Cardinal Maida, Maze! Toy
It's not very often one reads an editorial of sup-
port in a Jewish publication for a Catholic leader.
Indeed, many of our older readers can go back
to the campaign this newspaper and its prede-
cessor launched in the 1930s to sensitize Detroit
and the world to the anti-Semitism of the area's
then most powerful Catholic clergymen, Father
Coughlin. That is thankfully "ancient" history
now.
Jew and gentile alike can celebrate in the
1990s that Adam Maida was named cardinal.
Along with Cardinal William H. Keeler of the
Baltimore archdiocese, Cardinal Maida was one
of only two Americans among 30 men elevated
to the position by Pope John Paul II.
The cardinal told the world audience that he
intended to bring people of all faiths together.
But this is something that we in this commu-
nity were fortunate to know and to see in action
since he arrived in 1990 as archbishop.
The spiritual leader of Detroit's 1.5 million
Catholics is also a friend to Detroit's nearly
100,000 Jews. He has always been an outspo-
ken opponent of religious intolerance and es-
pecially anti-Semitism. Cardinal Maida is our
friend. We applaud his naming to the College of
Cardinals. We are proud of his accomplishments,
and we wish nothing but further success, good
health and the welcoming of continued relations
between our two communities.
Preventing The Inferno
T J EW IS H NEWS
It's no secret that a peaceful Middle East does
not seem at hand these days. This week, Israeli
generals warned that Palestinian infighting in
the Gaza Strip — and, potentially, in the West
Bank — could lead to a "Lebanonization." They
also seriously questioned their ability to protect
the 120,000 Jewish residents of Arab areas from
armed Palestinians. As proof of such guardian-
ship's urgency, on Sunday Israeli troops stopped
a would-be suicide bomber at the Israel-Gaza
border. The 26-year-old Arab man refused to
obey orders to halt while approaching an Israeli
checkpoint. When he appeared to detonate the
bomb in his backpack, the soldiers opened fire,
wounding him and, no doubt, saving their own
lives.
Increasing pressure on Israel's government
to pull out of the peace talks is the dour mood of
the Israeli public. Israelis have buried more vic-
tims of Arab terror in the last year than in the
12 months prior to the "peace of the brave," which
Yassir Arafat proudly declared on Sept. 13, 1993,
at the White House. Compounding matters is
that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin knows
that failure to show tangible security benefits to
this quest while keeping negotiations alive could
end his political career.
Such is the convoluted backdrop to the new
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round of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations that
began on Tuesday regarding expanding Pales-
tinian autonomy.
Much of the problems stem from Mr. Arafat's
inability to address the sociological and economic
underpinnings of support for Islamic funda-
mentalists, who promote anti-Israel and anti-
Jewish terror. Contributing to this has been Mr.
Arafat's performance so far as an ineffective,
uninspiring bureaucrat.
But Mr. Arafat's shortcomings are not Israel's
gains, which is why the Rabin government has
scrambled to encourage financial support of the
monetarily and politically impoverished Pales-
tinian Authority.
Israel, as former Israeli statesman Abba Eban
said in Atlanta last Saturday, has embarked on
a path from which it cannot afford to turn back.
Mr. Eban knows that if the PLO-Israel accord
falls apart, so might the Israel-Jordan treaty—
and so does the hope of future agreements with
other Arab states. Such a domino effect, as many
analysts already have pointed out, could lead to
an inevitable war.
If the peace process fails, Mr. Eban noted, it
would result in "an inferno." Such a specter is
one that the world must redouble its efforts to
prevent.
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Letters
Responding To
Those Around Us
I am sure that you will receive
a multitude of letters regarding
the lead article in last week's pa-
per, "New Vows." Many will cas-
tigate you for placing such an
article on the front page — draw-
ing attention to a subject that
they would prefer to avoid — to
pretend it doesn't exist. Many
will probably find strong religious
and halachic reasons for deni-
grating those who participate,
and those who assist, in such cer-
emonies. Many, I would guess,
will take particular umbrage at
the Reform movement and its
clergy. Some will believe, as I do,
that in part The Jewish News
likes to stimulate controversy as
a part of selling newspapers.
Maybe all have some validity.
At the same time, perhaps this
article will cause many of us to
think about how we respond to
those around us...how we think
about their humanity...how we
treat people who, although we
may not be comfortable with
their lifestyle, are still, after all,
every bit as human as we are. Do
we want to condemn homosex-
uals to the wearing of a "pink tri-
angle"? Do we want to deny them
fulfillment of happiness and
serenity in their lives? Were it
our child, brother, sister, cousin
— would we, could we, cause
them suffering? On the other
hand, where do we appropriate-
ly place the discussion of our sex-
ual personae — perhaps, at every
level, issues that were once pri-
vate have now become public do-
main.
The issue of homosexuality is
a very complicated one. The is-
sue of humanity is not.
Whether or not one under-
stands either the social, emo-
tional or physical implications of
homosexuality — whether or not
one accepts homosexuality as an
appropriate lifestyle — whether
or not one chooses to have a fa-
milial or social relationship with
a person who happens to be ho-
mosexual, these are separate is-
sues from the very fact that
homosexuality exists in our gen-
eral community and in our Jew-
ish community.
Homosexual starts with the
same letter as human. As Jews,
however we celebrate Judaisn -,
in our lives, we do not have the
right to deny another Jew, an-
other person, the right to fulfill
his or her entire human poten-
tial. To use the Torah as an ex-
cuse to "punish" someone is
inexcusable. If we believe that we
are all truly created by God, that
we were all slaves under
Pharaoh in Egypt, that we were
all present at Mt. Sinai, then
there must have been homosex-
uals there, too.
In our lives we meet many peo-
ple with whom we do not agree
— with lifestyles of which we do
not approve — whose politics or
business practices we abhor —
those disagreements do not give
us the right to persecute, judge
or discriminate against them.
If this article causes people to
think about their own behavior
toward others, then it will serve
a worthwhile purpose. If not...?
Judith Miller
Bloomfield Hills
Dictating
Hillel's Future?
We would like to comment on the
editorial "$5 Million Donation
Forces Community Self-Exami-
nation" (Nov. 11). The article ad-
dressed the issue of how a move
of Hillel Day School to the JCC
Maple/Drake campus will affect
those individuals living in Hunt-
ington Woods, Oak Park and
Southfield. We agree with much
of the editorial which identified
the significant increase in corn-
mute time for carpools and stat-
ed that own demographic
studies showed the school is ide-
ally located at its current site.
However, we take exception to
congratulating Mr. Kogan for
"priming the pump of the corn-
munity's thoughts to the future."
In our opinion, Mr. Kogan is not
making us think about the fu-
ture, he is attempting to dictate
that future to us by stipulating
the terms of his pledge.
Hillel Day School was meant
to be a community school, offer-
ing a Conservative day-school ed-
ucation to children of the Jewish
community. Not everyone in the
community is interested in mov-
ing "further out." Demographic
LLEL'S FUTURE page 23