Editorials
Family Feud At Hillel
Hillel Day School has taken giant steps during
its four decades of teaching Jewish children in
Detroit. The Conservative Jewish day school
prides itself on the quality education — both
Jewish and secular — that it imparts to our
future Jewish leaders.
How unfortunate, then, that negative per-
sonnel issues are taking the spotlight away
from the positive educational system at the
Farmington Hills-based school.
We can't presume to know all the facts or
the justice of firing a Hillel teaching veteran
after 23 years of service. Longevity does not
ensure that an individual will not make a mis-
take. Nor can we ignore that the teacher in
question is president of the Hillel teachers'
union and that new labor contract negotiations
are scheduled to begin in a few months.
Hillel students, parents, board members,
administration and teachers have been mulling
these issues for two weeks as each side claims
to take the high ground in its telephone calls,
letters to parents and board members, and dis-
cussions about the firing. Some tell The Jewish
News that they don't want to air their dirty
laundry in public. Others in the Hillel family
are very happy to do so.
In spite of the views of some individuals on
both sides, it is the newspaper's job to inform
the community that this issue is taking place.
It is Hind's job to address the issue and get on
with its primary mission — our children. The
school has forgotten that focus at times during
recent labor negotiations.
There is a contractual process to be followed
in this latest incident. Both sides need to
adhere to the process. .
When we talk of the Hillel Day School
family, we aren't referring to the students, or
the parents, or the teachers, or the administra-
tion. We are referring to all of them, together.
Sometimes families have disagreements, but it
is imperative that there is a genuine reconcilia-
tion, and then a resumption of moving for-
ward for the common good. ❑
A safety officer monitors a helicopter landing during exercises with
Turkish and Israeli ships off the Mediterranean coast.
Arafat's Holocaust
Dilemma In Washington
There is no debate upon the notion that the
anguished legacy of the Holocaust should not
be a political tool. And there is no hiding from
that reality that it is — always. High on the list
of stops for visiting dignitaries to Israel is the
Yad VaShem Holocaust Memorial. American
Jewish lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C.,
for the downtrodden in Bosnia, Nigeria and
elsewhere, often invoke the Holocaust. And
throughout the land, state leg-
islatures are filled with pro-life
advocates in the abortion
debate testifying that they seek
to stop the "modern
Holocaust."
To be certain, there is an
emotional and tenuous line
between legitimate use of the
Holocaust's memory to guide
one's moral actions and a
conscious, partisan thrusting
of it in the face of political
opponents.
But in preparations for
this week's White House meeting of Mideast
leaders, Palestinian Authority President Yassir
Arafat and his advisers went too far. Arafat
declared his desire to visit the U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museum in the fashion befitting a
state visit. Arafat, of course, is not the head of
a state. He might be on the road to such
honor, but today he is not there.
Museum officials at first said that Arafat was
welcome to stop by, just like any one else. That
meant no special privileges. After a furor, they
backtracked and said that Arafat was welcome
and would be treated as a special guest, which
entails security and other arrangements. That
is the correct response. We believe that Arafat,
and all people, should visit the U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museum.
That said, the notion of this particular
Palestinian visiting the Holocaust Museum
gnaws at a nerve deep inside many Jews. He
headed a terrorist organiza-
tion whose goal was to
murder our people to culti-
vate attention for its cause.
And yes, some Jews have
called him a modern Hitler.
That he is not. Despite his
sickening past, and whatev-
er he might be, he is defi-
nitely a wily politician who
adroitly seeks advantages
presented.
So the question becomes
what will Arafat do after
such an experience? Will he
gain compassion for and better understand the
Jewish psyche? Or when he returns home,
away from the Washington press corps, will he
perpetuate infuriating comparisons and analo-
gies about "the Palestinian holocaust?" To do
so would shamelessly mock the human suffer-
ing the museum so vividly chronicles. It also
would reinforce the entrenched notions many
Americans, Jews and others, have about the
Palestinian leader's ultimate desires for the
Jewish state. ❑
Debating the
invitation to
visit the
Washington
museum.
I /23
1998
34
LETTERS
Jewish Programs
And Identity
I was encouraged to learn
from the article "Magical
Mystery Tours" (Dec. 26) that
our Federation is planning to
spend over half a million dol-
lars on "youth travel" to
Israel. I was also encouraged
to learn that at least some
people have reservations
about whether such a pro-
gram can really become a
"cure for assimilation" if it
doesn't also include a follow-
up phase.
The headline of a recent
article in the Jewish Forward,
"Can Swimming in Israel
Prevent Assimilation?", suc-
cinctly focuses on the basic
question that concerns me:
"What is it that the partici-
pants do in this program that
contributes to their achieve-
ment of the goals for which
the program was established,
namely Jewish identity and
affiliation?
If the JESNA report
described in Julie Wiener's
article "Lost Generation" (Jan.
2) is valid (and I believe it is),
we are desperately in need of
properly designed programs,
competently administered,
that can provide a "transfor-
mative" experience for these
young people and permanent-
ly affect their sense of identity
as Jews. To accomplish this,
these programs need to be
more creative and daring if we
really want to attract those
who need it most, namely the
current unaffiliated youth.
Let me give an example of
what I mean. Over 30 years
ago, our Jewish Community
Center conducted a Hebrew
program for teen-agers that
culminated in a six-week stay
in Israel, where they attended
an Ulpan and toured the
country. Some of these teens
couldn't even recognize a
Hebrew letter when they orig-
inally came into the program,
but by the time they left
Israel, all of them spoke
Hebrew like sabras.
We didn't have to hire an
academician to determine
whether the experience had
"confirmed their sense of
identity." We could see it in
their active participation in
Jewish communal affairs and
IDENTITY on page 36