High-Tech March

The Detroit Teen Poland/Israel Experience will be the
subject of a documentary and a Web site.

JILL DAVIDSON SKLAR STAFF WRITER

T

he Detroit contingent set
to attend the Internation-
al March of the Living
in Poland next week is go-
ing to be one of the most docu-
mented missions yet, organizers
say.
First, the participants will be
filmed by a representative of the
Survivors of the Shoah Visual
History Foundation for a docu-
mentary on the march. The
foundation, founded by Steven
Spielberg following the produc-
tion of Schindler's List, hopes to
use the march video for future
educational purposes, said
Howard Gelberd, executive di-
rector of the Agency for Jewish
Education (AJE).
Mr. Gelberd said Ben Spector,
a native Detroiter, will join the
60 teen-agers when they depart
for Poland April 30 and film
their experiences on the two-
week trip. The students return
May 14 after a week in Israel.
Mr. Spector is a student at the

University of Southern Califor-
nia's film school.
"The film will probably be-
come part of how kids study the
Holocaust in high school," Mr.
Gelberd said.
Detroit was chosen for the
documentary because of the
preparatory work the AJE did
with the participants, Mr. Gel-

Updating a
Web site
daily.

berd said. In six educational ses-
sions prior to the march, the
students learned the history of
anti-Semitism as well as the rich
cultural history of European
Jewry.
"We are very excited about

this," Mr. Gelberd said, adding
that Mr. Spielberg personally
approved funding the project.
"Spielberg is interested that the
participants learned how the
Polish Jews lived, not only how
they died."
Students on the march also
plan to create a Web page of
their experiences, to be updated
each day of the two-week trip
with photographs and essays,
said Michael Simon, a partici-
pant.
Using a digital camera bor-
rowed from Temple Israel and
other loaned computer equip-
ment, Mr. Simon and about 24
other participants have com-
mitted themselves to providing
essays and photos for the Web
page. The page will be a portion
of North American Federation
of Temple Youth's World Wide
Web site.
Mr. Simon proposed the idea
of a Web page when he first in-
terviewed for the trip.
"I thought it would be a good
way to let our friends and fam-
ily know what we were experi-
encing," he said. ❑

The Detroit Teen PolancVlsrael
Experience's March of the
Living Web site is at
http://www.nfty-mi.orgirnoth

Reactions To Rift

Local Conservative rabbis are outraged by the
Orthodox power play in Israel.

PHIL JACOBS EDITOR

R

abbi Efry Spectre has been
to Israel 55 times. He looks
at it differently. He's had to
"leave" Jerusalem 55 times.
The Adat Shalom Synagogue
spiritual leader has held protest
signs outside of the German Em-
bassy or the former Soviet Em-
bassy in Washington, D.C. He's
spoken out against injustice to-
ward Jews throughout his career.
Yet never, ever would he believe
that he'd participate in a protest
against Israel.
That's indeed what happened
earlier this month when Rabbi
Spectre and many of his Conser-
vative rabbinic colleagues took
time away from the Rabbinical
Assembly meetings in Boston to
protest outside the Israeli con-
sulate.
The protest came as emotions
rise in reaction to the April 1
Knesset vote giving preliminary
approval to Orthodox rabbis hav-
ing sole authority to conduct con-
versions in Israel.
On March 31, the 500-member

Union of Orthodox Rabbis in the
United States and Canada (UOR-
USC) issued a declaration that
Reform and Conservative move-
ments were "not Judaism" and
asked Jews to avoid the move-
ments' synagogues.

"No respect, no
acceptance."

— Rabbi Irwin Groner

Since then, Chancellor Rabbi
Ismar Schorsch, the head of the
Jewish Theological Seminary, has
called for the "dismantling" of Is-
rael's chief rabbinate and urged
the end of donations to groups
that oppose the recognition of non-
Orthodox movements in Israel.
Dr. Schorsch's statement came
in the form of a letter sent to 1,500
members of the Conservative
movement's Rabbinical Assembly.
For Israel to be the "center of

RIFT page 14

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