T
c Commu
ca om nin: nity Views
Through Knowledge
Come Unity
Editor's Notebook
Some Memories
We Can Do Without
RABBI ELIEZER COHEN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
PHIL JACOBS EDITOR
The sad fact of
Jewish communal
life is that there is
not one Jewish
community but
several different
communities, each
with its own agen-
da and priorities.
This fragmenta-
tion usually precludes coopera-
tion between these groups. In
fact, it creates a polarization of
purposes and we then become
our own enemies. And as bad as
things are here, in Israel this
problem has become a crisis of
tragic proportions.
A
horrible
dream comes
back to Leonard
Baruch.
He's unpack-
ing boxes for a
Holocaust exhib-
, it for the Young
Adult Council at
the Jewish Com-
munity Center. It's 1946. He
takes out desecrated pieces of
Torah scrolls, lamp shades, the
unthinkable.
adherents. But by and large, it is
these rubrics that designate the
separate entities that make up
the overall Jewish community.
As each of these groups has be-
come more and more self-suffi-
cient as a separate community,
not only has the competition in-
creased and the cooperation de-
creased among them, but even
business and social contacts have
diminished. This divisive drift
has accelerated to the point that
in many ways our knowledge and
understanding of our fellow Jews
are little more than stereotypical
myths — further engendering
misunderstanding, distrust and
sirable, we should at least be
open and honest enough (and se-
cure enough, I might add) to re-
ally know more about each other
before we characterize and reject
each other's religious lifestyle. We
must never reject the people
themselves!
How many of us are aware of
the theological, historical and
philosophical underpinnings of
the various movements? How
many of us know what really goes
on in the religious schools and
services of diverse communi-
ties? How many of us realize how
our fellow Jews celebrate Shab-
bat and Pesach, or commemorate
Tisha WANT, bar
and bat mitzvah,
a wedding or a fu-
neral?
We must, on
an individual ba-
sis, read, study,
learn about and
understand our
fellow Jews. On
the community
level, we must es-
tablish both for-
mal and informal
classes, lectures
and discussion
groups, retreats
and other events
to better know
one another. I
dare say that if
we knew more
about each other,
our stereotypes
would reveal
themselves as
such and our
common tradi-
tions and behav-
ior would become
more evident. At
the very least, we
could make judg-
ments based on
fact and reality
instead of misin-
To the greatest extent (at least even enmity. The "sanctimonious, formation and untruths. We can
here in the United States) be- closed minded, superstitious ob- maintain our belief that we are
cause we identify ourselves con- scurant"; the "non-believing, as- right and still learn to better un-
gregationally, these various similating, self-hating ma- derstand others.
Jewish communities are divided terialist"; the "non-committed, ig-
We will continue to disagree
along "religious" lines in terms of norant, superficial hypocrite" about very important and fun-
the so-called branches of Ju- have become the caricatures to damental principles and defini-
daism. Thus, we have the Or-
tions of Jewish life — that is to
thodox, Conservative, Reform,
be expected. But we must learn
Reconstructionist, Humanistic
to disagree within a context of
Jews are simply
and perhaps, the secular Jewish
mutual respect and to emphasize
communities. These terms apply
similarities and common
Jews, with a whole the
to institutions, in my opinion, but
ground we all share rather than
not individuals; Jews are simply
range of beliefs
the differences.
Jews, with a whole range of be-
If we would learn more about
and behaviors.
liefs and behaviors.
each other, we would also more
Each of these communities has
clearly define and appreciate our
its own shared theology, beliefs,
own beliefs and lifestyles. Fur-
practices and priorities. There denigrate the others while each thermore, we would certainly re-
surely is some overlap and even of us proclaims our "Judaism" to alize our mutual problems and
further frag- mentation and the be the true, meaningful and prop- — who knows — perhaps we
institutional differences are not er Jewish legacy.
might even be able to join to-
always reflected in the lives of the
While agreement in all aspects gether to solve some of these
Eliezer Cohen is rabbi of Young Is- of Jewish life is certainly not pos- problems as a really unified, co-
sible and perhaps not even de- operative community.
rael of Oak Woods.
❑
There have been other build-
ings.
A similar experience that has
stayed with me. In 1982, we
were called to see vandalism at
a synagogue minutes from the
Capitol of the United States.
We used to get calls like this
from time to time, and as edi-
tors we even wrestled with how
much coverage these acts of
vandalism deserved.
Sent out to assess the story,
Leonard Baruch: memories stirred by anti Semitic acts.
-
Today, he shakes his head
and he sees the little children
coming to the Shaarey Zedek
B'nai Israel Center on Walnut
Lake Road in West Bloomfield.
It's a sunny, happy day for the
children. They see that some-
one has spray painted the walls
of the building they'll play in
that day. Fortunately, they
were too young to read the
words "Jew Train" on a piece of
playground equipment. Earli-
er in the day, Jewish teens con-
gregated before departing for
camp. They see the swastikas,
the words of the Holocaust, and
they leave.
There is no fantasy-filled
gray areas to Mr. Baruch. As
executive director of Shaarey
Zedek, he is solid in his no-non-
sense approach to life. He could
do without his name and his ex-
perience being mentioned in to-
day's paper. He even said that
anti-Semitism isn't something
he goes overboard about — that
it's endemic to society. Yet the
juxtaposition of what he wit-
nessed earlier this spring isn't
erased by reason.
"The children coming to play
that day and the hate that was
painted there, that's what got
to me," he said. "We didn't need
this to happen. I wanted their
mothers to leave the building
thinking this is a great build-
I remember calling in to my ed-
itor, not being able to fully ex-
plain what I had just seen.
It was a white building with
huge, spray-painted images of
eagles with the swastika in
their talons. There were other
drawings of ovens with the
word "Jude" going up in flames.
The intricacy of the drawing
was sickly detailed. It was har-
rowing to see. The "vandals"
who did it were apprehended
by police and prosecuted. The
defendants said they were not
anti-Semitic, but "bored" teen-
agers.
Perhaps the only good that
came out of this was provided
by a Christian source. Area
churches requested that their
congregations be permitted to
clean up the desecrations.
But you never clean it up.
"It's a feeling that's not ac-
ceptable," said Mr. Baruch. "It
makes you think about the
world you are leaving to your
children and to your grand-
children. You worry, God for-
bid, that something like this
could run full circle."
Mr. Baruch was unpacking
the horrible boxes of 1946
again. The spray paint, the van-
dalism, the children sent him
back.
It came full circle. El