EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK LETTERS Letters are posted and archived on JN Online: wvvw.detroitjewishnews.com From Dream To School 0 Aerating money is short, two more grade levels must be added and the manner that colleges will evaluate its students is unknown. But Detroit Jewry's newest day high school has much to be proud of on its first anniversary. Skeptics dared the believers to succeed — and they have. And that's a tribute to all who have built the Jewish Academy of Metropolitan Detroit, born from a 1996 dream of Hillel Day School parents and significant outside support. Tough challenges await this college preparatory school, which blends secillAr and Jewish studies. But the dream is now reality, the support continues to grow and the promise has never been greater. Expectations were always high, with the founding parents seeking a quality of education equal to, if not better than, what ROBERT A. tax-supported high schools deliver. SKLAR. Metro Detroit is 11th nationwide in regional Jewish popula- tion. Still, the Academy opened last August with the largest ini- Editor tial enrollment for a non-Orthodox Jewish day high school ever in North America: 51 students in the ninth and 10th grades. Good educators were what these students needed most. So it's notable that the Academy's lay leadership, under Robert Roth and Jef- frey Garden, landed a strong professional staff led by Rabbi Lee Buckman (head of school), Rabbi Aaron Bergman (head of Judaic studies) and Dr. Helene Cohen (director of academic affairs), and a top-flight faculty of 24 teachers will- ing to innovate. It's notable, too, that the Academy's first families looked past a public, private or established religious school or uncharted hallways and an untested curriculum. The Academy's Class of 2003 — in the midst of their most formative years — also gave up the opportunity for more class and after-school choices so they could strengthen their Jewish identity as they prepared for college. _ Not surprisingly, the task of recruitment elicited concern from nearby schools that have lost students to the Academy. Clearly, the key player in the Academy's emergence is Rabbi Buckman — demanding, tireless, focused and a mentsh. I liked his understated presence at last week's anniv'ersary program at the Jew- ish Community Center in West Bloomfield, where the Academy is temporarily housed. The students were the stars, he said, and he kept that theme alive. "My prayer," he said to the pioneering class, "is that you continue to inspire other students to follow your lead, that you will be the role model for what the next gen- eration of Jews can become, and that your children will be a source of pride to you as you are to your parents and to us." Growing Pains In August, student enrollment will near 100 as the 11th grade arrives and the Academy moves to modular buildings outside the JCC. A permanent home is envisioned elsewhere on the Eugene and Marcia Applebaum Jewish Community Campus. The biggest financial contributor, the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, has gil (_n $1.1 million to the Academy in startup, facility renovation and operational support fund- Rabbi Buckman ing. But Academy leaders acknowledge that fund raising and endowments are necessary to slice deficits and sustain quality because tuition covers just a third of operating costs. The multistream Academy joins several day high schools in our Orthodox community. Detroit Jewry also has many congregational high schools. Their missions differ, but their goals are similar: to repel the effects of assimilation and proselytizing, and to maintain Jewish continuity. Upwards of 30 new Jewish day high schools will open across the U.S. between 1991 and 2006, despite a shortage of administrators, teachers, cultural arts offerings and tuition scholarships, and a need for better educational models to train staff and develop curriculum. The Academy must prove itself over time as the challenges of a new school mount, but the prospects are strong that our community's investment in the dream will reap dividends for generations. 0 Ark March Helps Us Remember As long as Mr. Jay R. Shayevitz asked about the benefits of the March of the Living-Detroit Teen Unity Poland/Israel Experience ("What Are The March's Benefits?", May 18, page 6), none of "us" are trying to build a religion around the Holocaust. Why do we celebrate Chanukah? The Temple was cleaned and rededi- cated. Why do we celebrate Purim, which commemorates an "almost" tragedy, or Pesach, which marks our redemption from bondage? Were our ancestors trying to start a new reli- gion? Perhaps you will allow me to still mourn six million of my brothers and sisters. Had they survived, they, by extension, would number 90 million today. You see: I'm one of those Jews who walked out of Auschwitz 56 years ago and again five weeks ago. I was there in Warsaw on the March of the Living when 400 kids from six countries sang and danced at Kabbalat Shabbat (welcoming of Shabbat) like I had never seen before. The next morning, we all met in a historic shul in downtown Warsaw and even you might have thought it was Simchat Torah: The students delayed the reading of the parashah (Torah portion) for about one hour with their singing and • dancing. I know most of these students were not "ultra-Orthodox," but there were enough tzitzit (prayer shawl fringes) hanging out to make a garter. If you still need to be convinced about the importance of this march, ask any one of the 50 students from Israel or Detroit. They were united as one group, regardless of their level of education or religious obser- vance. We said Kaddish together. We marched together. And we remem- bered together. This is why the March of the Living is important — and why we, the parents and grand- parents, must not fail our young people. Alex Kuhn Southfield LETTERS on page 6 BUILDING AN INCLUSIVE COMMUNITY FROM THE INSIDE OUT JARC ANNUAL MEETING AND ELECTION OF OFFICERS with special guest speaker Dr. Al Condeluci Author, "Interdependence" Tuesday, June 12, 2001 7:30 p.m. D. Dan & Betty Kahn Building Jewish Community Center West Bloomfield No Charge 2001-2002 Slate of Officers and Directors President H. James Zack Vice-Presidents Rebecca David Stephanie Jacobson Eli Scheer Secretary Ron Applebaum Treasurer Dan Gilbert Nominated for an additional three-year term (expiring 2003) Ron Elkus Gilda Jacobs Carol Kaczander Mark Kahn Gary Karp John Marx Judith Shenkman Genie Sollish Nominated for a first three-year term (expiring 2003) Craig Erlich Harry Goldman Lon Grossman Larry Shulman Heidi Wineman Maryann Zukosky 3 0 3 0 1 Northwestern Hwy. Farmington Hills, MI 48034 248.538.6611 www.jarc.org IN 5/25 2001 5