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Hebrew Free Loan: 100 Years
Caring For Our Best 'Interest'
We read from the Torah this Shabbat in Parsha
Ki Teytzey: "Thou shalt not lend upon interest
to thy brother: interest of money."(Deuteronomy
XXIII, 20).
How appropriate then that the Sunday
evening after this parsha is read hundreds of De-
troit area Jews will be attending the Hebrew
Free Loan Association's centennial anniversary
celebration at Congregation Shaarey Zedek, fea-
turing keynote speaker Elie Wiesel.
Certainly it is important to honor such an im-
portant anniversary with words of greatness and
grand achievement.
From its leadership to its volunteers and
staffers, and its hardworking executive director
Ruth Marcus, it's the small stories that make up
private victories. While millions in interest-free
loans have gone out through the years, it's the
$2,000 for a down payment on a car that will get
someone to a job, maybe his first as an Ameri-
can, that makes the message so clear. It's the
ability to sponsor a wedding, bris, bar or bat mitz-
vah with the simple pride of being a Jew, know-
ing that it was fellow Jews who helped make it
all possible. Or even the ability to help pay for
a college education or tools for a vocation such
as carpentry.
For 100 years, these wonderful victories have
been recorded. They are the story of a Jewish
people who have flourished here in Detroit. There
are victories when a family not only pays back
its loan, but contributes money to help another
person.
It's not just about funds. The Hebrew Free
Loan Association has loaned us these real sto-
ries of pride and of dignity. Of course, we don't
have to "pay back" the message we learn from
these stories. They give us such hope and such
inspiration. Our responsibility is to pass on their
meaning to our friends, relatives and, most im-
portantly, to our children. Besides money, He-
brew Free Loan has offered us hope. That is
something that is always important and always
beneficial, and to use the word just once here, in
our best "interest" for now, and for, God willing,
the next 100 years.
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Comment
In This Life
We Get Real
ERICA RAUZIN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
M
y 5-year-old son's most
frequent question these
days is, "In real life?"
This is his attempt to
differentiate between reality and
fantasy, and it is an ongoing ef-
fort because, in a modern child-
hood, reality exists on many
levels.
Take lions, for instance.
There are the Lion King lions.
There are the educational video-
tape lions. There are the loung-
ing lions at the zoo. Which lion is
for real life?
Well, the zoo lion is real and
the Lion King lion is not. That's
for starters. Lions that breathe
and eat and walk around and
smell funny are tangible reali-
working mothers, new issues are being dealt ty. My son has no problem with
with.
that. He also knows the cartoon
Regardless of who does what and how, the ef- lions are made up, but the fact
forts of Jewish women can never receive enough that they are just drawings
recognition. That is why we are deeply troubled doesn't mean they don't provoke
that physical and mental abuse of women still real fear and sadness and laugh-
ter. That's why my reassurance
continues to be a tragic reality in some families.
In recent years, Jewish Family Service and oth- that, "The daddy is only a draw-
ing and drawings don't really
er agencies have responded by helping the
die," doesn't count for much. To
women who suffer.
him, Mufasa is just as dead as
During the past year, we also note the limit- Marilyn Monroe, and has just as
ed reemergence of kedushah ketaruch, in which much reality. Only he's sad about
a few observant men promise their young daugh- Mufasa.
The lions on the videotape are
ters in betrothal to other men. Done without the
consent of mother or daughter, the process be- real, but not at hand. They are
shown doing things lions really
comes a weapon against the mother during nasty
divorce proceedings. Leading rabbinic authori- do, although these lions do those
things constantly, instead of
ties quickly condemned this practice, calling into
spaced out over the weeks. My
question the authorities who permitted it. child sees real lions, and we tell
Nonetheless, we are saddened that kedushah ke- him they are real, but he doesn't
tartah could become a factor in anyone's life.
understand that the video's pho-
To understand the value of women in Judaism, tographers probably worked for
we need only turn to Proverbs 31, known as "A months to capture the growth of
Woman of Valor" and traditionally read prior to a baby cub into an adult lion. The
camera man probably waited
the Friday night Shabbat meal. Such a woman,
weeks just for the lions to quit
the proverb says, "smiles confidently at the fu-
ture. She opens her mouth with wisdom. And sleeping and go attack a wilde-
the teaching of kindness is on her tongue...Grace beest.
Children receive stimuli from
is deceptive and beauty is passing; A woman so many sources that sorting out
revering God, she shall be praised."
what is actual and factual from
Whether in Beijing, Detroit or elsewhere, Jew- what is made up gets harder and
ish women remain the backbone of our Jewish harder.
families. And, in the communities within our
So, the questions continue:
What's the biggest number?
greater Jewish community, we must listen to
I told him, it's infinity, which
their concerns.
On Jewish Women
For much of the past week, Bosnia's ongoing
tragedy has competed for news time with the
United Nations- sponsored Fourth World Con-
ference on Women. The event, in Beijing, was
preceded by the Nongovernmental Organiza-
tions Forum on Women, which was marked by
constant harassment from Chinese security of-
ficials. Away from such controversies, both con-
ferences brought focus to the difficult and even
tragic situation faced by many women — who
make up 70 percent of the world's 1.3 billion peo-
ple in poverty.
At least one Jewish organization, B'nai B'rith
International, had official status at the NGO con-
ference. BBI's delegate also attended the U.N.
conference and the activities of the Jewish
women's caucus at that international gathering.
Through such meetings, Jewish women carry
Judaism's banner of compassion for all people,
regardless of gender, creed or other characteris-
tics.
Nationally and locally, many Jewish organi-
zations still take up the traditional slate of
women's issues. Even in this era of pushing for
egalitarianism, they must continue to place such
items high on the community agenda.
Away from Beijing's spotlight, millions of Jew-
ish women are gearing up for a different inter-
national event — Rosh Hashanah. These days,
in many families, men do their share of the prepa-
rations. In some, they still do not do enough. How-
ever, most of us know that the women in our
families, despite full-time careers and other com-
mitments, bear the brunt of the extensive prepa-
rations. In some families — those with single
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he translated as "fiddium," and
now uses as a general term for
lots, as in, "I'm hungry a fiddium."
Is soap a liquid?
I told him, some soap is a liq-
uid. He wanted to know how I
knew.
Is there such a thing as a man
lifting a car?
He asks this because he saw
such a thing on television, but the
man and the car were both car-
toons. I told him no, because it
was clearer than explaining that
on any given day, most given men
could not lift any given car, but
that on some days some very
strong men could lift at least one
end of some very small cars.
Why does thirteen come before
fourteen? Why can't we fly? Why
do you and Daddy get to stay up
late?
And then, there's theology. If I
take most of his questions as
straightforward fact-checking
from a 5-year-old, I do OK. I can
survive exchanges like: Did Noah
take scorpions on the ark? Yes.
Why? I don't know.
The exchanges that aren't so
straightforward are trickier. Yes-
terday, he asked me why we sep-
arate meat from milk. I wasn't
sure he would understand an an-
swer that went beyond, "God
wants us to," but I tried. "Well,"
I told him, "long, long ago people
who prayed to idols, like trees or
rocks, would kill a baby goat and
cook it in the milk from the mom-
my goat, putting the meat in the
milk. We think that was mean,
so to help us remember, we don't
have milk with our meat."
That was a lot of explanation
for a 5-year-old, though it would
fall gravely short for lots of older
people, such as 10-year-olds. But
my son got it. I was proud of
of his busy mind and sweet soul,
when he said to me, 'Then we are
kosher because it is kind."
Yes, I said. In real life. ❑
Erica Rauzin writes from
Miami.