An End Marks A Beginning
The sale of Young Israel of Oak Woods to a a move that would ultimately save the Jewish
Montessori school symbolically marks the end Oak Park community. History will show that the
of an era in south Oak Park. How many of us merger of Young Israel of Oak Woods with Young
now living in ZIP codes from Greenfield Road all Israel of Greenfield into Young Israel of Oak Park
the way out to Orchard Lake or Walnut Lake is also an important cornerstone.
roads remember
Oaks Woods was
the rich quality of
arguably the first
Jewish life centered
Orthodox synagogue
at the shut? As a pi-
built in suburbia
oneer of suburban
in the nation. Now,
Orthodoxy for 40
with renovations set,
years, Oak Woods
expansion planned
was a national
and a strong neigh-
model.
borhood to support it,
While the neigh-
Young Israel of Oak
borhood could no
Park will most cer-
longer support it,
tainly gain a nation-
Oak Woods contin-
al reputation as a
ues through the
place for family wor-
0amilMaltitalka,
legacy of the fami- Young Israel of Oak Park: Moving forward.
ship and Jewish
lies that built it in
learning.
an active way at Young Israel of Oak Park. This
But the most important aspect of all of this
north Oak Park neighborhood was one the doom- is that Young Israel of Oak Park will gain that
sayers all but labeled for dead in the mid-'70s. national prominence because it is built with its
Walk along the 10 Mile and Lincoln corridor any most important assets: its people and its sur-
time during the Sabbath; you'll see it's alive with rounding neighborhoods.
Jewish energy.
Oak Woods helped our entire Jewish commu-
Several years ago when the announcement nity reach the level of growth it has achieved.
came that Congregation B'nai Moshe was pur- Young Israel of Oak Park, its members and of-
chased by Yeshiva Beth Yehudah, it was seen as ficers will never forget that as it moves forward.
THE DETROIT JE WIS H N EWS
The Sleaze Factor
24
Last week's disclosure that Newsweek columnist
Joe Klein is the author of Primary Colors — the
sly, mean-spirited fictional account of President
Clinton's 1992 campaign — was just the latest
chapter in a saga of sleaze and sensationalism
aimed at the first family.
We are not amused.
There's something seriously wrong with Amer-
ican democracy when campaigns revolve around
the kind of gossip featured in the National En-
quirer and a slanderous conspiracy-mongering
that is the staple of nut groups.
Mr. Clinton's performance as president is a le-
gitimate topic for debate, especially as the elec-
tion nears. His administration has been a
puzzling mix of competence and amateurism, of
genuine leadership and political pandering. If
we stick to the issues, there is plenty of room for
productive political discussion.
But more and more, the sleaze-mongers focus
our attention on areas that have nothing to do
with how the president conducts the affairs of
the nation. Some recent books build on a fabric
of gossip and hearsay to promote the most out-
rageous charges, like the myriad theories about
former White House aide Vince Foster, whose
suicide has been cruelly exploited by legions of
conspiracy theorists and even used as a fund-
raising gimmick.
Why is it that some writers take obvious mis-
steps (of which this administration has had
many, like the ill-advised collection of confiden-
tial FBI records on a number of public figures)
and inflate them into scandals on a par with Wa-
tergate? It's clear something fishy is going on
when that scandal's chief villain, the late Richard
Nixon, posthumously labels Mr. Clinton "slip-
pery." That charge surfaced last week in a new
book by a former Nixon aide — the ultimate in
chutzpah, given Mr. Nixon's long trail of slime.
The point here isn't that Bill Clinton is a ter-
rific president, or even an adequate one. But we
have the audacity to believe that voters should
make their choice in November based on careful
evaluation of his performance in office, not on
the lurid, unsubstantiated headlines produced
by authors competing with each other to defame
the president and his family.
Similarly, voters should judge Bob Dole on his
long legislative record and views on the serious
issues of our day, not on the media-generated
image of the candidate as a doddering buffoon
who can't string together a sentence without the
help of four aides.
"You shall not spread slanderous tales among
your people," we are told in Leviticus. An even
more serious injunction bans deliberate slander
aimed at destroying another person.
That teaching is based on a kind of common
sense and common decency that we would do
well to apply to our democratic institutions, as
well as our own lives.
Letters
Judaism
And Democracy
In the post-Netanyahu era, a de-
bate has ensued on the Op-Ed
and Letters to the Editor pages
as to the fundamental issues fac-
ing the Israeli and Jewish com-
munities. Many continue to
debate the merits of the Oslo Ac-
cords asif the election defeat of
Peres did not signal that 60 per-
cent of Israeli Jews rejected the
concept of "land for peace." Oth-
ers have focused on the problem
of the relationship between Is-
raeli society and Israel's Arab
citizens.
The pre-election proponents
of Peres' misplaced idealism
have resurfaced as the defend-
ers of the voting patterns of Is-
rael's Arabs in the name of
preserving Israeli democracy.
These same discontents bemoan
Israel's official Orthodoxy as if
one can isolate Israel's voting
anomalies and its growing reli-
gious-secular conflict.
The irony of near-universal
concern with the preservation of
Israeli democracy is the fact that
until the recent direct election of
Netanyahu, Israel's citizens had
very little to say regarding the
direction and composition of
their previous governments.
Israelis still vote for an anony-
mous party list of 120 members
who are assigned Knesset seats
via proportional representation.
Since these Knesset members
owe their primary allegiance to
the party hierarchy, party disci-
pline is substituted for con-
_ stituent representation; and the
former is the primary obstacle
to "Israeli democracy."
The fact of the matter is that
had Israel implemented a direct-
election system pre-Oslo, any
government would have had to
have a clear majority in order to
embrace and reward the PLO
with Israeli territory.
Any serious advocate of
greater voter participation in Is-
raeli society must consider the
positive implications of electing
Knesset members directly. Not
only would a direct-election sys-
tem neutralize the anti-Zionist
Arab vote and marginalize the
disproportionate religious vote,
but primarily it would allow Is-
rael's citizens to decide the na-
ture of their own society.
The best way for a politician
to be accountable to a direct con-
stituency is for the representa-
tive to represent a geographical
region; thus each Knesset mem-
ber must be elected by a specif-
ic identifiable constituency.
Marc Baker
Windsor
No Jew
In White House
There is a simple reason I would
not vote for a Jew for president:
I would not want to put another
Jew (even as intriguing and at-
tractive a prospect as Arlen
Specter) in a position where chilul
Shabbos (desecration of Shabbat)
is inevitable. As influential as
Joseph Lieberman is, he has,
with halachic guidance, succeed-
ed not merely at minimizing
chilul Shabbos but at avoiding it.
A president would not have that
luxury.
Joseph Lieberman:
Halachic guidance.
I was offended by James Bess-
er's possibly tongue-in-cheek
musings that an observant Jew
would find distasteful voting for
a non-observant Jew and vice ver-
sa. I and my family have direct-
ly entrusted our lives to medical
professionals without doing a re-
ligious background check; I as-
sume non-observant Jews do the
same.
Let's not fool ourselves into as-
signing any president Messiah
status. He/she will always be
head of and answerable to a huge
bureaucracy, subject to checks
and balances and replaceable.
Fayge Young
Oak Park