itorials

4. 4

Editorials and Letters to the Editor are posted and archived on JN Online:

www.detroitjewishnews.com

L

Weekend To Remember

• Rabbi Daniel Nevins was
ast weekend underscored
installed
as senior rabbi of Adat
Detroit Jewry's rich
Shalom
Synagogue.
Speaking for
diversity.
many,
the
Jewish
Federation's
It began on erev Shab-
Robert Aronson sajd, "Danny has
bat at Temple Shir Shalom. Speak-
left
his mark well beyond the
ing on behalf of the Archdiocese of
bounds
of Adat Shalom as both a
Detroit at Rabbi Dannel Schwartz'
spiritual and communal leader."
invitation, Cardinal Adam Maida
• There also was the kickoff to
broke through the veiled regrets of
the
Jewish Community Center's
the Roman Catholic Church to
popular
Lenore Marwil Jewish
declare that he is "a
Film Festival, a gath-
member of a
ering of Muslim,
Church that allowed
Christian and Jewish
the Jewish people to
leaders
in an inspir-
suffer and to die."
ing symposium at
Apologizing from
Congregation Beth
the heart, he extend-
Shalom and the
ed an open hand in
opening of a regional
pursuit of interfaith
forum of Hadassah
harmony.
leaders
hosted by the
A Yom HaShoah candle.
Sunday, mean-
Greater
Detroit
while, was equally
chapter.
uplifting. It was a day of joy and
Other Jewish communities
solace, of memories and emotions.
Illustrating why Detroit is a model dream of what we in Detroit rou-
tinely do — experience all of
for American Jewry:
Judaism's
vitality and opportunity.
• There was the moving Yom
At
a
time
when assimilation
HaShoah memorial program at
threatens
the
very fiber of our
Congregation B'nai Moshe. Shaar-
being
as
a
people,
the Detroit Jew-
it Haplaytah President Abraham
ish
community
exudes
a passion to
Weberman set the tone when he
be
Jewish
and
to
live
Jewishly.
And
movingly said, "For us survivors,
we
do
it
with
a
sense
of
pluralism
the Holocaust' has never ended."
— as Jews, with each person's affil-
iation secondary. ❑
Related story: page 30

IN FOCUS

Helping Hands

West Bloomfield's Marvin and Betty
Danto Family Health Care Center
honored 95 volunteers at an April din-
ner. Left, Danto's Rabbi Yerachmiel
Rabin speaks to the audience. Above,
the volunteers include Jodie Gold, 5,
of Farmington Hills, who visits Danto
residents once a week. The annual din-
ner is in its fourth year.

A Deadly Attack On Minorities

T

his week we commemorated Holocaust
Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) to
honor six million Jews killed by the Nazis
in the Holocaust — and to ensure the
world does not forget how racial hatred can fast
deteriorate into meaningless murder.
Unfortunately, the millions of ghosts that cry out
to us from places such as Cambodia, Rwanda and
Bosnia bear witness to the fact that the world has
not learned this heavy lesson.
But this curious learning disability is not limited
to far away lands. Here in America, regular acts of
racially motivated violence continue to leave our
minority communities frightened, angry, scarred.
On this Yom HaShoah, while names of some of
the six million were read aloud at Congregation
B'nai Moshe in West Bloomfield, the name of Anita
Gordon echoed on its steps. Gordon, a Jewish
mother of three, was killed last week by a rampaging
racist in Pittsburgh because she was Jewish.
Because she was an American minority.
The crime perpetuated by the Pittsburgh gunman

Related story: page 26

was not an act against "the Jews." It was an act
against all minorities.
Garry Lee, an African-American was murdered in
a karate school; Anil Thankurt, an Indian, was
killed in an Indian grocery; Thao Quoc Pham and
Ji-Ye Sun were gunned down in a Chinese restau-
rant, and Gordon was killed in her home.
This incident should not be written off as just
another act of "random violence." Random acts of vio-
lence happen to anyone caught in the crosshairs of a

gunman's rifle when he snaps. This act of violence was
committed against a very specific target — minorities
—. and carried out in very specific places of ethnic
business (shots were also fired at two synagogues).
It is time our legislators stop wasting their time
scheming about holding congressional hearings into
the Elian Gonzales affair and start investing their
energies and our nation's resources in weeding out
America's homegrown terrorists who kill out of big-
otry and hate.
Our government is failing to uphold vital elements
of its social contract with the American people: to pro-
tect its citizens from violence and to assure the civil
rights of all its residents to live and worship freely.

It is time we take our political leaders to task.
The Anti-Defamation League here in Detroit
played a key role in ensuring passage of Michi-
gan's hate crime legislation. Other Jewish organi-
zations have banded together on the local and

federal levels to win approval of other key legisla-
tive initiatives.
We encourage the organized Jewish community
to extend its leadership role to work with local and
federal politicians to acknowledge the crisis on
American streets and develop creative solutions to
address the scourge.
While passage of current national hate crime
and gun control legislation will help, our govern-
ment must also do a better job of.identifying and
tracking people who demonstrate mental instabil-
ity or racial hatred that make them a significant
threat to others. And it needs to fund cooperative
minority ventures that empower communities to
protect themselves.
Garry Lee, Anil Thankurt, Thao Quoc Pham, Ji-
Ye Sun, Anita Gordon. Read these names aloud.
Isn't it time we redouble our efforts to ensure Amer-
icans heed the lesson of the Holocaust? ❑

317

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2000

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