Editorials

Answering The Call On Super Sunday

Every year at this time we write an editorial
This year, there's an added bonus. Every
about Super Sunday. We're not talking the
contributor to the 1998 Allied Jewish
football variety. We're referring to the Jewish
Campaign will have their contributions
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit's very real
matched by the Blumenstein/Hermelin
need to make contact with the community and Campaign Challenge Fund.
raise funds to meet so many different needs.
Please, the needs are there. We received a
We've written sto-
call this week from
ries about Jewish
a Jewish family fac-
families falling
ing eviction. This
through the cracks of
family has no food
the economy. We've
on their table, and
chronicled Russian
they have two small
emigres and their
children. It is just
new start here in
the sort of crisis
Detroit. We've talked
that Jewish Family
about welfare
Service will take
reforms that will take
care of in an
away needed funds
admirable way. But
from our communi-
these sad events
ty's poor. All of these
happen more often
stories are true and
than any of us can
Seniors work out at the Jimmy Prentis Morris JCC.
relevant.
imagine. The only
There is no magi-
way a JFS or Jewish
cal way we can entice anyone to participate in
Vocational Service or any constituent agency
Super Sunday. All that we can say, though, is.
can step in and keep the cold winter away
that the needs are very real and more crucial
from a Jewish family, educate a child or wel-
than ever. Super Sunday takes place this
come an emigre to Detroit is with contribu-
Sunday, Nov. 2. Hundreds of volunteers will
tions.
help out at the Max M. Fisher Building. We
'Super Sunday callers might call you. Please
need you there too.
answer the call and the cause. ❑

Create A Demand With The AJE

By no means are we trying to indict the
Agency for Jewish Education (See our Close
Up story on page 83). \A just wonder why
there isn't a grater priority placed on adult
Jewish education.
We wonder how the community would
respond if there were more opportunities for
adult education. Certainly, AJE is leading the
nation when it comes to highly structured pro- .
grams of getting our children to Israel.
Certainly, it's Hebrew language program is
considered top-notch. Again, if Hebrew lan-
guage is an example, we wonder why there just
isn t more out there.
Jewish adults are in search of innovative
classes. There are so many great issues out

'

Adult study: Boutique vs. substance?

there that AJE could take a lead in helping our
community learn. Issues of a political nature in
Israel; helping us understand how Israel works;
courses in how one measures his own spiritual-
ity; rock bottom aleph-bet.
A great Jewish city has a well planned edu-
cational structure for all of its age groups. We'd
love to see AJE empowered by the Jewish
Federation to do more. But to do so, you all
have to make it clear to Federation that you
want more out of AJE. If Federation and AJE
don't get responses, don't get demands, then
we'll be going to a bookstore in West
Bloomfield to get educated.
Our question remains: With all of the great
buildings we have here in Detroit, AJE, the
JCCs and others, why is it that we're going to
Barnes and Noble? Walk around the Maple-
Drake JCC on any given evening, and it can
be empty. Certainly, this is the case for the AJE
building. Did you know that AJE's best kept
secret is its nice library for your use? The
Maple-Drake JCC has a similar secret.
Again, there's an awareness that needs to be
created and acted upon. AJE may be doing
good service. Good isn't good enough.
A community this great, however, deserves
great. We can send our kids to Israel with the
best of them. But we need to be sending our
adults to classes they enjoy and demand. ❑

Former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher lays a wreath
at the Rabin Memorial in Tel Aviv.

LETTERS

Explaining
A Tradition

I felt a responsibility to share
with readers my point of view
regarding a letter to the editor
from Michael Egren ("Stories
In Conflict" Oct. 24). He,
like many an intelligent, sen-
sitive person, became ois gef-
reaked (Yiddish for "freaked
out) about the ritual of
kapores.
Let me tell you, buddy,
that we would be freaked out,
too, if we participated in a
twirling and slitting ceremo-
ny! What we are doing is try-
ing to reach a point of
acknowledgement of the hand
of God, which bestows upon
us life or death and seals this
fate on Yom Kippur. (See all
those New Year cards? You are
being written and then
inscribed in the book of life.)

-

At the last minute before
the sealing, we rush to do acts
which inspire teshuva (repen-
tance). We carefully hold that
precious, innocent chicken;
we pray to God to remove
our sins; again we are hum-
bled from this chicken.
The bird has a new mean-
ing for us. The bird is not
merely some frozen object
that occupies space in our
-freezer. The bird is not merely
something that we prepare
with some new recipe. It's
more than all of that.
Can you imagine going to
the market, selecting a chick-
en, taking it to a schochet,
saying a prayer on the slaugh-
ter, covering up the blood
with a pinch of earth — for
there is Godliness in that
blood — and finally eating
that bird with a blessing first
which includes the words
"That which was created by
God with His utterances."

TRADITION

page 36