This Week
Staff Notebook
JEWS WITH A GIFT FOR GIVING
Jews number under three percent of the nation's population. Yet in 1993
thousands of Jewish foundations and groups gave about ten percent of the
$12 billion awarded by all U.S. charitable organizations. And the ratio
hasn't measurably changed since that year. Our age-old tradition of
philanthropy continues as we reach out in friendship and generosity to
fellow citizens and nations in need.
More than fifty major hospitals and medical centers across the
country have been built and are supported by Jewish funding. Among other
recipients are schools, libraries, museums, the arts, research institutes,
recreational facilities and community development programs. Significantly,
the giving is largely unconditional--awarded to worthy causes regardless of
religious, racial or ethnic affiliations. Meet a few representative benefactors.
GEORGE SOROS
(1930- ) b. Budapest, Hungary
Fund Management Executive He is a legendary
money trader regarded by Wall Street as the
greatest hedge fund investor ever. He may also be
the most influential and dedicated philanthropist
of the era. The survivor of the Holocaust and
communism emigrated to the U.S. in 1956. His
company, which buys and sells securities in
worldwide markets, has amassed $18 billion under management. And his
foundations have donated $360 million to worthy causes in 1996 alone.
Hundreds of millions were earlier spent to help liberate European countries
from the Soviet orbit. Open Society projects were formed to advance
freedom of speech and human rights around the world. More recently, well
over $100 million is funneling to domestic programs to aid emigrants attain
citizenship, help solve the drug problem, improve care for the dying, safely
reduce prison populations, and improve the math and intuitive skills of
American students. His longing: "To change the world for the better."
; ;f ir ::.:.
WALTER ANNEN BERG
(1908- ) b. Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Publisher/Diplomat The self-made billionaire
built a communications empire from his late
father's Triangle Publications, publishers of The
Philadelphia Inquirer and the failing Daily Racing
Form. Restoring the latter to health, he added
such titles as Seventeen and 7'V Guide which
became the world's largest circulation magazine.
Annenberg eventually sold these properties to put time to charitable works,
and was named by Forbes "America's greatest living philanthropist." Many
millions have financed a major charitable foundation and school of
communications that bear his name. He generously endowed museums,
libraries, hospitals and the United Negro College Fund. And spurning $1
billion offered by a Japanese syndicate for his art collection, he donated it
to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Further serving our nation,
Annenberg was appointed U.S. ambassador to England (1969-74).
WILLIAM DAVIDSON
• • • • •••••••••
(1923- ) Detroit, MI Industrialist In 1957, he
assumed the presidency of Guardian Industries, a
Detroit-based corporation which he grew to
become the world's fourth-largest glassmaker--
with its focus on architectural "float" glass. In the
process, he broke the stranglehold of the American
glass monopoly and established an international
network of factories in Europe, Asia and Israel.
Guardian is also active in the auto and flat gas markets. A managing partner
with a 70% stake in the Detroit Pistons, Davidson is . equally a philanthropist
involved in funding educational programs in the U.S. and Israel. His multi-
million dollar grants have endowed an institute within The University of
Michigan's School of Business Administration that helps newborn Eastern
European democracies develop market economies...a world-class business
school at Israel's prestigious Technion Institute of Technology...and a
forthcoming graduate school to train teachers and principals at New York's
Jewish Theological Seminary of America. - Saul Stadtmauer
3/16
2001
20
COMMISSION FOR THE DISSEMINATION OF JEWISH HISTORY
Walter & Lea Field, Founders/Sponsors
Irwin S. Field, Chairperson
Harriet F. Siden, Chairperson
Visit many more notable Jews at our website: www.dorledor.org
Rabbinic Role
Inspires Debate
A Little Dark,
A Big Megillah
Non-Orthodox rabbis should work
toward closing the gap between rabbi
and congregant, a gap caused by shift-
ing demographics, such as a high rate
of intermarriage and the lures of full
assimilation.
So said Dr. Steven Bayme, director
of the American Jewish Committee's
Department of Contemporary Jewish
Life, during a stopover in Bloomfield
Township last week.
Conservative Rabbi Jay Strear of
Adat Shalom Synagogue sees the gap
between rabbi and congregant in a dif-
ferent light. He sees rabbis integrating
their own religious, professional and
personal lives while many congregants
lead very fractured and compartmental
lives "lacking an integration between
religious values and secular values.
"I see this to such an extent," Rabbi
Strear said, "that when I ask students
participating in religious school how
what they learn in religious school
influences their daily decisions outside
the synagogue, these students are inca-
Congregation T'Chiyah, the
Reconstructionist synagogue that
meets at the Royal Oak Woman's
Club, was enjoying Purim services last
week when the lights went out.
A power failure in the Fourth and
Pleasant Street neighborhood forced
T'Chiyah members to complete the
reading of the Megillat Esther, eat their
pot-luck dinner and wash the dishes
via candles and emergency lights.
T'Chiyah President Sandy Hansen
said the 20 congregants in attendance,
under the direction of members
Martin Baum and Susan Sheiner, took
turns walking over to the wall and
reading the megillah in English under
the battery-powered emergency lights.
"I guess you could call it Haman's
Revenge," said Baum. "Fortunately,
our Sunday school's Purim play went
on before the lights went off."
The joke among members now, he
added, is: "Where were you when the
lights went out?"
Alan Hitsky
pable of answering the question. And
frankly, adults are no better prepared
to answer this question. We as a Jewish
community have little sense of how
Judaism is to instruct our daily lives."
Bayme also thinks that rabbis should
do more to elevate the synagogue to
"the core institution for transmitting a
sense of Jewish continuity" and should
receive communal service training to
become better community builders.
To that, Rabbi Strear first said he
considers "the home the core of Jewish
life, not the synagogue." With the syn-
agogue "the center for the life of the
extended family, so to speak," he said,
"the rabbi's role is less of a community
builder in addressing the larger needs
of the Jewish community — such as
education, social welfare, relationships
with gentiles — and more as a builder
of interpersonal community, a builder
of relationships."
— Robert A. Sklar
—
Peace Mural
Vandalized
Huntington Woods artist Lynne
Avadenka's street-side mural on the
building housing the Lemberg and
Revolution galleries, 23257
Woodward in Ferndale, is a calli-
graphic piece promoting harmony
between Jewish and Islamic people.
In the Center, the words "human"
and "being" are stacked atop each
other so the type begins to twist the
meaning — human being or being
human? The Hebrew and Arabic
words for human being straddle the
center, with small English translitera-
tions beneath each.
On a recent Saturday, Revolution
director Paul Kotula was getting a bagel
across Woodward when he noticed a
middle-aged man with a backpack fid-
dling with the billboard. He raced