C

Don't let them
use your dollars
to bully you.

'Just like two years ago, Michigan's auto insurance companies are using our
premium dollars to try to trick us into helping them earn bigger profits. Two years
ago, Michigan voters rejected their Proposal D— by almost 2-1.

Now, the auto insurance companies are back, with Proposal C on the
November 8 ballot. Michigan voters were not fooled two years ago—and we
won't be fooled on Proposal C. We said "NO" and we mean "NO!"

Proposal C is:

•

• Cash for insurance companies.

They reduce our medical benefits to increase their profits.

• A Con

• Cruel

It does not guarantee a dime in auto premium reductions.

It lets insurance companies—not doctors—control
your family's medical care.

• Callous

_

To get the medical care they need, crash victims with
serious injuries will have to spend their life savings or
depend on taxpayers.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)
American Association of Retired People (AARP)
Michigan Consumer Federation
Michigan Head Injury Alliance
Paralyzed Veterans of America-Michigan
Michigan Councils for Independent Living

and 23 other consumer organizations say

TH E D E TRO IT J E W IS H N E WS

No on Proposal C

44

Paid for by FAIR, Fairness and Accountability in Insurance Reform, P.O. 15157, Lansing, MI 48901-5157

PREFERRED . WELL QUALIFIED

TOP RATED BY CIVIC SEARCHLIGHT

NE-ELECT 11/05E

ICHAEL J. KELLY

ICHIGAN COURT OF APPEALS

• Paid for by the Committee to Elect Judge Michael J. Kelly Michigan Court of Appeals

1011

ANTI-SEMITISM page 4

From this perspective, activist
organizations must see the de-
fense of the Jewish people as a
point of entry to a greater sense
ofJewish spirituality. Standing
up for Jews should not be the last
step in one's commitment to Am
Yisrael, but rather the first step
toward rekindling greater ties to
our people and inspiring greater
commitment to Jewish obser-
vance and learning.
But, if we are to add up all the
monies allocated for Jewish ed-
ucation and Jewish spirituality
in one column and all the monies
targeted for Jewish defense in
the other, the former sum would
pale in comparison to the latter.
Unfortunately, in our day, we are
trying to fight massive assimila-
tion with a slingshot. What is re-
quired to touch Jewish souls is a
radical reprioritization of com-
munal resources and funding.
At the State University of New
York at Albany for example, Jew-

ish groups on campus receive
$21,000 for programming for
5,000 Jewish students. There is
no full-time Jewish profession-
al or rabbi. It is astounding that
at Albany, which boasts one of
the largest Jewish student pop-
ulations in America, our stu-
dents' growth is worth only $4 a
head.
More funding is crucial in or-
der to create, sustain and en-
hance programs that foster the
Jewish spirit and to attract the
best leaders to the rabbinate and
other Jewish professional ser-
vices.
Make no mistake; the Jewish
community must continue to con-
front anti-Semitism, wherever
and whenever it rears its ugly
head. While the combatting of
anti-Semitism is an important
objective in and of itself, the ef-
fort must be part of a far larger
goal — the stirring and reawak-
ening ofJewish consciousness.

❑

CRISIS page 5

* For years, I've been hearing
about B'nai Jeshurun, a Conser-
vative congregation on New
York's Upper West Side. B'nai
Jeshurun is yet another power-
ful testament to the hunger for
quality among many Jews. Or so,
at least, rd been told by my many
friends who worship there. But
only recently when I was in New
York on a Friday evening did I
have the chance to join them.
It was thrilling to be part of a
congregation of perhaps 800 wor-
shippers who were happy to be
exactly where they were. Though
I grew up with familial ties to the
Chasidic community, it was at
B'nai Jeshurun that I first un-
derstood the genius of the Cha-
sidic nigun, the (typically
wordless) melody sung over and
over and over again.
At B'nai Jeshurun, such
singing is the heart of the service,
which means that even the
stranger can feel at home since,
by the third or fourth repetition,
he or she can comfortably join in.
Which also means that there are
no strangers, not among those
present for the first time or
among those who are not (yet)
able to pray in Hebrew.
Give us a silver lining and
many among us will search for
the cloud: B'nai Jeshurun works
only because of rabbinic charis-
ma. So what's true there can't be
replicated elsewhere. Boston's
Hebrew College works only be-
cause its new president, David
Gordis, is a practical man of vi-
sion, and there aren't many like
him.
But it's also true, and more
helpful to know, that the success
of these institutions depends not

only on those who lead them, but
also on the persistence of an
available constituency. That con-
stituency — the many American
Jews who se k a serious, sub-
stantive Jewish experience — off-
sets all the lamentations about
the sorry state ofJewish identi-
ty.
These two examples — and
the dozens (hundreds?) more
across the country — suggest
that we'd do better to invest our
energies in responding to the
needs of the Jews than in endless
kvetching about the sorry state
of our community. Or about how
our enemies are still sharpening
their knives.
Those who indulge in the
gevalt school of fund-raising jus-
tify their excesses by citing the
results of their efforts. Their ap-
proach, they say, is effective.
What they don't say is that their
concern is with their own orga-
nizational budgets and not with
the broader communal agenda.
So here, then, is a research pro-
ject it's time we sponsor: One or
two percent of the recipients of
Jewish scare-mail respond as in-
tended, but what percentage of
the recipients of that mail are
moved to alienation from a corn-
munity that presents itself as one
long whine? And, if I'm right,
then test the alternative: Invit-
ing Jews to study and to cele-
brate and to find fulfillment and
see if that's not a healthier pre-
scription with a higher "response
rate," as for some folks in Boston
and in New York it surely seems
to be.

e

❑

Leonard Fein is a writer living in

Boston.