Editorials

Letters To the Editor are updated daily and archived on JN Online:
vvvvw.detroitjewishnews.com •

Stay The Course

rom our safe vantage point in Amer-
ica, we look at the pictures of smol-
dering street scenes and bleeding
children in Israel, and we ask legiti-
mate, painful questions: How many mangled
Israeli lives and bodies must there be before
this whole peace process — sputtering ahead
primarily due to U.S. pressure — is declared
dead? Doesn't the violence mock Palestinian
leader Yassir Arafat's ability to deliver his
"peace of the brave?"
But those of us who love Israel and feel a
measure of her pain must also ask ourselves a
question that does not fit into any neat ideo-
logical category: What is the alternative?
A world without the peace process is an
unqualified disaster. It might look like this:
• As Israel seeks to re-enter Palestinian
towns to hunt down terrorists, a bloody, pro-
tracted war — a super intifada — becomes a
strong possibility.
• Tensions with the United States, a massive
provider of Israeli economic and military aid
and Israel's one reliable ally in a world bristling
with new military threats, would increase. The
need for cooperation between the two coun-
tries is more evident than ever as Iraq, sensing
a weakened U.S. role in the region, has
slammed the door on U.N. weapons inspec-
tors. An unchecked Saddam Hussein, there is
little doubt, has no problem with targeting
. Israel to distract and unite the Arab world.
• Israel's economy, already slowed in the
past two years, would be damaged even more
as international investors look elsewhere.
Meanwhile, as Russia's domestic situation
worsens, immigration to Israel will increase,
placing huge new strains on the economy.
• The Zionist/Jewish dream of peace will be

ri

Here's To Susie Citrin

E

very once in a while, someone
comes along whose quiet demeanor
belies her inspiration as a communi-
ty volunteer.
Susie Citrin, Yad Ezra's 1998 honoree, is
such a person.
Never one to seek out the spotlight, she
unassumingly helps brighten the lives of less-
fortunate Jews, no matter whether they live
here or an ocean away.
Citrin has carried the torch for many mem-
bers of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit family, including the Jewish Family
Service, the United Jewish Foundation and the
Allied Jewish Campaign.
But it's her exemplary work.the last seven
years in fighting hunger that drew the Yad Ezra
spotlight last week.
Yad Ezra is Hebrew for helping hand. And a
helping hand, washed with compassion and
commitment, is what Citrin has selflessly

dealt a punishing blow. Emigration from
Israel, always disturbing, would likely rise.. And
another generation of Israelis will be forced to
focus more on national and financial security
than their country's rightful role as the spiritu-
al center of the Jewish world.
• American Jews, particularly younger ones
sparking a long-overdue spiritual renaissance in
our community, will be increasingly alienated
from a Jewish state that no longer unites Jews,
but divides us in controversy.
U.S. Jews, with the embattled Clinton
administration's heightened role in the peace
process, now have more influence than ever on
this country's efforts to break the impasse.
Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
knows this. So at next week's General Assem-
bly of the Council of Jewish Federations in
Jerusalem, the largest annual gathering of
North American Jewish leaders, he'll make a
strong appeal for American Jewish support,
which he hopes is transmitted loud to the
White House.
We are sympathetic to the enormous politi-
cal risk that Netanyahu has taken to move
away from the right and closer to the Israeli
center, alienating some supporters who
brought him to power. We must ensure the
Clinton administration understands this as
well. As we do that we should, with compas-
sion, continue making our concerns — for and
against certain Israeli steps — heard.
But the Oslo Accords, the Hebron Accord
and the Wye Memorandum are part of a corn-
plex and emotional process that must not die.
We demand strict compliance, but we know
that the path toward peace, difficult as it may
be, is preferable to the path toward war. A col-
lapsed peace process is unacceptable.

❑

extended in serving the Oak
Park-based supplemental
kosher food pantry.
As Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit Presi-
dent Penny Blumenstein
perceptively put it: "Her pas-
sionate involvement in the
cares and concerns of our
Susie Citrin
people make her truly an
ayshet chayil — a woman of valor."
Every month, Yad. Ezra's mostly volunteer
staff digs deep into its collective neshama (soul)
to dispense free food packages with a smile to
1,800 people otherwise destined for despair.
Beyond all the good it does for its clients,
Yad Ezra also is a rallying point for the Detroit
Jewish community. Truly, there are no barriers
when it comes to taking care of each other.
And Susie Citrin has given generously of her-
self to help keep those barriers at bay.

,

IN FOCUS

Sharing Confessions

The Ecumenical Institute held the panel discussion "I Confess
— The True Confessions of A Rabbi, A Priest and Two Minis-
ters" on Oct. 28 at Meadowbrook Congregational Church,
Novi. Panelists included the Rev. Dr. E. Neil Hunt of Mead-
owbrook Congregational Church, Father John G. Budde of
Church of the Holy Family in Novi, Rabbi Amy Brodsky of
the Southfield-based Ecumenical Institute, the Rev. Louise R.
Ott of Novi United Methodist Church and Rabbi Paul M.
Yedwab of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield. They discussed
how their faith perspectives influence their lives.

LITTERS

ed thousands
of times over
a career that
is both long
I read with great interest and
and not long
pleasure Cantor Earl Berris'
enough.
warm and poignant remarks
Seeing and
concerning Cantor Louis
participating
Klein (Nov. 6).
Cantor Louis
with Cantor
Berris' observations of
Klein
Klein in shul
Cantor Klein's invaluable
is a delight;
contributions to Congrega-
having worked with him is one
tion B'nai Moshe, in both
of the outstanding Jewish expe-
good times and bad, are com-
riences of my life. Our congre-
pletely accurate.
gation and our community are
Having had the privilege
fortunate in the extreme to
and honor of being one of
have him with us for so much
Cantor Klein's countless stu-
of his life and career.
dents, I must add that this
Les Goldstein
man is the rarest combination
West Bloomfield
of Jewish knowledge, perfec-
tionism and, above all,
mentshlekeit. He never lets an
error go uncorrected; but his
teaching method, his whole
The Oslo accords are flawed
essence, is to teach not only
because they are being imple-
the material but the love of
mented piecemeal.
the material. He has succeed-

Cantor Klein
Is Deserving

Give In,
Then What?

❑

11/13
1998

Detroit Jewish News

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