EdItoR's NoTe

Families...

The Birthday Par

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Yad Ezra provides kosher food packages to 1,000 families
every month. The families helped by Yad Ezra include:
single parents
disabled
working poor
the elderly
those
in
emergency
situations.
new Americans
With your help, all families in our community can enjoy a
nutritious and satisfying meal.

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$ 18.00
A weekday meal for 3 small families
$ 36.00
A Holiday meal for 4 small families
$ 50.00
A Shabbat meal for 5 small families
$ 72.00
A Holiday meal for 4 large families
$ 100.00
A year of Holiday meals for 1 family
$ 200.00
A year of Holiday meals for 2 families
$ 500.00
A year of Shabbat meals for 1 small family
Enclosed is my check in the amount of
as a tax deductible contribution to Yad Ezra to help feed the
Jewish hungry. Your contribution is eligible for a 50% Michigan Tax Credit
(subject to certain limitations).
Name
Address
City
Phone
Zip
State
Make checks payable to Yad Ezra or
charge your contribution to your VISA/Mastercard or Discover.
(Minimum suggested donation - $18.00)
Exp.Date
Card No.
Signature
Name
Mail to: 26641 Harding ■ Oak Park, MI 48237
Tributes and Memorials available.

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JEWEIR NEWS

'MT

S

ome time ago a girl I know,
I'll call her Debbie, was not
invited to a birthday party.
She was about 9 at the time.
She's pretty and polite and very
smart, independent and creative.
She has a great
sense of humor. I
can't think of a thing
to dislike about Deb-
bie, though that real-
ly doesn't matter.
What matters is how
Debbie was exclud-
ed.
Debbie was riding
the bus home from
school when some of
her friends began
talking about a birth-
day party. Their class-
mate, Ruth, was having the party
next week, and everyone was excit-

ed.
Debbie hadn't received an invita-
tion. Neither, she learned, did her
friend Leigh. But everybody else in
the class was going.
"There wasn't_ enough room," Ruth
told Debbie when she overheard
her speaking with Leigh. "I mean, I
couldn't invite everyone in the
class.
Later, Debbie told her father what
happened. He was furious, and
went immediately to call Ruth's par-
ents. "But, Dad," Debbie said.
"What could she do? There wasn't
enough room. "
Several days later Debbie's father
told me the story. I could see that it
was painful for him to retell, espe-
dolly when he recounted Debbie's
belief that she wasn't invited simply
because there wasn't enough

room.

I'm not sure what Ruth's problem

with Debbie was, though I can
guess.
Ruth was part of the "in" crowd,
and Debbie was not.
I don't like it, but I don't really
blame Ruth for this terrible situation.
She is a child. No, I
hold the parents
accountable — the
insensitive parents
who told their daugh-
ter that it's fine to
exclude -wo little girls
from a birthday party.
It's not that every child
in the school needs to
be invited to such a
gathering; of course
not. But a party either
should clearly be just
for a few close friends

or for the entire group.
Invariably, a party for an entire
class will include a few children with
whom your son or daughter is not
especially close. But we're talking
about a 90-minute get-together, not a
marriage that will last a lifetime.
Actually, I feel sad for those chil-
dren allowed to invite everyone but
one or two students in their class.
What a lesson to learn — that its
perfectly fine to be selfish and
thoughtless — from your own par-
ents. ❑

Elizabeth Applebaum
AppleTree Editor

You can reach Elizabeth Apple-
baum at (248) 354-6060 ext.
308, or at

philapple@earthlink.net .

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