JXEditorials

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

Making Numbers Work

opulation studies have the
potential to provide valuable
demographic data. An unadul-
terated sample can tell us a lot
about who we are as a people.
The last major study of the Detroit
Jewish community was in 1989. Cost is a
concern, but the time may be right for
another. The struggle to protect Jewish
identity from full assimilation has dramat-
ically changed our way of life and think-
ing. It's why we're so high on Jewish edu-
cation as an antidote to intermarriage,
lack of synagogue affiliation, ignorance
about our heritage and apathy toward reli-
gion.
The Jewish federated system's North
American umbrella, the United Jewish
Communities, expects to kick off its
National Jewish Population Study 2000 in
May, six months later than planned.
Defining who is Jewish has been a signifi-
cant roadblock. The $5 million study will
be the first national survey of American
Jews iii 10 years.
The delay, however, gives the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit a
timely window to consider doing its own
new study, perhaps on a smaller scale than
the wide-ranging one conducted 11 years
ago.
A smaller study, for example, might tar-
get the newest Jewish areas, which include
those that have held Jewish Community
Council town hall meetings over the past
18 months. It would help validate town
hall findings based on the unique needs of
Jews outside the core of southern Oakland
County.

IN FOCUS

Within the core, if that were the target,
we could measure how Southfield — a
vital bridge between the Jewish communi-
ties centered in Oak Park and West
Bloomfield — is faring in terms of Jewish
population, culture and resources. At the
same time, we could gauge how our new
Russian neighbors are doing.
A metropolitan-wide study could pin-
point how many of us there really are. Is
the 1989 Jewish-population estimate of
96,000 in metro Detroit now higher or
lower? Also, how do we break down today
into Judaism's various streams?
Many of Federation's constituent agen-
cies, from Jewish Family Service to the
Agency for Jewish Education, rely on peri-
odically collected data. Using current
demographics would give that data more
context and application.
What about Detroit's younger Jews?
Are we positioned to design a definitive
blueprint for keeping them involved
spiritually? Freshly gathered facts, pro-
fessionally interpreted, would elevate
that possibility.
The fruits of even a smaller demo-
graphic study could help us evaluate our
past, monitor the present and anticipate
our future. Using the output from such
a study, Federation could decide
whether we should take another sweep-
ing look at Jewish Detroit, similar to the
data-rich one that's now more than a
decade old.
With foresight, Federation has talked
about the merits of a demographic
update of some sort. It's time for a sta-
tus report. El]

Green Power

The phone banks were busy as
24 volunteers raised $8,922 in
pledges at the Jewish National
Fund's second annual Green
Sunday Phone-athon, kickoff to
a month-long fund-raising cam-
paign. Most prolific was Michi-
gan Region/B'nai Writh Youth
Organization President Adam
Schlesinger (right), 17, of Farmington Hills. He raised $1,147 in 26
pledges, including the day's highest pledge of $360. Other top pledge pro-
ducers included Adam Horowitz, 14, of West Bloomfield ($658) and
Amanda Adelson, 12, of Southfield ($335). Proceeds will help curtail the
water shortage in Israel through the construction of dams to catch rainwa-
ter in reservoirs before it wends its way into the Mediterranean, Dead and
Red seas, said senior campaign associate Annie Goldstein Alekman (above,
with volunteer Stephanie Greenbaum of West Bloomfield). Last year's
Green Sunday campaign raised $18,000.

Calling The Shots

A

recent episode of the NBC series West Wing
had "U.S. President Josiah Bartlett" angrily
complaining that the recommended "pro-
portionate response" against a terrorist
attack was inadequate repayment for the death of the
soldier killed in the attack. Why not a disproportionate
response, he asked, something really big with lots of
damage to the war centers of the terrorist state?
We've felt that way ourselves these last two weeks
as six Israeli soldiers were killed by Hezbollah
attacks in south Lebanon. Why not some really
powerful IDF strike at the guerilla bases, even if that
was likely to mean substantial "collateral damage,"
the military euphemism for civilian casualties?
And then we looked at that almost surreal photo-
graph of Grozny after the Russians captured the
Chechen rebel capital, and we understood why pro-
portionate is better. Barbarity breeds more barbarity,
not less.

Related story: page 30

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak did the right
thing in ordering a measured strike against Lebanese
power plants Monday and Tuesday. The action slows
the recovery of the Lebanese economy, which in turn
slows the already devastated Syrian economy, which in
turn discourages Syrian support for the arms shipments
from Iran that allow Hezbollah to operate.
Barak was under vast pressure from the right to
strike at a broader range of Lebanese targets after the
latest Hezbollah acts that effectively ended the 1996
Grapes of Wrath agreement to minimize violence
against the IDF defensive presence in south
Lebanon. Such a strike, it was reckoned, could hard-
ly do more to disrupt the Syrian peace talks than
Hafez Assad had already done by insisting he
wouldn't negotiate unless Israel first commits to a
Golan withdrawal.
But massive retaliation, no matter how emotion-

But massive retaliation,
no matter how
emotionally satisfying,
would have crippled the
peace process for years.

ally satisfying, would have crippled the peace process
for years — and it would have incited future
Lebanese reprisals against Galilee settlements after
the planned IDF withdrawal from Lebanon this
summer.
Like NBC's fictional President Bartlett, Barak
ultimately made the right call. 111.

IN

2/11
2000

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