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The Kishkas Connection

T

wo local families that are titans of
Jewish philanthropy have teamed up
to try to beat one of the communal
world's toughest hurdles — revitaliz-
ing the synagogue. Their efforts are so innovative
they serve as a national model ("Help For Syna-
gogue Schools," March 24).
Industrialist William Davidson has joined
with former U.S. ambassador to Norway David
Hermelin and his wife, Doreen, to create the
Hermelin-Davidson Center for Congregation
Excellence — a sweeping move that takes dead
aim at making the synagogue more relevant in
our everyday lives. Together, their gifts total $3
million, which the Jewish Federation of Metro-
politan Detroit has matched in hopes of endow-
ing a $10 million fund. Everything from pro-
grams to personnel in the synagogue is targeted
for a significant upgrade.
The underlying hope of the program is to
strengthen the kishkas connection between the
synagogue and its congregants — a powerful
connection sprung from a person's very being.
The strongest Judaism is the one rooted in
the family at home. Still, studying together in
synagogue is an enduring way for congregants
to unite Jewishly and affirm their religious
identity.
The Hermelin-Davidson Center's ultimate
success hinges on its advisory board shaping an
environment that encourages the synagogue to
speak passionately to people previously inspired
more by apathy than prayer.
And that won't be easy.
For example, the center will cater to all the
religious streams, whose liturgical approaches are
strikingly different, and Jews of all ages, whose
needs are strikingly different. Each congregation
will monitor its own progress, but how will the
Hermelin-Davidson Center measure the compar-
ative worth of these congregational initiatives?
Undoubtedly, the measuring tools adopted at

IN Foos

Temple Israel, a 3,200-family Reform congrega-
tion, will vastly differ from those used at Young
Israel of Oak Park, a 240-family Orthodox shul.
For some of us, we feel the goose bumps at
synagogue. We're divinely inspired the instant we
walk inside.
For many others, the synagogue is service and
activity based — Hebrew school, adult education
classes, luncheon speakers, Purim carnivals, congre-
gational seders, Yahrzeit acknowledgments.
Foremost, the synagogue- shOuld be a haven to
learn and to teach. It should be the great equaliz-
er, a common ground. Neither social standing
nor level of observance should matter.
Synagogues collect dues to operate — there's
no denying that. But many of those who believe
"all the synagogue wants is my money" never
venture inside one to survey the range of services
and programs. It's not surprising that national
studies show less than half of all Jewish house-
holds (Jews from birth who maintain a Jewish
identity) belong to a synagogue.
To change this trend, clergy and lay leaders
must work together to dispel the myth that syna-
gogue life is only a series of unrelated religious
events.
They need to strengthen their partnerships
with congregation members through more
opportunities to tingle from the joy of learning
and through empowering congregants eager to
bare their spirituality with others.
The Hermelin-Davidson Center for Congre-
gation Excellence clearly sets the stage for 21st-
century synagogues to ignite a future aglow with
Jewish values and experiences.
We have good synagogues that can be better.
They can be more uplifting and fulfilling
through center-inspired initiatives.
But in the end, we have to want our syna-
gogues to be better. Money alone can't reverse a
lack of interest. It's crucial that the center's advi-
sory board remembers this as the euphoria sur-
rounding the $3 million gift fades. ❑

Spirit
Of The
Holiday

The handmade groggers
were working overtime
at the Marvin and Betty
Danto Family Health
Care Center in West
Bloomfield last week as
residents were treated to
"the whole Megilla" in
celebration of Purim.
Rabbi Yerachmiel Rabin and his
family donned costumes, while
other staff members helped resi-
dents make paper and foam
crowns. The groggers were made
of sticks, paper plates and peas.
Above, Danto's Fay Pearlman
wears a crown. Middle, Bassie and
Yosef Rabin, 9 and 14 respectively,
lead the Havdala ceremony. Below,
Chana Rabin, 4, as the queen,
holds a makeshift grogger.

An Opportunity Missed

p

ope John Paul II did much that was
admirable in his pilgrimage to the Holy
Land last week. At one level, he brought
attention to the ways in which religious
spirit, deeply felt, ennobles the whole world. Watch-
ing the 79-year-old pontiff force his tired limbs to
take him to the way stations of reverence was to
understand how spirit triumphs over flesh.
And his remarkable speech in the Hall of Remem-
brance at Yad Vashem showed how deeply he feels
about the agony of the Holocaust. "There are no words
strong enough to deplore the terrible tragedy of the
Shoah," he said — underlining the fact that even if the
church itself is unable to face the sin of its silence, his
compassion made that fact temporarily irrelevant.

Related story, page 31; commentary, page 44;
Text of pope's remarks: page 45

But in other ways, the pope missed the opportu-
nity that he had created to move Moslem and Jew,
Palestinian and Israeli, a bit closer to whatever they
might find in common. By speaking of the Shoah at
Yad Vashem, he reminded us of how we had been
hurt; by visiting the Dehaisheh refugee camp, he
reminded Palestinians of their pain. It was a little
like preaching to the choir, disconcertingly reminis-
cent of how an American presidential candidate
gives his audience only what it wants to hear.
How much more interesting and productive it
might have been if John Paul had spoken to the

Palestinians of the centuries and centuries of perse
cution directed at Jews. How much might his Israeli
audience have gained had he spoken to them about
the million Palestinians whose refugee conditions
mirror passages in our own past.
The pope is the only religious figure with a solid
enough moral standing — not only as the leader of
one billion Roman Catholics but also as one who has
truly cared to learn about other faiths and other peo-
ples — to force us to face unpleasant truths about our-
selves. It wouldn't have directly affected the politics of a
negotiated peace, but it might have created an ethical
climate for greater acceptance of some mutual goals.
The moment is gone and won't come again.
What a pity.

3/31
2000

43

