Op timistic
Viewpoint
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Sen. Joseph Lieberman speaks
of the Mideast peace process.
HARRY KIRSBAUM
Stqff Writer
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Pushing Prid
Philanthropist Edgar Bronfman urges
young Jews to become more involved.
HARRY KIRSBAUM
Staff Writer
very young Jewish man or woman has the option to
be or not to be Jewish, said the chief lay leader of
the campus Hillel experience, and getting them to
make the right choice was part of his reason for vis-
iting Michigan.
"The Chosen have become the choosy," said Edgar
Bronfman, chairman of Hillel's international board of governors.
In Jewish history, somewhere between 10 and 15 percent of
Jews knew anything about Judaism, he recently lamented to a
group of students from the Michigan Hillel consortium.
"Common Jews went about their work, didn't know much
about the Torah, they couldn't read or speak Hebrew. We're
asking for a miracle now — 100 percent of Jews to know
something about their heritage and be proud of it."
Bronfman's remarks were made while he and Richard Joel,
president and international director of the Washington-based
Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, were on a
11/2-day tour of Hinds Ann Arbor and East Lansing facili-
ties. They also spoke to a group of students at the Max M.
Fisher Federation Building in Bloomfield Township during
their mid-December visit.
PRIDE on page 20
E
Harry Kirsbaum can be reached at (248) 354-6060, ext. 244,
or by e-mail at hkirsbaum@thejewishnews.com
12/24
1999
Edgar Bronfman addresses
a group of Hillel students
at the Max M. Fisher
Federation Building.
yria achieving peace with Israel would be an
extraordinary asset for the Jewish state, said
U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) to a
full house of politically interested Detroit-area
Jews last week.
This is the time for real opportunity for Israel and
Syria because, if a reasonable agreement with Syria can
be achieved, it will be very important for Israeli securi-
ty," he said prior to his speech. "As everybody has said,
there's no state of war on any of Israel's borders and
that's a remarkable historic change."
Sen. Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, who won election to
the Senate in 1988, has been a strong proponent of Israel.
VIEWPOINT on page 20