Editor's Notebook
Community Views
Finding The Meaning
When An Article Disturbs Us
Language Reveals
Separation And Unity
PHIL JACOBS ED TOR
MARK E. SCHLUSSEL SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
Sometimes, it can
all start with a
newspaper article.
Fifteen years
ago, I was given an
assignment to cov-
er a compulsive
gamblers treat-
ment center at
Johns Hopkins
Hospital. I didn't think there was
anything particularly "Jewish"
about this angle, that was until I
got to the gambling center and
learned that 25 percent of its 200
clients were Jewish.
When the story was published
on the cover, we received several
phone calls and letters basically
accusing us of "sensationalism"
and committing the biggest sin of
all: "allowing the goyim to see our
dirty laundry."
Not too long after that, I
did a story on spousal
abuse within Jewish
homes. The wife of a rabbi
in town told me for the
record about the time her
17-year-old son, home for
Passover from yeshiva,
held a baseball bat in his
hand and yelled at his fa-
ther, "If you hit Ima one
more time, I'll kill you." The
rabbi got his hat, got in the
car and left the family ... for
good. After the story ran,
more people sought help
from local agencies, no
longer hiding from their
problems.
There was the time
when on a tour of homeless
shelters in the city, I asked
my "tour guide" if she ever ran
into any Jews living on the street.
"Of course," she answered. With-
in a week, I had interviewed five
homeless Jews. One of these men
was in my synagogue's Cub Scout
troop as a boy. His mother was in
charge of the troop along with my
mother.
After the story was published,
a high-ranking Jewish commu-
nal lay leader said to me, "There
are 98,000 Jews in this city and
you found the five who slipped
through the net." All of the Jews
interviewed were recontacted and
helped through social service
agencies.
Now for the last story, because
I could fill several pages relating
more of these incidents. During
a Passover seder at a real, hard-
core jail, I was introduced to sev-
eral Jewish inmates. One was a
teen-ager from a wealthy home
who, while high on cocaine, killed
his father with a knife. Another
was a repeat sex offender. Still
another was a child sex offender.
He knew me from the communi-
ty, and pleaded with me not to
use his name because it would
embarrass his parents.
Fifteen years ago, if a Jewish
newspaper published a story on
a subject as commonplace as di-
vorce, the phone would ring off
the hook with angry accusations
of sensationalism. Now, howev-
er, living in a day when we are
numb to AIDS and even, to some
degree, to terrorism, divorce
seems almost a minor story.
When I hold up The Jewish
News to our community, I see it
as a mirror reflecting every Jew
and offering the opportunity for
stories to be told from any seg-
ment. Part of this publication's
role is to uplift the Jewish com-
munity, and it does so repeated-
ly with stories of successes and
encouragement. Last week, we
read the remarkable account of
two adult brothers, separated for
years, who were rejoined when
what a so-called "normal" house-
hold is all about?
If we fail to look up from the
matters of our daily lives, if we
hide from these stories, then the
result would be far more nega-
tively "sensational." The Torah
charges the Jewish people with a
mandate to look out for our fellow
Jews.
Ten years ago, a man tele-
phoned me and told me that his
brother had been "taken away"
by a Jewish religious cult. The
cult leader turned out to be a
small-time operator who had
about 40 "followers." He was Jew-
ish and he had a power over these
mostly young people. They tithed
him their savings, some lost their
businesses, some even lost their
homes.
It took a year and a half
of investigation. I was
threatened physically. The
area police were even alert-
ed that this man was a
threat. The story was hard
to write and painful to read.
Each of the five times I in-
terviewed this man, I came
away feeling as if I had been
mentally raped. He hurt me,
he cut me down verbally all
the way through.
It was a difficult process
to listen to the tapes and to
write and rewrite the story.
There was nothing glorious
or fun about it. I was even
told by my publisher that I
could quit the story if I
wanted to. But you know
that someone will get
helped, somehow.
one brother proved the perfect
About a year after the story
bone-marrow transplant match ran, I got a call from a relative
for his cancer-stricken sibling.
of a cult member. She had "got-
This week, we offer on our front ten her brother back." The story
page a story about a Jewish we ran, she said, started the
woman who was charged in the process of realization.
death her 6-year-old daughter.
Organizationally, several rab-
Associate editor and Rockow- bis had told us that they now
er Award winner Elizabeth Ap- knew who this cult leader was
plebaum takes us into a world when parents used his name.
that might be different than
There was even a network of
many of us are accustomed to. Yet counseling set up to help people
it exists. It really does. There are, who flirted with the idea ofjoin-
unfortunately, many different be- ing any cult.
haviors, family dynamics and out-
The story acted as a sensitizer.
looks on life, all under the
No one should have to suffer
umbrella of our community, that like Linda Solomon or her daugh-
aren't necessarily what we would ter Chelsea. What Ms. Apple-
call traditional.
baum has done is take us into the
Stories such as these point out world in which they lived. Hope-
a greater need for sensitivity and fully, we can learn from that
less of a need for judgment. How world. And even more impor-
many of us know that there are tantly, if there are others quietly
very few Jewish foster homes in crying for help, maybe we can
this community? Maybe this sto- learn to interpret those cries and
ry will encourage us to check into help them.
foster care training. How many
Sometimes, though, it all starts
of us are troubled to.the point of with an article in a newspaper.
crisis and need to be encouraged Let's not point our fingers and
to call Jewish Family Service at say, "Uh-huh, that's sensational-
559-1500?
ism." Ms. Applebaum's work
How many of us need to be sen- should make us all the more sen-
sitized to the pain of a helpless sitive. If it does, then that would
child, who maybe never knew be sensational. ❑
In American so-
ciety today, there
is an ever in-
creasing debate
about the influ-
ence of words on
the actions of our
citizenry.
Does Holly-
wood accelerate
the decline of our value system,
or does it merely report the re-
alities of our lives? Has talk ra-
dio served as a catalyst for the
frightening internal violence we
are experiencing or is it merely
a reflection of the frustrations
many are experiencing within
America today?
Whichever side of the debate
you fall on, each of us could
agree that to a lesser or greater
extent words have an impact on
our actions.
In our Jewish community,
we,-too, need to focus on the lan-
guage we use to describe each
other. Are we going to choose
the language of unity or the lan-
guage of separation?
This writer has noted that
over the past two decades, as we
Jews are more fully accepted
within the fabric of American
society and as anti-Semitism di-
minishes, we have found an op-
portunity to begin to expose our
religious differences in espe-
cially derisive terms.
Watershed changes within
our various denominations have
led us to an explosion in the use
of the language of separation by
our religious leadership. We no
longer seem to have the ability
to talk to each other in a com-
mon theological language. We
have lost our ability to commu-
nicate with each other on ba-
sic Jewish concerns. We don't
look for opportunities to explore
our shared interests as Jews.
We view the language of unity
as religiously unacceptable.
When we reach out to our co-re-
ligionists, we face scorn from
those who do not identify with
our specific denomination.
If we continue to stress the
language of separation among
our co-religionists, we are im-
mutably moving down the road
to a real separation within the
American Jewish community.
In the not too distant future, we
will have divided ourselves into
three separate religious units,
each unable to communicate
with the other. Orthodoxy is
turning inward on itself, be-
coming even more insular. Con-
servatism is in a state of flux.
Reform Judaism is turning out-
ward, accepting intermarriage
with all its complications.
There may be no solution to
this irredentist movement to-
ward separation — maybe we
have forgotten how to use the
.
language of unity; maybe we
have lost our common vocabu-
lary; maybe without the threat
to our physical well-being, we
choose to focus on our differ-
ences.
In spite of all the history and
all the arguments which can be
made about the immutable na-
ture of our language of separa-
tion, we need against all odds to
change the nature and tone of
our debate.
We must find a way to refo-
cus our attention on our com-
mon interests. We must learn
to use the language of unity:
what makes us unique as a peo-
ple; what are our common val-
ues; what are our common
concerns; what are our common
needs; what are our common
core religious values?
Can we build a matrix based
on the foregoing which will al-
low us once again to begin to
build respect for our differences?
Can we begin the search for a
common vocabulary — even if
we start with very simple points
of agreement? Can we been to
'highlight our different but
equally important contributions
to Jewish survival? Can Ortho-
dox look at those Jews, be they
Conservative or Reform, who
reach out and build bridges in
the Christian and African-
American communities as ex-
traordinarily valued members
of the Jewish community? Can
non-Orthodox Jewry look at Or-
thodoxy and see their pursuit of
talmudic scholarship as essen-
tial to our survival as a people?
It is this writer's belief that
we need to look at our respec-
tive contributions to the overall
health of American Jewry with
a level of openmindedness we
have not shown of late.
If we can begin to look at our
co-religionists with an eye to-
ward their Jewish commitment,
no matter what denomination
they associate with, then we can
begin to build acceptance
through a language of unity.
Let us continue to debate our
differences with a sense of ci-
vility and respect; that is the
Jewish way. Let us search more
diligently than ever for our com-
mon bonds, for that also is the
Jewish way.
Through the language of sep-
aration, we weaken only our-
selves. Let us make the
language of unity our priority;
it enhances our ability to
strengthen our community and
grow together as a people. ❑
Mark Schlussel is chairman of
the board of the Executive
Council of the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit.
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