The N Sports Club... Building Better Bodies If you build it, they will come. If you meet them, you will join. Too por ts Club of West Bloomfield The Sports Club's Construction Site The-Sports Club's Membership Staff co-04/614 97 New, spacious aerobics studio Expanded cardio facilities Expanded and updated weight room Naw Special Construction Rates $50/Month - individual S85/Month - couple (above rates for 3-year fitness membership) The Sports /Club of West Bloomfield 6343 Farmington Rd. (just north of Maple) 626-9880 Israel no more than 30 people are present for prayers on an average Friday night or Saturday morning. But when the female cantor chants Kol Nidre, there are 15 times that many men, women and children in attendance. 0 While the Conservatives (with 40 synagogues) and the Reform (with 25) are much more a part of the Israeli scene than they were a few years ago, they can't compete with the Orthodox where numbers are concerned. And more important, in cJ the eyes of most secular Israelis, only the Orthodox are "legitimate." Thus one secularist of my acquain- tance was outraged when his son told him that he and his girlfriend planned to be wed by a Conservative rabbi in Jerusalem (after first being married in New York in a civil ceremony, as non- Orthodox Jewish marriages performed in Israel are not regarded as binding by the authorities here). Internet use in Israel was 25 percent higher on Yom Kippur than normal. "Why can't you be married by a proper rabbi?" the father asked indignantly. Whatever their attitude towards religion, many Israelis look upon Yom Kippur as the nicest holiday on the calendar. For it is the one day of the year when there is real peace and quiet in the country. There are no cars on the roads and so you can walk through the middle of town without danger of being run over or asphyxiated by automobile fumes. And you can ignore the news, which, in other circumstances, you would probably be hearing every hour on the hour. But with bloodshed continuing and war clouds gathering, worship- pers this October could not but recall the Yom Kippur 24 years earlier when, in the middle of services, men began to stream out of the syna- gogues, rushing off to the battlefields and, all too often, to their deaths. That memory made this year's prayers for peace even more fervent than usual. ❑