OTHER VIEWS
Time To Move On
0
ver the years of being a
writer for the Jewish News, I
have to say that my back-
ground often surprises peo-
ple. But it is not so much that I was
born and raised a Catholic and then
decided to convert to Judaism that tit-
illates.
No, some surprise comes from the
fact that I went the Shrine of the Lit-
tle Flower Grade School and graduat-
ed from Shrine High School. Usually
upon hearing that, people tell me that
old Father Charles Coughlin must be
spinning in his grave to see that one of
the students who attended his funeral
is now a Jew.
The reason I reveal this information
is usually to explain why I did not
attend Hebrew school or why I am
not related to Bill Davidson. But
today, I find it important to revisit
this personal history because a lot of
people who still have animosity for
that bas-relief statue that looms in
Royal Oak and for the people who are
writing the history about it.
In the past few months, there has
been a vocal movement against a dis-
play in the national shrine in Royal
Oak and against a book published by
the Archdiocese of Detroit. Passages
Jill Davidson Sklar of Huntington
Woods is of a freelance writer and for-
mer Jewish News staff writer.
JILL
DAVIDSON
SKLAR
Community
Views
from both works
do not declare
that Father
Coughlin was an
out and out anti-
Semite or that his
famous radio
broadcasts con-
tained a fair
amount of anti-
Semitic rhetoric.
And, on that
point, the
naysayers are
right; neither
work points out
this well-known fact.
But, in my humble opinion, where
the people who are bent on changing
the language cross the line is when
they insist, time and time again, that
these works be changed to reflect this
point. These individuals and organiza-
tions are causing an unfortunate strain
in relations with a faith-based group
of people with whom we have been
developing a relationship for the past
several years.
From my experience, Shrine was
not what people expect it to be. Look-
ing back on my nine years there, I
really only had two experiences that
gave a hint that Father Coughlin's
spirit was weak, but nevertheless alive,
at the school at 12 Mile Road and
Woodward Avenue.
In eighth grade, I had as a teacher
a particularly crabby and humorless
nun who insisted that the Jews were
actually responsible for Jesus' death.
Also in eighth grade, we were treated
to a history book that glorified
Father Coughlin's role, complete
with a picture of Shrine's founder in
a military uniform.
Telling It Straight
But there are at least two sides to this
matter. While the school certainly glo-
rified him, it was mostly because he
helped found the church and the
schools. However, there was no effort
to hide what he said and why it was
truly wrong.
In fact, the teacher who taught the
history class in eighth grade also made
it abundantly clear that not everything
that was broadcast from the tower
across the street was wonderful. He
told us in no uncertain terms that
Father Coughlin's anti-Semitic speech-
es were the reason the broadcast booth
had gone unused in the decades since
then.
Other teachers went over the con-
text and applications of the Vatican II
decisions, clarifying the misinforma-
tion we received from that nun.
For the most part, my education at
Shrine was filled with great experi-
ences that have helped to shape me.
With my parents' support, our teach-
ers encouraged us to do good things
and be good ambassadors of the faith
to others.
I was taught, for example, that
charity was of prime importance; as a
result, I became involved with active
giving to the poor by organizing
canned-food and used-clothing drives.
I wrote letters to politicians and raised
money for so many causes I can't
remember who was helped or how.
(Ironically, my Jewish counselor,
Sheryl Krasnow, encouraged me to go
into journalism in the first place.) This
was daily life at Shrine.
Some may find this hard to
believe, but Father Coughlin is dead.
I know. I saw his corpse with my
own eyes when I was chosen to be
the fourth-grade representative at his
funeral. His tirades are silent, but no
less remembered for what they were
in the sense of damaging anti-Semi-
tism.
The people there now are nothing
like him in that respect. But by press-
ing their faces into the steaming pile
of shame time and again, we will not
get those words that we seem so des-
perate to see. Instead, we will have
strained everything we have worked so
hard to achieve for the past several
years.
We all know what happened and
why it happened, even if it isn't
acknowledged for what it was in the
places that we want to see it. It is
time to forgive the wrong and move
on. ❑
It Is Our Duty To Endure
Philadelphia
T
he notion of a problem
without a solution is utter-
ly alien to the American
way of thinking.
The stereotypical 19th century
American was a person who had a
gadget for every form of work and a
hard-headed solution to every conflict.
Jews, too, tend to be appalled at the
idea that there are some things that
cannot be fixed. For us, it's not so
much a "can-do" spirit that will con-
quer all, but our predilection toward
messianic solutions to the world's
problems that makes us "cockeyed
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor of the
Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia. His
e-mail address is
jtobin@jewishexponent.corn
4/13
2001
32
optimists."
Judaism is a
civilization and a
faith that gave the
world the concept
of the End of
Days, in which
justice will prevail
throughout the
Earth and all will
JONATHAN S
acknowledge the
TOBIN
sovereignty of our
Spec ial
Creator.
Commentary
Some of us
take a pietistic
view of the universe, and think that
nothing much good will happen until
the arrival of the Messiah. But the
keynote of Jewish intellectual and cul-
tural life of the past century has been
the idea that we can change the world
and make justice prevail in it even
before the long-delayed Messiah
makes his appearance.
Jewish intellectual contributions to
secular left-wing ideologies, such as
socialism, bore the marks of this faith-
based conception of a perfectible
world. Zionism, the Jewish national
liberation movement, also bore some
of the marks of messianism, with its
desire to create a "new Jew," and revo-
lutionize Jewish life by making a pow-
erless and homeless people sovereign
in their ancient land.
But along with our messianic
urge to perfect the world came
impatience with its imperfections.
Those who think they can change
history believe they can do anything.
That is especially true for those who
believe they are accomplishing such
tasks without heavenly aid. Such
hubris has led to the commission of
some of the worst crimes in human
history.
Yes, there are some problems with
no easy solutions. But attempts to
solve them with a bold stroke will
often cause even more sorrow.
And there's no better example of
this than the conflict in the Middle
East.
Plenty Of Enemies
As we celebrate Passover this year,
the idea that there is no end to war-
fare between Israelis and Arabs
weighs heavily upon Jewish hearts.
The events of the last seven months
have put an end to the optimism
that prevailed for the previous seven
years about an imminent end to the