Bedford Villa

This Week

HealthCare Center

• 24 Hour Nursing Care

• Alzheimers Care

• Respite Care

• Bed & Board Program

• Hospice & Pain Management

SPECIAL NEEDS SERVICES INCLUDE:

• ILI( hs • IV's • Pictinc ,, • Stage I\'

• Wound Care

Insurances include Medicare, Private Insurance, Managed Care
Call Glen A. Lowery, Administrator
or Susan Militello, Admissions Director

248-557-3333

16240 West 12 Mile • Just West of Greenfield • Southfield

TATE FLOWERS (248) 559-5424

GIFTS OF NATURE

WEDDING & PARTY SPECIALISTS
FLOWERS FOR ALL OCCASIONS

291 15 GREENFIELD
SOUTHFIELD, MI 48076

BASSONOVA

SALE!

•$75 Suits • $55 Gabardine Pants (No Black)

•20% OFF on Sweaters

Cy Lisnov

1 - 696 to Hoover,
Right on Hoover,
Left on Ten Mile
one blk:,
Right on Gibson

*

:4 ■ 16.6.0.

EVERY SATURDAY I 0 a.m.- 4 p.m.
COMFORT INN • FARMINGTON HILLS

(12 Mile Just East of Orchard Lake Rd.)

(248) 47 I -9220

Mon-Fri call (810) 754 - 6360
MON.-FR1. I p.m. to 5 p.m.

* *STAIRWAY LIFTS** * **

THE CAREFREE WAY TO
CLIMB STAIRS

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2000

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as freely as you once could, stairs can be a real prob-
lem. But there is a simple answer. The powered stairway
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ACTON RENTAL & SALES
LARRY ARONOFF
(313) 891-6500 (248) 540-5550

Entry of the FPO into government
triggered demonstrations and interna-
tional political sanctions. Israel with-
drew its ambassador from Vienna
even before the government was
sworn in.
Last week, Slovak President Rudolf
Schuster, making the first-ever visit
by a Slovak president to Israel, said
he supported the Israeli decision and
urged Israel to relocate its regional
embassy to the Slovak capital. The
Israeli ambassador to Austria also
serves as ambassador to Slovakia and
Slovenia.
The Freedom Party's inclusion in
Austria's new government also
prompted the Conference of
European Rabbis to announce that it
would move a major general meeting
— a session slated for March that
will include the chief rabbis of several
European nations — from Vienna to
Bratislava.
"The fact that we decided for a
move from Vienna is an ethical
issue," Aba Dunner, secretary-general
of the conference, was quoted as say-
ing in the Slovak press. "An ordinary
rabbi does not interfere in politics
but this is not a political problem,
but a moral and ethical one."
These developments reflect dra-
matic recent political changes in
Slovakia as much as they do condem-
nation of the situation in Austria.
They are changes that have polished
Slovakia's international image and
created a more positive atmosphere
regarding Jews and Jewish issues.
After Czechoslovakia split into two
independent states on Jan. 1, 1993,
independent Slovakia was ruled by
nationalist-populist Prime Minister
Vladimir Meciar, whose pro-Russia,
authoritarian policies isolated
Slovakia and delayed its integration
into Europe.
Meciar's ruling coalition included
the far-right Slovak National Party,
which advocated, among other
things, the rehabilitation of the pro-
Nazi wartime puppet regime in
Slovakia and regarded the wartime
leader, Catholic priest Josef Tiso, as a
national hero.
Nostalgia for the wartime
Independent Slovak State — the only
time Slovakia had been independent
— was a lodestone for many Slovaks
during the communist era. For many,
it represented the pinnacle of Slovak
national identity, despite its fascist
links and antisemitism, and despite
the fact that Slovaks themselves rose
up against Tiso in 1944.
Tiso's regime paid the Nazis to

"resettle" Slovak Jews; some 70,000
Jews were deported to their deaths.
Tiso himself was executed in 1947 as
a Nazi collaborator, traitor and war
criminal.
Although Meciar distanced himself
from the rehabilitation of Tiso and
pledged to combat antisemitism,
nationalist sentiments and the inclu-
sion of the Slovak National Party in
the government led to relations
between Jews and the Meciar govern-
ment that Slovak Chief Rabbi Baruch
Myers described as a "cold peace."
When Meciar was voted out of
office in September 1998, Mikulas
Dzurinda became prime minister.
Racing to make up for lost time, he
implemented a program of political
and economic reform aimed at forg-
ing closer ties to the West.
Last May, the pro-Western
Schuster soundly defeated Meciar in
the country's first direct presidential
election. In December, the European
Union invited Slovakia to begin talks
that will lead to EU membership.
"The current government of
Slovakia is considered kosher by the
Jewish community," said Myers, an
American-born Chabad rabbi who
was hired by the local Jewish commu-
nity in 1993.
Rabbi Myers, who said he had
asked Schuster to serve as patron of
the rabbinical conference, stressed
that these developments will benefit
the Jewish community as well as the
government's image.
"If the rabbis come and are
received by the government, that will
make a good impression," he said. "It
will also raise the consciousness of
the Jewish community."
As in other post-communist states,
there has been a flowering of Jewish
life in Slovakia since the fall of com-
munism 10 years ago.
There now are Jewish classes,
clubs, seminars, cultural events and
other activities, including an annual
two-week summer camp and a
kindergarten in Bratislava co-spon-
sored by the New York-based Ronald
S. Lauder Foundation.
Holidays are celebrated with com-
munal events that can draw well over
100 people.
Bratislava and Presov have new
Jewish museums and an Institute of
Jewish Studies is in Bratislava. Last
month saw the inaugural ceremony
for a spacious new Jewish education
center in Bratislava that will be run
under Chabad auspices. There is even
a local klezmer group, the Pressburger
Klezmer Band. ❑

