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Coalition Plans Israel Trip
For Black, Jewish Youth

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ongtime black activist Ron-
nie Peterson fondly remem-
bers the bonds between
Jews and blacks in the Civil
Rights era. "I'm a '60s kid," he
said.
Jesse Gordon, a semi-retired
University of Michigan professor,
also has positive memories of the
1960s, when he traveled to Ala-
bama and Maryland to erase Jim
Crow laws and increase voter reg-
istration.
Both men share something
else in comon: they are troubled
by the recent tension between
blacks and Jews and have de-
cided to do something about it.
Mr. Peterson, Mr. Gordon and
several other Washtenaw County
black and Jewish leaders have
formed the Washtenaw County
Black/Jewish Coalition, a five-
year-old group designed to im-
prove relations between the two.
It has sponsored several events
over the past few years, includ-
ing a Passover Freedom Seder.
Now the coalition is planning
its most ambitious project — a
trip next summer to Israel for a
group of black and Jewish high
school students.
"This is a proactive, not a re-
active measure," said Nancy Mar-
golis, executive director of the

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Jesse Gordon

Washtenaw County Jewish Com-
munity Center and a coalition
member.
The group's plans received a
boost after several coalition mem-
bers attended a screening last De-
cember of Black to the Promised
Land, a documentary about a
Jewish schoolteacher from Brook-
lyn who took some of his black
students on a trip to Israel in
1989. (The teacher, Stewart
Bialer, has turned the trip into
an annual program.) The movie
"certainly was a powerful stimu-

Peter Ephross is a writer in Ann

Arbor.

Participants at the coalition's black Jewish seder.

-

lus," Mr. Gordon remembers.
Last winter, the coalition
planned to send black students
for a seven-week trip. Today, the
visit is tentatively scheduled to
run for three weeks. The idea to
send both black and Jews to-
gether, Mr. Gordon says, came
after one of their contacts in
Israel said, "If you want us to do
a multicultural experience, send
us a multicultural group."
Participants will still spend
time on a kibbutz, travel and par-
ticipate in an Israeli-Palestinian
dialogue in Neve Shalom, a joint
Israeli-Palestinian village. The
students will then come back and
discuss their experience in pub-
lic forums.
Mr. Peterson, Mr. Gordon and
other members of the coalition
have run into several obtacles in
planning the trip. One of these
is funding, which must come
mainly from individual donors.
"It's hard to develop a program
in Israel without money, Mr.
Gordon said.
But the coalition presses for-
ward because of its members' de-
termined idealism. While older
blacks understand the need for
unity with Jews, Ronnie Peter-
son says, younger blacks, for
whom the Civil Rights era feels
like distant history, need to un-
derstand that "when people make
fun of Jews, they will make fun
of blacks next."
They need to understand that
"the same painful history is al-
ways a threat to the present," he
added.
Mr. Gordon, who taught social
work and social psychology at
U-M, believes that "the division
between blacks and whites in
America is the most destructive
fact in American society and
politics."
It's a division Mr. Gordon has

been working to bridge for sev-
eral decades. His continued in-
volvement, he said, derives in
part from the Jewish teaching of
tikkun olam, the obligation of
working to heal society.
Too often, Mr. Gordon added,
Americans fail to look outside the
United States for answers to its
problems. "Israel is a different
kind of multicultural society and
we thought it would be good to
have the students see Israel's at-
tempts to deal with multicultur-
alism."
Perhaps, he added, the expe-
rience will help the students see
problems in the United States in
a new light. "Some of the solu-
tions tried over there can be tried
here."
Coalition members also hope
the trip will dispel myths the stu-
dents have about Israel and
Jews. While there is little overt

The coalition
presses forward
because of its
members' idealism.

tension between Jews and blacks
in Washtenaw County, Mr. Gor-
don noted, "Most blacks and most
Jews don't have anything to do
with each other."
Mr. Peterson hopes the trip,
which the group hopes to insti-
tutionalize into an annual affair,
will help end that segregation.
"We need to plan and birth new
leaders in both of our commu-
nities in order to close the gap
between blacks and Jews that
has existed for 15 years," he said.

For information, call Jesse
Gordon, 313-971-9018, or Nancy
Margolis, 313-971-0990.

