INSIDE: DETROIT/ UP TO THEIR KNEES ON TZEDAKAH DAY;
HEALTH/ WOMEN TAKE COMFORT IN SUBSTITUTES.
75¢
DETROIT
5 lyar 5755 / May 5, 1995
THE JEWIc NEWS
Jews react to the hot-button
issue of constitutionally
mandated school prayer.
JENNIFER FINER
AND JILL DAVIDSON SKLAR
STAFF WRITERS
Story on page 40
A Memorial For The Fallen
Yom Hazikaron ceremony at JCC recalls Israel's martyrs.
RUTH LITTMANN STAFF WRITER
S
am Berman sat in the
third row and remem-
bered. Behind him, near-
ly 1,000 metro Detroiters
gathered with similar
memories.
They came together May 2 at the
West Bloomfield Jewish Community
Center — children, parents, grand-
parents and young adults. Filling
Shifman Hall, they paid tribute to
loved ones and strangers who died
fighting for the State of Israel.
The commemoration is Yom camp. But Sam and Alter were ea-
Hazikaron, Israel's day of remem- ger to get on with life elsewhere.
brance. For Sam Bet man of West They boarded a boat called the
Bloomfield, it is a time to focus on Theodore Herzl and hoped it would
someone he hasn't seen since 1948. smuggle them past the British
Sam and his older brother, Alter, blockade into the land they already
were in their mid-teens when they considered home.
arrived in the land that was to be-
But, like so many Jews, the
come the State of Israel. The boys Berman boys were detained on
and their parents had survived the Cyprus. They were separated and
Holocaust in Europe.
barred entry into Israel for many
Afterward, the family sought months. Sam arrived in 1947.
shelter in an American refugee RISING page 14
A day of remembrance for Israel's fallen
soldiers is marked by quilt panels
made in their honor.