Yukking it up
with Irnai Brith;
Jewish education
creeps ahead;
Rudi's coming.
Rabbi M. Robert Syme stole the show
and upstaged his son Tuesday evening
at the B'nai B'rith Great American
Traditions Dinner on Nov. 10 honor-
ing General Motors Chairman Jack
Smith.
Before paying tribute to Smith in
his invocation, Syme recalled seeing
dais guest Frank Stella, a leader of the
Italian American community, at so
many Jewish dinners that Syme was
prepared to give Stella a Temple Israel
membership application. "Then I saw
him talking with [the Catholic Arch-
diocese's Adam] Cardinal Maida," said
Syme, to sustained laughter.
The rabbi also had a kiss for new
B'nai B'rith International President
Richard Heideman, a Detroit native
who Syme introduced as "one of my
bar mitzvah boys."
Rabbi Syme's son, pianist David
Syme, took back the spotlight at the
end of the program. He performed a
Broadway review with Cantor
Stephen Dubov of Temple Beth El.
Syme had the crowd buzzing
throughout his "Pumping Ivory"
medley and Dubov impressed with
his booming voice and tap dance
solo.
Originally scheduled to make its
debut by Rosh Hashanah, a local edu-
cational Web site won't be hitting _
cyberspace until January 1999.
The $150,000 Michigan Jewish
Online Education Project, a partner-
ship of the Jewish Federation of Metro-
politan Detroit and the University of
Michigan's Department of Academic
Outreach, got off to a late start, say its
coordinators. But when completed, it
will offer a whimsically illustrated inter-
active Web site with a distinctly local
slant. Focusing on b'nai mitzvah in
Detroit, the site includes personal anec-
11/13
1998
26 Detroit Jewish News
dotes and photographs, descriptions of
ritual objects, historical information
and links to other relevant sites.
"There are a lot of Jewish resources
available online, but they tend to be
generic and they're never local," said
Mark Hass, U-M liaison for the pro-
ject and senior counsel to U-M's vice
president for univer-
sity relations. "They
make the assumption
that Jewish people
everywhere are the
same, but this con-
nects Jewish learning
specifically to this
community."
The long-term
goal is for the b'nai
mitzvah site to be
Dore Gold
part of a much larger
site offering detailed programs on all
Jewish life cycle events.
"We focused on the life cycle
because they're common across the
board," said Federation Community
Outreach and Education Director
Harlene Appelman, who is coordinat-
ing the project. "Everyone has a rite of
passage, and we thought this was the
best common denominator."
Israel needs a well-defined plan for
peace to ensure it will last, said Israel's
Representative to the United Nations
at the recent Holocaust Memorial
Center dinner.
"We must be sure that we don't just
satisfy our need for peace now, but we
satisfy our possibilities for a peace that
lasts for generations," said Ambas-
sador Dore Gold, speaking before
1,000 guests Nov. 8 at the West
Bloomfield-based center's 14th annual
dinner at the Westin Hotel in Detroit.
"In the five years since the Oslo
agreement was signed, we had the
same number of
fatalities that we
lost in the previ-
ous 15 years with-
out a peace agree-
ment," he said.
"Something is
going wrong."
Israel should have
peace with security,
and a peace with
reciprocity, said
Gold. Peace, with
Jerusalem as the undivided capital, and
peace with secure borders for the State
of Israel is what is needed, he said.
Rudolph Giuliani, New York City's
mayor, obviously looking for some
national exposure, will add his name
to the impressive list of big-name
speakers at Sunday's annual Yeshiva
Beth Yehudah dinner.
"We're always looking for a national
figure," said Rabbi Eli Mayerfeld, "and
Mayor Giuliani is extremely well
known and well liked in Jewish circles."
Speakers at the dinners have includ-
ed former President Gerald Ford, Jack
Kemp, Alexander Haig and Mario
Cuomo.
Marking
100 Years
Of Detroit
Jewry
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These captains raised more
than 200 percent of their
team quotas in the Allied
Jewish Campaign during
the 1940s. They are:
Mrs. Edward Atlas,
Edmund M Sloman
and Mrs. Harry Jacobson.
Photo courtesy of Leonard N. Simons
Jewish Community Archives/Jewish Feder-
ation of Meusopolitan Detroit.
Remember
When
From the pages of The Jewish News
for this week 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50
years ago.
1988
In Tel Aviv plans for a new Wendy's
were revealed for Dizengoff Circle.
Though the food will be kosher,
the restaurant cannot apply for rab-
binical kashrut cetification since it
will be open on Shabbat.
BBYO and the American/Israel
Chamber of Commerce launched a
program to promote the purchase
of Israeli products at local stores.
Members of BBYO will identify
Israeli products now available and
encourage store owners to sell
goods made in Israel.
Michigan voters elected the state's
first Jewish U.S. senator, Carl
Levin. At the same time, Democrat
Howard Wolpe of Lansing became
the second Jewish congressman in
Michigan history.
Mrs. William S. Hamburger, head
of the department of performing
arts at Cass Technical High School,
has been named to be the commen-
tator at the "Wonderful World of
Children Fashion Show" sponsored
by Israel Bonds Women's Division.
Jytie
Three of this year's Nobel Prize
winners are Jewish. Boris Paster-
nak's Di: Zhivago earned the prize
for literature; Dr. Joshua Lederberg
received one half of the prize in
medicine and physiology and Dr.
Igor E. Tamm won for his work in
physics.
Michael Aller, an 18-year-old
Detroiter, has been named official
cantor at Hillel House on the cam-
pus of the University of Miami in
Coral Gables, Fla.
The Jewish Community Council is
investigating a publication, "Com-
mon Sense," received in the mail by
Detroit Jews and featuring a vicious
attack on Zionism. The document
is published twice a month in New
Jersey and has been consistently
anti-Semitic in tone.