SINGLES EXTENSION GROUP
of TEMPLE ISRAEL

Invites Jewish Singles 50 and Over to Join Us For A

religion. It was held in conjunction
with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
holiday the Monday before.
The World Sabbath Calls to
Prayer, at Bloomfield Hills' Christ
Church Cranbrook, included repre-
sentatives of Judaism, Christianity,
Buddhism, Muslim and Baha'i. An
Ethiopian blew the shofar and chant-
ed the Shema.
"I got teary-eyed at the opening pro-
cessional," said Lynn Kaufman of Novi,
who was in the audience. "It was very
emotional seeing different faiths repre-
sented and religious leaders walking
down theaisle, all together in one place."
Rabbi Marla Feldman, assistant
director of the Jewish Community
Council of Metropolitan Detroit and
a director of the Michigan Board of
Rabbis, participated in both the pro-
cessional and the prayer readings.
"The event was an opportunity to
bring people together to talk about
our differences and celebrate them,
and to make a commitment to work
together to resolve issues and con-
flict," she said.
At the prayer service, personal tes-
timonies of religious persecution were
shared by a Christian from Sudan, an
Ethiopian, a Muslim, an Armenian
and a Jewish Holocaust survivor.
The testimonies had a similar
theme: the displacement, deporta-
tion and genocide of millions of
people in their homelands, all due . •
to religious persecution. The
Muslim speaker, Mitchell Shamsud-
din, said, "Let not the hatred of
others swerve you down the wrong
path. Let's strive for peace, forgive-
ness and reconciliation."
Dr. Fred Lessing, a Holocaust sur-
vivor from Holland, held a teddy
bear to symbolize his lost Jewish
childhood since he grew up with a
Christian family. He explained hav-
ing to grow up fast in order to sur-
vive in a bleak, gray world of war,_
hatred and violence, feeling unable to
trust anyone.
In the Holocaust, Dr. Lessing said,
"little children burned like torches. I
was supposed to be one of them. This
is the greatest evil of the Holocaust:
the murdered children and the
destruction of their childhood.
"The World Sabbath speaks of
peace and good will on Earth, which
we certainly need," he said.
The Rev. Kenneth Flowers, pastor
of Greater New Mt. Moriah Baptist
Church in Detroit, gave an uplifting
keynote sermon. "We need to give
respect to each other. All of us were

created equally," he said.
It is through a unity of humanity
that "we can build a beautiful sym-
phony of our differences here in this
world," he said. -
The service took six months to plan
under the direction of Rev. Rodney
Reinhart of Trinity Episcopal Church
in Farmington Hills. MediaOne
videotaped the service for distribution
to all 70 National Conference for
Community & Justice (NCCJ) mem-
bers in the United States and its inter-
national arm in Europe.
Michlin, an interfaith activist from
Farmington Hills, encouraged Rev.
Reinhart's efforts, but suffered a
stroke less than a month before the
service. He left his hospital bed in a
wheelchair to attend the service,
where he received the first World
Sabbath of Religious Reconciliation
Peace Maker Award. It was given to
Michlin for, as Rev. Reinhart put it,
"making peace in this community and
around the world for a long time."
Michlin has been building bridges
of religious harmony through his
involvement in such groups as the
Ecumenical Institute of Jewish-
Christian Studies, American Arab and
Jewish Friends and Children's Sports
for Peace. It all began out of his per-
sonal experience with prejudice.
"A former business partner had to
leave our business because his broth-
er-in law did not like his family mem-
ber working with a Jew," Michlin
said...."This really hurt me and it took
a while for me to do something about
it. I wanted to work on this. This was
when I helped found the American
Arab and Jewish Friends."
In his concluding remarks, Rev.
Flowers quoted the late U.S. Supreme
Court Justice Thurgood Marshall:
"We must dissent from hatred, fears
and distrust because America can do
better and has no choice but to do
better. The future of America is in
our hands. We must knock down the
fences that divide us and tear down
the walls that imprison us."
Then he asked the congregation,
"Are you willing to be a bridge
builder between the various religions?
Are you willing to cross that bridge
to build friendships of respect?"
The answer from the 540 partici-
pants was clearly affirmative, with
many swaying in the aisles.
Rev. Mullins captured the spirit of
the evening when he said, following
Rev. Flowers' sermon: "We are differ-
ent — and that's what makes us
good." El

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ITN

1/28
2000