Souther
Exposur

Grayling teachers and teens journey
miles to learn about Jews.

RUTH LITTMANN STAFF WRITER

The cast: (front row) Emily Wakeley, Anna Fortino,
Rachel Ramaswamy; (back row) Brandy Lewis, Mary
Wakeley, Jason Steele, Jake Lepsy.

ifty students and teach-
The student director, sopho-
ers from an almost en- more Mary Wakeley, plunged
tirely white and into the project and wound up
Christian community with several questions. How do
in Grayling, Mich., will you pronounce old Jewish names
travel 240 miles to like Raja? Why do Jewish men
Southfield on Feb. 26 to wear yarmulkes? What clothes
talk with a Holocaust did shtetl women wear?
survivor, meet Jews
-"Mary's the kind of talented
and discover what Ju- kid who asks 10,000 questions ;"
daism is all about.
Ms. Mansfield says.
The group, repre-
However, her teacher didn't
senting the Craw- have all the answers. Ms. Mans-
ford/ AuSable School field had to consult someone
District, will arrive on Jewish, but she knew of only one
Sunday morning at family in the district — and they
Congregation Beth weren't observant. So, in recent
Achim. Students and weeks, Ms. Mansfield has placed
teachers will tour frequent phone calls to her child-
the synagogue and dis- hood friend, Jane Jacobs, a Jew
cuss Jewish tradition who still lives in metro Detroit.
with Rabbi Herbert
Ms. Jacobs and Ms. Mansfield
Yoskowitz.
attended Southfield-Lathrup
"There are really no High School together during the
minorities here (in late 1970s and often participat-
Grayling). We've just ed in each other's religious cele-
gotten our first Jewish brations.
student from Oak Park.
Ms. Mansfield, who grew up
We don't even have Christian, remembers being a
corned beef up here and minority in her primarily Jew-
our bagels are out of the ish neighborhood. As such, she
freezer," says Bambi learned about Judaism from
Mansfield, the art and Jane. The education was recip-
drama instructor at rocal.
Grayling High.
Ms. Mansfield, a gen-
tile who grew up
"There are
in Southfield, wants her
students to heighten
really no
their knowledge and
appreciation of different
minorities here."
religions and cultures.
— Bambi Mansfield
Recently, she asked
some of her young thes-
pians to perform the
play I Never Saw An-
"I decorated a Christmas tree
other Butterfly, based on
poems written by chil- at her house. She stood up at my
dren in Theresienstadt, wedding," Ms. Jacobs says. "We
a Nazi death camp in used to sit down and discuss our
the former Czechoslo- religious differences all the
time."
vakia.
When Ms. Mansfield moved
up north and began teaching,
she realized firsthand that all
communities don't have equal
access to such diversity. In
Grayling, some people have
never met a Jew.
She says Grayling has some
skinheads. There are other
young people who wear rings
with swastikas and advocate
white supremacy. It's not a
large group, she says, and
they're not organized. In fact,
Ms. Mansfield believes this
segment of the student popu-
Bambi Mansfield
lation is just trying to be cool.
They remain ignorant of many
Jewish stereotypes. Even popu-
lar derogatory words elude
them.
Nonetheless, the rings and
any form of neo-Nazism "cannot
be tolerated," she says.
During art class one day, Ms.
Mansfield caught a boy drawing
a swastika on his paper.

"I took the paper away from
him and said, 'You have the
right to believe what you want,
but do you realize you've just of-
fended someone in this school?"
she says.
The boy appeared confused.
Beyond Jew-bashing, he didn't
know what the swastika
_M is. Mansfield ex-
plained that Hitler didn't hate
Jews alone. He hated all mi-
norities. In fact, the Nazis
wouldn't have much liked his
own mother, Ms. Mansfield ad-
monished.
The boy's mother is Chaldean.
"Now, any time this boy does
art work, he gets the OK from
the one Jewish girl in our class,"
Ms. Mansfield says.
Breakthroughs like these are
the kinds of lessons Ms. Mans-
field wants to teach a wide range
of students. The current curric-
ula includes the Diary of Anne
Frank for seventh- and eighth-
graders. The Holocaust is dis-
cussed in some history classes.
But Ms. Mansfield would like
to enhance that education. By
visiting Jewish locations in
metro Detroit, she hopes that
students will understand that
"yes, (Jews) are different in some
ways. And isn't it wonderful?
Isn't it great?
"I want them to understand
Jewish tradition, family values
and persistence" she says. "Jew-
ish tradition is so deep, and
that's something that has made
the community survive for so
long."
Many of Grayling's students
seem to be grasping this lesson
already. The high school library
received a copy of the book
Schindler's List, which is in hot
demand. Elementary-school
teachers, as well as students and
staff from the middle school,
have asked for permission to join
the group traveling to Beth
Achim.
Financial restraints and lo-
gistical considerations, howev-
er, have forced Ms. Mansfield to
limit the group to 50 people. The
young people are paying their
own way, Ms. Mansfield says.
The cost includes each student's
small donation to the Holocaust
Memorial Center.
After meeting with Rabbi
Yoskowitz at Congregation Beth
Achim, members of the group
will go to the Maple/Drake Jew- 0,
ish Community Center where
they will eat a kosher lunch. Af-
terward, they will tour the Holo- >
caust Memorial Center and talk
with a concentration-camp sur-
vivor.
"We need to make people c°
aware," Ms. Mansfield says. "It's
a celebration of cultural diversi-
ty. That's what this whole thing
is about." ❑

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