This Week
Cover Story
Making The Connection
Michigan Unity Mission's empathetic support and personal
connections buoy Israelis in troubled times.
KERI GUTEN COHEN Story Development Editor
DEBBIE HILL Photographer
A
Jerusalem
Federation mission to Israel always has a purpose: Maybe it's to familiarize first-
timers with Israel so they'll be more involved back home, maybe it's to solicit
funds from established donors or maybe it's to grow new community leaders.
But the Michigan Unity Mission Jan. 14-19, cosponsored by the Jewish News,
was a "Mission" with a capital "M."
Israel has been hurting since the late September intzfada (PaleStinian uprising) with drastically
diminished tourism, increased business closures, rising unemployment and feelings of isolation.
The Detroit Jewish community wanted to be part of the healing process.
Though other cities joined a New York-organized United Jewish Communities mission this
month, the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit organized its own show of support.
"We don't like to do a cookie-cutter kind of mission, so we decided in mid-November to
do our own," said Robert Aronson, the Detroit Federation's chief executive officer. He
believed that this was the largest unity mission sent by a single Federation so far.
The Detroit trip was designed to include two days in Jerusalem and two days in the Central
Galilee, Michigan's Partnership 2000 region. (The Central Galilee and Michigan collaborate on
many business, educational, cultural and social projects.) The trip's emphasis was on building a
connection with the people and the land of Israel.
Despite U.S. State Department warnings against travel in Israel, Detroiters (plus people from
Ann Arbor, Flint, Grand Rapids and Lansing) quickly filled the 200 spots on an El Al charter
from Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
The group included Jewish communal executives and leadership, experienced travelers to Israel,
Israel first-timers of all ages, Jewish professionals, three non-Jews, 14 rabbis and representatives
from nearly all local synagogues, from Reform to Secular Humanist to Conservative to Orthodox.
To them all, this was a "Mission" with a capital "M."
"I haven't been to Israel since 1983, and it was the right time to come," said Larry Gunsburg of
Keego Harbor. "I really feel the purpose of the mission is to make a statement that we won't lose
support for Israel and her people."
Always Busy
The four-day schedule was grueling and nonstop — except for planned time to bolster the
economy through shopping sprees.
Despite the hectic schedule, which included speeches by such high-powered speakers as former
Prime Minister Shimon Peres and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, participants
remained true to their purpose.
"People on the mission were attentive, disciplined. They truly took the mission seriously,"
Aronson said.
And across the board, no one expressed fear about being in a region subjected to nearly daily vio-
lence. People saw firsthand that life goes on, and they fell in step with Israel's brand of normalcy
"It's not so bad. There isn't much shooting," Tom Adrian, 12, told a mission group that visited
his elementary school in the Jerusalem suburb of Gilo, which has been subjected to gunfire from
a nearby Palestinian village.
Meditation classes at his school help ease students' underlying stress. "I'm not afraid. We have
guards in the area. I play computer in my bomb shelter," Tom said.
As the mission group visited Gilo's Ha'Anafa Street, where sandbagged apartment buildings
take the brunt of Palestinian gunfire, they seemed to take circumstances in stride as well. No
one even flinched when they were told to lie flat if they heard shooting.
MAKING A CONNECTION on page 10
I
1/26
2001
6
Marty, right, and Ben
Rosenthal of Franklin
look at work by seniors
at the Say Yom Senior
Day Care Center in
the Jezreel Valley.
.. •
Opposite page,
clockwise from top lei
Paul Kohn of Southfield cuts
salami, a "Detroit Mission
tradition started by the late
David Hermelin," as Ben
Rosenthal helps on a mission bus.
Doreen Hermelin stands in front
of a portrait of her late husband David
at the ORT Hermelin College of
Engineering in Netanya.
Participants of the Michigan Uni t y
Mission march to the Western Wall
Rabbi Scott Bolton stands in
the educational room at Emek
Hospital where Jewish and
Arab children learn together.
Center: Alex Rosenhaus, 17,
and Diem Elleg, 17, both of
Farmington Hills march to the
Western Wall through the Jewish
Quarter beside Israeli soldiers.
ti