ditorials

Editorials and Letters to the Editor are posted and archived on JN Online:
www.detroitjewishnews.corn

Hundreds Of Lights

T

he Jewish News' annual Chanuka cover
is an eagerly anticipated edition.
The Chanuka Art Contest and the
selected winners signal the beginning
of the Festival of Lights here in Detroit.
The contest itself is a model of simplicity.
This year's 350 entries were divided into three
age groups and whittled down to the best eight
in each group. The panel of self-appointed
judges — Jewish News staffers from every
department — took less than 30 minutes to
come up with the 24 "best." Then Art Direc-
tor Debbie Schultz and Creative Services Man-
ager Jeffrey Torok made the final decision,
based in part on what will reproduce the best
on the cover of the Jewish News.
The winners are reproduced in this issue,
can also be found at
www.detroitjewishnews.com and will be dis-
played through the holiday at the Jimmy Pren-
tis Morris Building of the Jewish Community
Center in Oak Park.

.

IN FOCUS

At no time are
Chanuka
I" 15666
the judges
t:i5u
allowed to turn
W
over the entries.
We don't know
•
the exact age,
gender, city of
residence or Jew-
ish affiliation of
the artists until
after the final selections have been made. Yet
the results, year after year, are a microcosm
and cross-section of Detroit Jewry and, as
you will see in today's issue, beyond.
In a way, our artists represent world Jewry
— many lights of different kinds that together
comprise one great beacon and one people. It
is a tribute to our young artists that they
reflect the spirit of Chanuka for all Detroit and
all of world Jewry.
Happy Chanuka! Gut yom toy! Chag
sameiach! Isn't it all the same? E

OE

ts

Holocaust Entertainment

T

hrough Schindler's List and the cre-
ations of the Survivors of the Shoah
Visual History Foundation, includ-
ing James Moll's Academy Award-
winning documentary
The Last Days, Steven
Spielberg has tried to
present an accurate, real-
istic portrayal of the
Holocaust.
There has been an
almost urgent rush to
make sure that we get
more Holocaust stories
on film and on the Inter-
net where they can be preserved. Our sur-
vivors are aging and dying, some only recently
using every bit of their courage to revisit what
they'd just as soon forget.
Unfortunately, however, there also has been
a recent proliferation of-feel-good or happy-
ending movies and theater productions with
the Shoah as a central theme. It seems as if a
new field of chronicling this century's most
terrible debacle is turning into Holocaust
Entertainment.
Perhaps it started most recently with the
Academy Award winner Life Is Beautiful. That's
the Italian movie about the father who turned
labor camp survival into a contest or game for
his little son. Then there was the Robin Williams
film Jakob The Liar, where fake radio reports
kept a ghetto community's morale positive. Then
the movie Train ofLifi, about how Jewish vil-
lagers outsmarted the Nazis by deporting them-
selves on a train. There are quite a few more
where this came from.

What comes to mind is the 1960s TV sit-
com Hogan's Heroes, the adventures of prison-
ers of war and their duty to outsmart the
bungling German sergeant and his equally
insipid superior officers.
Read accounts of pris-
oners of war. Check out
books from the library or
watch accounts on the His-
tory Channel. It would be
interesting to ask surviving
former POWs just how
much "fun" they had out-
smarting those "bungling
),
Germans.
What Hogan Heroes was to World War II, we
hope never happens when it comes to genocide.
It seems that while the film industry is offering
products that do touch our emotions and sensi-
bilities and do keep the memories of the Holo-
caust alive, we worry that to fulfill Hollywood's
insatiable bottom-line hunger, pretty soon the
real becomes unreal.
Maybe there were some sweet moments
during the Holocaust. Perhaps it was only
humor in some cases that kept people alive.
But let's keep it real.
A laugh track, marketing campaign and rat-
ings isn't the way to teach about how a Euro-
pean Jewish community was slaughtered. We
hope that the message never is delivered this
way. But we fear the entertainment industry is
taking us this way.
The Holocaust has enough messages to
offer. As Spielberg and others have shown,
"Holocaust Lite" isn't the responsible way to
go. Please, Hollywood. Please make it account-
able, or don't make it at all. 1-1

Let's not lose sight
of the Shoah's
real meaning.

In Search Of A Match

Louise Kaufman of Southfield and Paula Meisler of Oak Park
help each other check for numbers during Chanuka bingo, a
Jewish Life & Learning program, held Monday at the Jewish
Community Center in Oak Park.

LETTERS

Tremor Disorder
Needs Attention

Thank you very much for
publishing my story ("Life
Changing Solution," Nov.
19). My sole reason for baring
my soul publicly was to edu-
cate people about essential
tremor, a little-known neuro-
logical disorder.
I don't think your readers
realize that approximately 4-6
million people are afflicted
with essential tremor (ET),
while only up to 1 million
people are diagnosed with
Parkinson's disease (PD). It is
quite ironic that when ET
))
patients are "shaking away,
everyone always assumes that
either we have PD or that we
),
are just "nervous wrecks.
I have known numerous
people, through our online
support group, who have
great difficulty in job inter-
views and are simply "written
off" as being very nervous.
These are highly intelligent
and competent people.
I also know many others

who now lead reclusive
lifestyles because ET is just
too difficult and embarrassing
for them in public situations.
The article indicated that,
now nine months later, I am
95 percent recovered. Actual-
ly, I was fully recovered very
shortly after the surgery. I had
myself back on the treadmill
1 1/2 weeks after surgery! I
would not want any surgical
candidate to shy away from
deep-brain stimulation
surgery, thinking it was a long
recovery period. I believe that
what I may have said in the
interview was that I now have
approximately 95 percent use
of my hands.
Since I had bilateral surgery,
which means they implanted
electrodes on both sides of my
brain, there is usually a "cross-
over" effect between the two
generators. This results in a
less-than-100 percent function-
ing of the hands. My head and
voice tremors are both com-
pletely eliminated.
The control in both of my
hands is truly incredible and a

;

12/3
1999

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