\N ‘sh SP
Se ct
Front
41v
."
How do
•
you get the courage to
•
•
take a risk when there is a
•
•
chance of failure? How do you
•
weigh the odds in your favor? When
is the right time to take a risk?
vo
44 wp
A
44.
4,
'9
To Self Improvement
Bitter Winds
A Pontiac native comes home from Israel
to warn American Jews about the dangers
of the Orthodox.
AMY MINDELL
Special to The Jewish News
A
With Noted Torah Scholar
There is no charge for this program.
Refreshments will be served.
Sperber's North Kosher Restaurant,
located inside the JCC, will be serving dinner until 8:00 p.m.
For the hearing impaired, an Infrared Sound System is available.
5/22
C
1 9 98
20
Jewish Community Cenier
For more information or to register,
please Call (248) 661-7649.
Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit
D. Dan & Betty Kahn Building
6600 West Maple Road • West Bloomfield, MI 48322
Perhaps the seminal event, he said,
was the 1995 assassination of Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin, killed by a
yeshiva student "whose belief that the
prime minister should be assassinated
grew out of counsel with Orthodox
rabbis," he said.
While Chafets, citing popular opin-
ion polls, said some 80 percent of all
Israelis desire a secular, democratic
state, he is alarmed at the "theocratic
impulse" of the Orthodox and horri-
fied that a recent poll revealed that 27
percent of Orthodox school children
think Rabin's assassin, Yigal Amir, was
right.
Chafers presented much anecdotal
evidence for his premise, such as the
case of the Shaare Zedek Hospital in
Jerusalem. The medical center, one of
the largest hospitals in Israel, recently
opened a state-of-the-art fertility clinic,
which is the best in the nation. But the
clinic won't treat interfaith couples.
Michigan-born journalist
and novelist dropped into
his hometown Sunday with
news from the front:
American Jews ought to worry about
the growing power of the right-wing
Orthodox in Israel.
"The greatest threat to the State of
Israel today is the rise of the ultra-
Orthodox," said Ze'ev Chafets, who
has lived in Israel since 1969. The
average Israeli, he said, "has more
respect for the PLO than for the
Council of Jewish Sages."
Nearly 300 people attended the lec-
ture at Temple Beth El. The talk was
underwritten by the Theodore and
Mina Bargman Foundation.
While Chafets celebrates an Israel
that, since 1973, is "more modern,
more open, more prosperous, and
more pluralistic," he
laments the growing
Orthodox grasp on Israeli
society.
"[They] have a blue-
print for how the Jewish
state ought to be: gov-
erned by talmudic law as
interpreted by Orthodox
rabbis, peopled by Jews
who ought to live accord-
ing to criteria interpreted
by Orthodox rabbis, who
know what women ought
to wear, what kids should
know, what songs should
be on the radio.
"They know what terri-
tory we ought to keep —
because it's in the Bible —
and what Israel should
relinquish," he said.
Chafets said Orthodox
methods of achieving
power have grown increas-
ingly violent in the last
four to five years, and he
cited cases of stone throw-
ing, car burning and the
destruction of shops that
sell non-kosher meat.
Ze'ev Chafets, at odds with. Israel's Orthodox.