ago by
Hiliels at Wayne State University and University of Windsor. Photo by Kfistoffer Gillette
'Half YIIII!
A straw-tossing, line-dancing, boot scootin' gala was on tap from HMD.
Rum LITTMANN, STAFF WRITER
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hoa now!
You say them
Hillel folks seem
kinda different
these days? Could be on account
of the new programs they've
cooked up.
Like that October train ride
through the wilds of Walled
Lake. Or the Billiards Bash at
Breakers last week. Or maybe
one of the latest: a hayride and
hoedown, complete with line
dancing and country music.
It's all part of Hillel's goal to
get hip to the '90s while main-
taining its Jewish identity.
Hillel of Metro Detroit (HMD)
is well on its way to revamping
its image. Lest students think
it's just an office on Wayne State
University's campus — a place
where they can eat tasty kosher
meals — HMD leaders are
spreading the news that Hillel
keeps changing.
"We're drawing steady
crowds and new people to the
events — events that are stu-
dent-organized," said Program
Director Neil Gottheil. "The dif-
ference between the Hillel-of-
now and the Hillel-of-then is
that today's Hillel of Metro
Detroit is being turned over to
the students. They're taking a
much more active role in orga-
nizing social and social action
events."
The Hayride-Hoedown, for in-
stance, was planned by mem-
bers of HMD's new Metro
Council. The event attracted a
diverse crowd of 50 people to
Sugarbush Farms in Ypsilanti,
where participants climbed
aboard horse-drawn wagons for
a chilly ride in the evening air.
The bumpy, straw-tossing ex-
cursion was followed by line
dancing in Farmer Joe's barn.
Dance instructor Bill Dean
taught the crowd new country
steps, including the all-famous
Achy Breaky.
The horah, it was not. But
judging from the mangled
moves of many a dancer, a little
Boot Scootin' wasn't all that bad.
"I loved it," said an HMD
leader, Kevin Elbinger, who
kicked up his heels to ditties by
country king Billy Ray Cyrus.
"After you got it down, it was
pretty easy, but getting it down
Steve Rosen and Joe
Feldman spread the
news about HMD.
was kind of tough."
Outside the barn, partici-
pants milked cows in a field and
toasted s'mores by the campfire.
HMD leaders said they were
happy that the event went over
well.
"It was more than a success,"
said Julie Galazan. "We got
more than we expected for as
much work as we put into it."
Hillel's Metro Council mem-
bers Julie Glazan, Alyssa Katz-
man and Steve Rosen
contributed to this report.
❑
n a recent lecture at
B'nai B'rith Hillel in
Ann Arbor, author
Chaim Potok pre-
sented his views on writing
in the modern world.
"Nothing is too sacro-
sanct to be poked into by
the pen of the modern nov-
elist," he said.
Mr. Potok asserted that
"the story is one of the ways
we shape the human expe-
rience." Storytelling, in the
author's opinion, creates a
model upon which human
beings base their under-
standing of the world.
Mr. Potok is not only a
novelist. He also is a play-
wright, rabbi, philosopher
and historian.
Speaking to an audience Chaim Potok
of more than 500 people at
to the late 1970s, Mr. Potok was
Hillel on November 10, Mr. Po- responsible for The Jewish Cat-
tok addressed the issue of "Re- alog, a contemporary manual on
bellion and Authority: The Jewish life.
Writer Against The World."
As a novelist, Mr. Potok has
He was speaking from explored cultural confrontation,
experience. As a yeshiva stu- as manifested in the lives of
dent, Mr. Potok had learned the Jewish characters grappling
importance of analyzing with a predominantly Christian
existing texts, not necessarily of Western world.
creating his own. His teachers,
Mr. Potok is best known for
as well as his parents, his first novel, The Chosen,
considered his penchant for sto- which details the complex lives
ry writing "frivolous or a men- of two Jewish young men who
ace."
journey into each other's reli-
gious and social spheres.
/ Am the Clay, Mr. Potok's
most recent novel, transports us
to Asia, "a world beautiful be-
yond all imagination," he wrote.
During the question and an-
swer period following the lec-
ture, Mr. Potok shed some light
on the sheer quantity and di-
versity of his interests and edu-
cation. He became a rabbi, he
said, in order to delve into the
core of Judaism. He earned his
philosophy degree to under-
stand the core elements of West-
em culture.
When asked why he chose to
Nevertheless, Mr. Potok has
become known as a "Renais- study philosophy over literature,
sance man." He is the author of Mr. Potok answered that he
11 novels, three plays and one didn't want his writing to be
work of non-fiction. Raised as "stripped of its intuitive base."
an Orthodox Jew in New York, Studying literature, he believed,
he graduated from Yeshiva Uni- would make his writing too "self-
versity with a bachelor's degree conscious."
The audience consisted of
in English literature, was or-
dained as a rabbi at the Jewish adolescent fans, undergraduates
Theological Seminary, earned a taking a break from the
doctorate of philosophy from the post-midterm work rush,
University of Pennsylvania and graduate students, profession-
served as a U.S. Army chaplain als and members of the Ann
Arbor and suburban Detroit
in Korea.
Mr. Potok's diverse back- communities.
Sheila E. Jelen is a recent
ground is reflected in the range
of his literary accomplishments. University of Michigan gradu-
As editor in chief of the Jewish ate who works for B'nai B'rith
Publication Society from 1966 Hillel in Ann Arbor. 111
His teachers,
as well as his
parents,
considered his
penchant for story
writing
"frivolous or
a menace."