•

SHALIACH page 19

and Adi, 8. (Adi, by the way, says
that she has spent half her life
in Detroit.)
He will work for the Israel
Seminars Department of the
Jewish Community Centers As-
sociation. Prior to coming to De-
troit, Mr. Kaye was a school
principal.
There were many highlights
during his time here. The shall-
ach's office is more traditionally
a place where an Israeli edu-
cates area Jews about vacations
or life in Israel, with a minori-
ty of the focus on aliyah. Typi-
cally these offices are located in
a Jewish community center.
Mr. Kaye changed that dis-
tinction. He helped move the of-
fice out of the JCC and into the
Federation building. The name
also changed from the Israel
Desk to the Michigan/Israel
Connection.
He worked through a change
of status, from office to depart-
ment, expanding the role to in-
clude business information and
educational programs.
The office also became a ma-
jor force in the organization of
Detroit's successful Teen Mis-
sion, March of the Living and
second Miracle Mission. The de-
partment is now more of an of-
fice of Israel affairs for the
community.

Most of all, Mr. Kaye was
commonly seen at Jewish com-
munity functions or even at day-
to-day routines such as working
out at the JCC. He became not
an outsider looking in, but very
much a part of the Detroit Jew-
ish community.
This is exactly what he want-
ed to accomplish.
"What I wanted to get done
was to be part of the communi-
ty in an integral way," he said.
"I didn't want to be seen as a per-
son who came from the outside
only to leave. I came here to in-
tegrate with the Detroit Jewish
community. As a shaliach you
are a link in a chain. My goal
was to be a solid link in that
chain."
That chain is the relationship
a Diaspora community has with
Israel. The connection between
the two nations is as solid as
ever, he says, despite recent neg-
ative feelings on the issue of re-
ligious pluralism.
"Again, I don't believe that a
shaliach should be a flash in the
pan," said Mr. Kaye. "It can't be
a position that is superficial. To
avoid that, you build on the ef-
forts of the shaliach before you.
If the Jewish community has no
defined relationship with Israel,
it can't be a solid Jewish com-
munity of the 20th century."

But what of Detroit and his
impressions? What's different
immediately with the 37-year-
old Mr. Kaye is that he came
here after making aliyah him-
self from Glasgow, Scotland,
when he was 21. Not many Is-
raeli emissaries speak with a
Scottish accent. He also pretty
much speaks his mind.
"I knew Detroit as a major
center of Jewish communal
work," he said. "But still, it was
scary for me, because there was
a picture I had in my mind of a
crime-ridden, impoverished
city."

Very much a part
of the Detroit
Jewish community.

He could have gone to either
Long Island or Cincinnati.
"The difference was the peo-
ple I met here," he said. "There's
something about the Detroit
foundation of leadership. Talk
to someone in another city, they
know Detroit's Jewish leader-
ship. Look at something like
Partnership 2000 (the exchange
program of political, education-
al, medical and economic lead-
ers between Michigan and the

••

Central Galilee region) and you
see the leadership.
"No one was more against
Partnership 2000 than I was,"
said Mr. Kaye. "I thought it was
just another gimmick along the
lines of Project Renewal. I
thought it was some fund-rais-
ing effort. Instead, like others,
I've learned that Partnership
2000 is a chance to really get
grass-roots people together."
The major issue that Mr.
Kaye says everyone should be
concerned about is Jewish uni-
ty.
"We're at a point where unity
is as much at risk as the ozone
layer," he said. "I don't think it's
repairable. Jewish unity is Jew-
ish tolerance. This whole issue
of Orthodoxy vs. non-Orthodoxy
is one which may divide us."
What are some of his favorite
accomplishments?
Taking 240 teens to Israel
ranks right up there. But his
point is that the office of shali-
ach is one of continuity itself.
He's already working on the next
teen trip to Israel, which expects
360 Detroiters. The new shali-
ach, who will accompany that
trip, is Yael Waxman, a married
mother of two and an academic
secretary and lecturer in the
school of education at Achva Col-
lege.

Returning to Israel is going to
be an experience in itself for Mr.
Kaye. He'll tell you with a smile
that he's going to "miss the cof-
fee" here.
"There are so many rough
edges to Israel," he said. "We
aren't always listening to one an-
other. I'll miss the music here.
I'll miss the convenience of life
and the culture of the living
space here."
What didn't he accomplish?
He calls it an open wound, and
that's the relationship he had
with Israelis living in Michigan.
He said it was difficult for him
to reach out to the Israelis as a
separate group from the other
Jews he was trying to involve.
"I felt a tension," he said. "I
think they saw me as the exact
opposite of them. They left Israel
by choice. I chose to leave the Di-
aspora and live in Israel."
Ask him again about the
scene with Judge Borman. He
drifts away and he smiles.
The judge says the feeling is
mutual.
"He has been the moshiach
(messiah) here, not the shali-
ach," said Judge Borman. "He
will be missed. He has done so
much and in such a wonderful
way to cement the bridge be-
tween Detroit and Israel. We'll
still know his address." ❑

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