CHAFETS from page 20

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Federation of Temple Youth. Chafets
is perhaps best known in Michigan
for his book, Devils Night: And
Other True Tales of Detroit, pub-
lished in 1990.
Chafers emigrated to Israel in
1967 at age 20. A career in govern-
ment service ended abruptly when
he resigned as head of the press
office for then Prime Minister
Menachem Begin. A founding edi-
tor of The Jerusalem Report, where
he is now a columnist, he has
earned a reputation as an unsparing
critic of hypocrisy and incompe-
tence as he sees it.
During his keynote, Chafets'
repartee was sometimes outrageous,
sometimes offensive, but it also con-
tained a message of optimism for the
future of the Jewish people.
"Jews are expert survivors," he
said. "For 3,500
years, they've sur-
vived. They will
survive now. You
can take that
worry off your
personal agenda."
But it may be a
kind of Judaism
unknown today
because, he said, it
won't be deter-
mined by today's
religious or politi-
cal leaders.
Instead, it will be
the sum total of
the Jews who are
living at any par-
ticular moment."
He added, "It's
not going to be:
`Your bubbe and
my bubbe were
together in
Russia,' or 'Let's get together and
build another Holocaust Center' or
`Let's contribute to Israel.'
"It's going to be the most interest-
ing Jewish century," he concluded,
"because it will be the one we do for
ourselves." Before reaching this con-
clusion, Chafets tossed off a few
zingers that left some audience mem-
bers — and the panelists seated with
him on the podium — visibly shak-
en.
For example, he advocated parti-
tioning Israel into two sections,
reserving: Jerusalem and parts of the
West I3dnk fo'r the Orthodox.
"Rath.er than driving each other
crazy, let them turn Jerusalem into a
kind of Vatican or Singapore,"
Chafets said. "They can subsist on

tourism, Jewish instruction and
shmoozing."
Chafets also criticized Israel's Law
of Return: "Maybe after the war it
made sense," he said. Now Israel is
not short on Jews. It's a perpetual
Jew-making machine."
Labor Zionism, like Orthodoxy, is
no longer relevant, he said. He labeled
Judaism's much-vaunted "return to
tradition" a "sea of nostalgia."
Intermarriage now is "the norm
and not the exception," Chafets said.
In his view, this will strengthen those
who choose to remain Jewish: "It will
dilute some of the neuroses of a peo-
ple worshipping at the shrine of
Jewish victimhood."
At the reception following Chafers'
speech, Sue Luria of Bloomfield Hills
said she agreed with some of the
framework he laid. "But I don't like
Jew-bashing of
any type, by any-
one," she said,
and I felt some
of what he said
fell into that clas-
sification. To me,
intolerance is
wrong coming
from any corner."
Gloria
Holzman of
Southfield said
she didn't agree
with everything
Chafets said,
especially when
he said if there's
intermarriage and
we aren't Jewish
anymore, so
what? That dis-
— Ze'ev Chafets turbed me."
In a brief
response session
by other panelists, Jack Jacobs, associ-
ate professor at City University of
New York, said, "Separation (parti-
tioning of Israel) isn't going to fly,"
largely because of the spread of the
fervently Orthodox Shas movement
to so many parts of the country.
Rabbi Wine knew Chafets had
touched some raw nerves. "Ze'ev is a
very unique personality, with strong
opinions," Rabbi Wine said. "While I
share some of those opinions, I do
not share them all. He spoke as an
individual, not on behalf of Secular
Humanistic Judaism."
Yet Wine distilled the essence of
Chafets' message: "In the end, what
happens to the Jewish people will be
up to all Jews. We have to live with
variety." 1-1

ews are expert
survivors. For
3,500 years,
they've survived.
They will survive
now. You can
take that worry
off your personal
agenda.

"

"

CC