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Editorials.

j Make Sunday Super

Like the sound of the shofar, Super Sunday
marks the start of a new year filled with great
anticipation.
Corning up this weekend, Super Sunday
shifts the 1999 Allied Jewish Campaign into
high- gear. Volunteers — friends or neighbors
in many cases — will call previous donors of
$500 or less for similar or higher pledges.
If you're one of the thousands called on
Sunday, don't give just because you gave
before. Query the caller. Ask about how Cam-
paign allocations are decided, why percentages
go up or down, why some programs get fund-
ing and others don't, and who monitors how
allocations are spent — in Detroit, other
states, Israel and 58 other countries.
The most widely recognized annual event in
the Detroit Jewish community, the Jewish Feder-
ation of Metropolitan Detroit-sponsored Cam-
paign remains a vital funding source on behalf of
Jews locally and around the world. No sincere
complaint will be ignored on Super Sunday,
with sensitivity sure to be the byword under co-
chairs Brent Triest and Terri Farber Roth.
Federation representatives allocate Cam-
paign revenue each spring, based on agency
requests. The 1999 allocation team will pay
special attention to immigration and resettle-

IN FOCUS

ment, Jewish education, eldercare services, dis-
ability assistance, families in crisis, Israel expe-
rience subsidies, and revitalization of Jewish
communities in impoverished places like
Belarus, Cuba and Hungary.
IVlake sure you're satisfied with the replies to
your queries on Sunday. Then give.
How much is strictly up to you. In a won-
derful display of generosity, local philan-
thropists Nancy and James Grosfeld, through a
new Campaign challenge fund, will match
every . pledge increase over last year.
In many ways, Super Sunday's yield, typical-
ly $800,000 to S1 million, is an important sec-
ond to the good will it fosters in helping the
largest number of givers possible feel a part of
the fourth most-successful Campaign in the
country. Last year, Detroit's 73rd annual Cam-
paign topped $29 million.
Make no mistake about it. The Allied Jew-
ish Campaign reinforces our common purpose
as Jews, no matter where we live: namely, to
share our bounty with less-fortunate Jews, no
matter where they live. Remember, we're all
part of the same world Jewish family.
So make a spiritual connection on Super
Sunday — and taste the sweetness of

Spiritual Boost

Rabbi Dannel Schwartz of Temple Shir Shalom spoke on
"How to Make a More Spiritual Life for Yourself" during the
"Jewish Secrets To Self Improvement" program last week at the
Kahn Jewish Community Center in West Bloomfield.

LETTERS

tzedakah.

eight years ago. We are very
grateful to Nancy, Eugene
Sherizen (our logistics expert),
the 21 synagogues, temples
and other Jewish organiza-
tions and the many volunteers
who contribute to and help us
with this effort.
We also thank The Jewish
News for its continued sup-
port of our organization,
which provides kosher food to
more than 1,000 needy fami-
lies every month. It is due to
the generosity of our wonder-
ful community that we are
able to alleviate the hunger
for those less fortunate.

Edith Stein's Odyssey

Edith Stein's legacy just got a lot more confus-
ing. The Jewish-born woman, whom this week
Pope John Paul II named a "saint and martyr,"
symbolizes the maelstrom of defining the lega-
cy of the Holocaust to the Jewish and non-
Jewish world. And the angry response of most
Jewish leaders, we believe, is inappropriate.
By all accounts, Stein's life was fascinating.
In 1916, she became a Doctor of
Philosophy summa cum laude.
In 1922, she was-baptized. She
committed her life to the church
as atonement, she wrote for the
"unbelieving" Jewish people.
Eleven years later, the Nazis
forced her out of a teaching
position; she fled to the Nether-
lands where she entered a con-
vent. In July 1942, in retaliation
for church defiance, the Nazis
arrests non-Aryan Roman
Catholics. As the Nazis arrived,
one witness said, Stein turned to
her sister, who also had convert-
ed, and said, "Come Rosa, we are going for
our people." And in 1987, a little girl "miracu-
lously" recovered from an overdose after the
family prayed to her namesake, Sister Teresia
Benedicta (Edith Stein).
What do we Jews do with the painful legacy
of Edith Stein, an apostate murdered in

Auschwitz and now embraced for the ages by
the Catholic Church? Is Pope John Paul II,
who has made improving Catholic-Jewish ties
a defining value, using Stein to universalize the
Holocaust's uniquely Jewish tragedy? In doing
so, as some Jewish leaders say, is the church
seeking to absolve itself from a sin for which it
has never apologized — not aiding the Jews?
And does not John Paul speed-
ing up the sainthood process
validate these concerns?
The answers are worth
debate. Yes, the church needs to
make an unequivocal response
to its war-time role. Yes, the
Holocaust is overwhelmingly a
Jewish tragedy. But yes, the rest
of the world does need to find
ways to understand it — and
that should not threaten us
Jews. If it does, we are allowing
others to define who we are and
how we remember.
If the church wants to make
a martyr of a woman born a Jew, so be it. We
don't like it — the conversion alone is ago-
nizing for us. Nonetheless, the Vatican does-
n't need our permission. Using our energy to
have the church officially address its inaction
toward the Holocaust is a much better use of
time. 17,

We disagree
with those
who make
this their
latest cause.

Mother and son food drive
volunteers Michael Levine
and Caren Landau of West
Bloomfield.

Jeffrey Appel

President, Yad Ezra
Oak Park

Food Drive
Coverage Helps

Coverage Was
Inappropriate

Thank you very much for
running Yad Ezra's Yom Kip-
pur Food Drive as your cover
story in the Oct. 9 issue of

Haazenu, Moses' last words at

The Jewish News.

For the record, Nancy Wel-
ber Barr has graciously
chaired this annual event
since Yad Ezra's inception

In the Torah portion

the end of his life warned the
Israelites and us against false
gods — "New ones, that
recently came up, whom your
forefathers did not know."
That sound advice was
ignored by your newspaper in

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1995

Detroit Jewish News

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