THE PROMISED LAND
by Jordan B. Garfinkel
ISN'T THIS A WONDRIL/1-
W40/NG,YA51.?
A Chance To Firm Up
An Important Connection
The continuity that we have as a people is often
measured in the information of our past.
Arthur Kurzweil, the dean ofJewish genealo-
gists, will be here Saturday night to talk on behalf
of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Michigan.
The title of the talk is "Piecing Together Your Fam-
ily History." Mr. Kurzweil, along with some rather
innovative interactive genealogy stations, will
teach us that the connections to our past are not
unreachable. And once reached, they will touch
us and guide us like few other forces out there.
So many of our family, friends and neighbors
can trace their Jewish roots to the very same shtetl,
to a small piece of real estate a world a way and
generations lost. But to find those distant pieces
and connections leads us in a way that cannot
be experienced from the outside.
A quick case in point. In 1993, 1,300 of our com-
munity members visited Israel as part of the first
Miracle Mission. That mission took Detroiters all
over Israel. At Yad Vashem, the world-renowned
Holocaust museum, a tour was being given of an
area, a maze of names carved into a wall. The
names were those of the destroyed villages, shtetls,
towns and cities where Jewish communities met
their end.
At one such spot, a Jewish News reporter ac-
tually heard a middle-aged lady from Detroit point
to a village name and explain how she and her
parents escaped from there just in time. An older
man standing in that same crowd, caught his
breath, looked at the woman, and identified him-
self as being from the same village He recognized
the woman, because he knew her parents. He was
also from Detroit. Two Detroiters, who didn't know
each other here, met over a common town name,
thousands of miles away, in Israel. Their paths
were identical; their journeys, different; their end-
ing places, the same.
Our personal histories have so much in corn-
mon. With this resource available Saturday night,
its something worth checking out.
Denying A Plague
That Affects Us All
Our tradition teaches caring for the sick and corn-
passion for those affected by tragedy.
The AIDS epidemic — no longer fashionably
in the headlines but nonetheless still raging —
is surely one of the worldwide tragedies of the
late-20th century.
A failure to do everything within reason to re-
tard the spread of AIDS across the continents —
and fund research for treatment and, God will-
ing, a cure — would be a waste of the intellectu-
al and physical energies the Almighty has given
us.
And yet, Jews by the score turn their backs,
as if it were someone else's virus to eradicate,
someone else's misery to console, someone else's
children to bury. But the facts argue otherwise.
To be sure, those who insulate themselves in lay-
ers of denial were among the missing last week-
end in Washington, as some 750,000 citizens
viewed the ever-growing AIDS quilt, unfurled
like a flag on a coffin from the Capitol to the
obelisk.
On individual panels, visitors saw evidence of
kippot, Stars of David, Hebrew text, bar mitz-
vah photographs. All represented Jewish lives
lost to an infectious disease, not unlike a host
of other viruses that plague mankind. The only
difference here is that homosexuals and drug
abusers fall victim to this virus in dispropor-
tionate numbers.
Traditional Judaism opposes homosexuality,
and insists that we all take responsibility for our
actions. It's difficult to avoid the conclusion
that some people with AIDS — clearly, not all —
bear a measure of responsibility for their predica-
ment.
Yet, Judaism also tells us to embrace the ill,
physically and spiritually. We are no stronger as
a people than the weakest individual Jew.
AIDS education and prevention should be a pri-
ority for the Jewish community, regardless of our
opinion of homosexuality. Our compassion and
our caring should outweigh our condemnation.
Some Jewish agencies, including Michigan
Jewish AIDS Coalition, are doing critical work in
providing badly needed services to people with
AIDS and their families. They are to be com-
mended.
But our religious institutions — Reform, Re-
constructionist, Conservative and Orthodox —
need to get more involved in the fight.
If that means confronting in a realistic way be-
haviors that they find offensive, so be it. Too many
Jews, primarily the young, are affected by this
scourge, their futures tragically cut short. Their
families are left to the torture of watching a child
decay. Rabbinic guidance is crucial. It's fine to
talk about abstinence, the surest way of pre-
venting AIDS. But many young people, sadly, dis-
regard that warning — particularly when they
go off to college. It's both naive and destructive to
ignore that fact.
Too many Jewish leaders want to believe that
AIDS doesn't happen to Jews. The rebuttal to
that is as striking as the AIDS quilt that blan-
keted our nation's capital last week. As Jews —
as people — we have a moral responsibility to re-
spond with all the resources at our disposal.
I'M SORRY.
If 'S JUST.-
EV5RYON5 HE
HAS SOMEONE--
EXCEPT
IT'LL HAPPEN YALeSY-YOULL S.
fRi/Si ME - THERE ARE L01.5 or
✓ EW/SH 6/RiS HERE WHO
NAVE THE Navy - 10 FEEL A 10f
MORE DESPERATE THAN yoa.
Letters
Shtiebels
To Steeples
I wish to respond and to comment
on Jennifer Finer's "Church on
Shabbat" article (Sept. 27).
First, the title is misleading.
"Church" generally means a wor-
ship gathering. As the article in-
dicates, the purpose of our
gathering is not primarily reli-
gious in nature. The Friday
evening meeting time was es-
tablished at the request of the im-
migrants as the most convenient
time for them.
Also, the term "nonreligious
program" is inaccurate. I did not
use that term in my telephone
conversation with Ms. Finer. Be-
cause we are a church, every-
thing we do is religious. The
English assistance, conversation,
friendship and refreshments are
done out of love for our fellow
man. We do welcome any oppor-
tunity to speak of and to
share that faith during
the program. We
also make avail-
able Christian
literature in
Russian for
our guests to take at their free
will.
The term "target group" is neg-
atively suggestive. Neither we,
nor the Mission we work with,
"targeted" the new immigrants
from the former Soviet Union.
Our relationship with them came
through casual contacts which
led to personal friendships and a
desire to be of assistance to our
new neighbors. We design and
develop ministry programs to
meet the needs of and to share
the love of God and our faith in
Jesus Christ with those to whom
a door of opportunity is opened.
I was disappointed to learn in
the article that the reason for the
visit I had with Sharona Shapiro
and Rabbi David Nelson was to
"combat" our activities. In my re-
cent response to their concerns,
I disagreed with the "immoral"
charge and expressed the desire
that we can dialogue further to-
ward mutual understanding and
respect for our differences.
I do commend Ms. Finer in her
accurate reporting and descrip-
tion of our support ofJewish peo-
ple and Israel.
I wish finally to comment on
the quote by Rachel Yoskowitz
concerning the new immigrants
being embarrassed to say they
went to a church program and
that they go for the food and the
camaraderie. The key word is she
"thinks" this to be true in both
cases. Our investigation through
questioning is that they appreci-
ate the love and the help we of-
fer them and value the right to
religious information to allow
them to make up their own mind
and make their own choices.
That is one main reason, they
share with us, that they came to
SHTIEBELS page 24