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Values And Technology
n less than a single generation, the Inter-
net has become a massive, revolutionary
new medium for communication, a
force linking people and institutions
around the world with almost magical speed
and intimacy.
Moreover, the medium has a special partici-
patory quality unlike earlier mass media, such
as radio and television, the telephone, newspa-
pers and books. The Internet virtually
demands that users determine how it will
evolve. And, as the cover story in this issue
reports, it creates new communities of shared
interest and information — important to us as
Jews who have always been bound one to each
other by two "virtual" forces — faith and cul-
ture. The Internet has the ability to make our
ties even stronger, to deepen our children's ties
to our history and our future.
We have reasons to fear the openness of the
World Wide Web. The cults with agendas of hate
can use it to spread their lies and' incite violence,
as we have seen so sadly in Los Angeles and
Chicago. But the best cure for the hate sites is to
post our own sites offering real information and
understanding — as many institutions, including
IN FOCUS
our own agencies in Detroit, are doing.
Some of us are going to be frustrated trying
to help our children use this medium because,
at a technological level anyway, they are
already Much more competent than we. But
perhaps that could be a virtue. They teach us
how to surf; we teach them what to look for
and how to understand it.
We should revel in the Internet, which
thrives on open, uninhibited debate — just as
our faith does. It is hard for some of us to
imagine replacing our Shabbat study with an
online Torah chat room, but perhaps we
should be stretching our imaginations further.
If the medium lets the diaspora know itself
better and function more cohesively, it makes us
stronger intellectually and emotionally, and more
able to see that the problems we may face in one
part of the world are balanced by the successes in
another. It can help us understand that wherever
we are physically, Jews remain one people.
The Internet will not change the values we
share nor the truths we have known as Jews for
the past 4,000 years. It exists as a tool that we
can and should choose to master as we contin-
ue to try to be a model to the world. Fl
Story Time
JCC Librarian Julie Solomon,
above, flanked by 8-year-old
son David, read for 2-year-old
Emily Brooke Rosberg, left,
and her grandmother Nancy
Silverman during an Aug. 17
story hour at the D. Dan &
Betty Kahn Building of the
Jewish Community Center of
Metropolitan Detroit. All three
are from West Bloomfield.
A Vision Of Sanity
I
n an era when the Jewish people say
their political and organizational leader-
ship is sorely bereft, the vision and visi-
bility of Rabbi Michael Melchior is
refreshingly invigorating.
This Danish-born Israeli leader, a product
of the Orthodox yeshiva world, is the minister
in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's govern-
ment responsible for diaspora and social
affairs. Last week, he exhibited the potential
impact of this new office, one whose influence
was initially scoffed at by critics. And he sent a
clear message to Israel and the diaspora: corn-
promises do not invalidate values; we can
indeed live as one people with divergent views.
At issue was the transportation of tons of
turbine parts throughout Israel. Having the
move take place on Shabbat infuriated haredi
(fervently Orthodox) political parties in the
governing coalition, despite their having
accepted such events as members of past gov-
ernments. They threatened to leave the coali-
tion. Would the move be on weekdays, howev-
er, the strain on Israel's already nightmarishly
clogged roads could have functionally stopped
tens of thousands of people from arriving to
work and school on time.
Barak did not blink. Rather, he turned to
Rabbi Melchior. His accepted compromise,
which he sees as temporary until a new blue-
print for co-existence in Israel is crafted, has
non-Jewish workers performing the necessary
tasks.
In a recent interview, Rabbi Melchior also
pushed for dialogue with non-Orthodox
streams of Judaism, carefully noting that he
neither practices nor personally accepts their
way of Jewish life and living. Yet, he added,
people who pursue an understanding of God
are not enemies. We warmly welcome the atti-
tude.
As but one example of what's left to accom-
plish, Israeli Army Radio this week rejected
paid advertisements by the Reform and Con-
servative movements inviting Jews to pray
with them during the High Holidays, ending
with this phrase: "There's more than one way
to be a Jew." And in the Knesset Finance
Committee, haredim and secularists engaged
in a hostile shouting match while debating
whether Western Wall renovations should
include setting aside areas to accommodate
members of the Conservative and Reform
movements.
Rabbi Melchior intends to wrestle not just
with such specifics, but also the extremist ide-
ologies that have taken root in Israeli society.
They, in turn, have led to a warped under-
standing of Judaism by many, and alienated so
many others. We pray that Rabbi Michael
Melchior, a rodef shalom or pursuer of peace,
meets with success after success. 11
LETTERS
Too Sad
For Jokes
If the moral obligation to
bring killers to justice was not
so serious, the puffed up, self-
righteous tone of AIPAC's
attack on the ZOA and, by
implication, all those who
want Abu Daoud tried for
organizing the murder of the
Israeli Olympic athletes at
Munich in 1972 ("ZOA
Blasted On Jordan Aid," Aug.
6) would be comic.
AIPAC's leaders, appar-
ently having forgotten Jor-
dan's role in the Gulf War,
pretend to be mightily con-
cerned that punishing Jor-
dan financially for failing to
extradite this killer would
harm American relations
with "a valued U.S. ally" and
greatly upset "a vital strate-
gic partner of Israel."
Even if this were so — and
there is not a scintilla of evi-
dence that it is — the moral
and legal imperative must
come before the calculation of
"political" consequences.
Human actions were not
intended by our Creator to be
guided by balances of expedi-
ency, but by balances of jus-
tice. That is why all endeavors
to determine "expediency," as
AIPAC's officers are now
doing, are futile.
Edward Alexander
professor of English. ,
University of Washington
Seattle
\
9/3
1999
Detroit Jewish News
37