Editorials Editorials and Letters to the Editor are posted and archived on JN Online: www.detroitjewishnews.corn Dry Bones The Scourge Of AIDS Iff ary Fisher came home to Temple Beth El to keynote a coming-out against the global scourge of "a roaring con- flagration of agony" — HIV/AIDS. A daughter of Franklin's Marjorie and Max Fisher and the mother of two boys, Mary revealed that she was HIV positive in a 1992 speech at the Republi- can National Convention in Houston. Her husband died of AIDS in 1993. At Temple Beth El, she drove home why the Jewish community must join with others to dispel the myth that HIV/AIDS is "just a dirty little sex thing." It's not. It's contracted in many ways through the sharing of bodily fluids. And it knows no bounds — infect- ing fetuses as it saps their mothers, ravaging women as it does men. Jews carry the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and die from the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), but so do many other Americans. Gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders develop HIV/AIDS, but so do heterosexuals. Blacks, Asians and Hispanics get it, but so do other races. Worldwide, 36 million adults live with HIV/AIDS. The disease is rampant in Africa, where one of every two children is infected. Says Fisher: "Acres of Africa are littered with orphans, too hungry and too weak to do anything more than whimper." That image should haunt each of us. HIV/AIDS can strike unknowingly. And to not care is to condone the work of a methodic killer. Fisher, now a New Yorker and AIDS activist, was confirmed at Temple Beth El in 1963. She spoke Related story: page 59 Dec. 1 at the Michigan Jewish AIDS Coalition's Shabbat Service of Healing on World AIDS Day. She related how HIV/AIDS seems to have gone underground in the U.S. while continuing to kill at a growing clip. Upwards of 200 new cases are reported weekly. "Even in dying, some find healing. It's that search for healing that brings us here today," Fisher said from the Temple Beth El pulpit. West Bloomfield's Sylvia Block, whose son Nathan David Block died at age 42 in 1996, was there to hear Fisher's message and participate in the service. And her courage was humbling. She has seen AIDS cast its deadly spell, but has sum- moned the strength to fight it via the magic of the Michigan Jewish AIDS Coalition. MJAC strives to instill hope, provide support and maintain dignity through gemilut chasidim, acts of loving kindness. Meanwhile, U.S. health statistics should res- onate in our hearts until it hurts. Each year, the Centers for Disease Control log 40,000 new HIV infections; one in every two involves a person age 25 or younger. Some 13,000 Michiganians have HIV or AIDS. The.yearly cost of anti-HIV therapy can reach $16,000. Numbers can be just that, interesting but inani- mate — unless they embrace a relative, a friend or an acquaintance. Then they move you. But by then, it can be too late. Detroit Jewry can do its part through the com- mandment ofpikuach nefesh, of saving a life. We can learn more and care more about HIV/AIDS. We can give more, too. We also can help encourage prevention while toppling stereotypes. People with HIVS/AIDS — ouR Povriclows SOLD MANy I - TH&RE- (S NO AL -MOJA -AVE "rojEACE::4 4 OF US -7-14 1 1)6 A 71-1AT even strangers — need a caring hand, not a cold shoulder. Whatever twists and turns put them on the road to the disease, they're not looking to be judged or forsaken. They're looking for faith, not scorn. They're look- ing to be accepted, not ridiculed. And they're look- ing to live, not die. We must answer the call. For it's the right thing to do. It's the Jewish way. ❑ A Lame Duck I sraeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak needs to start behaving as if he understands what he agreed to in okaying new national elections. Chiefly, he must recognize that he no longer has a mandate to negotiate a comprehensive peace settlement with the Palestinians. At most, he should work for a series of concrete steps that will substantially eliminate terrorist actions and violent actions by the Palestinian masses, while bringing a standdown of the Israeli troops, tanks and gun ships that have been used to retaliate for Palestinian assaults. It is troubling to hear Barak — whose courage we admire but whose political judgment we have come to question — talk about a willingness to continue seeking either a partial, or a total, agreement with the Palestinians. Hasn't he read the Hanoch/Smith poll, which shows that only 24 percent of the nation — and that includes Israeli Arab support — backs him as prime minister? Barak seems not to realize that he now heads an interim government that does not have a popular mandate to commit the nation to any major domes- tic or international policy position, much less dis- cuss terms on the most vital question of Israel's future. Imagine if President Bill Clinton, in the next six weeks before he leaves office, were to order the destruction of America's nuclear-missile system. You would have some idea of how preposterous it is to think about Barak's resuming substantive talks with the Palestinians, who replied to the generous offers of Camp David with some of the worst acts of anti- Israeli violence in more than a decade. Limited Success When Barak was elected 18 months ago, he did have specific mandates embodied in that 54-46 trouncing of Likud's Binyamin Netanyahu, the incumbent prime minister. Barak delivered on the promise to get the troops out of Lebanon. Bravo. But he could not deliver a long-lasting peace pact with the Palestinians. Admittedly, it wasn't for lack of trying, but rather because Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian people were not ready to abandon their rejection of Israel as a legitimate state, and believed that they could bring the Jew- ish state to its knees through regular acts of vio- lence. Whatever the cause, the peace mandate of 1999 has vanished. It will take the coming political cam- paign to sort out whether the majority of the nation wants to continue along the road from Oslo, or whether it believes a path of controlled mutual antagonism will have to do over the next few years. That is, until the Palestinians realize that compro- mise — not gunfire — is the only way to achieve a state for themselves and a future for their children. What remains of Barak's One Israel coalition gov- ernment can — and indeed, should — explore lim- ited, concrete and enforceable agreements that stop the escalating cycles of fighting that have claimed nearly 300 lives in the last two months. But until the country can sort out where it stands, Barak cannot solidly play either dove or hawk. He is, and must remain quite simply, a lame duck. ❑ 12, 201