Cover Story

Mission Of Emotion

Detroiters visiting Israel discover that solidarity
goes both ways in wake of attack on America.

Bernie Brawer of Franklin, Morris Silverman of Farmington Hills and Bert Stein of West Bloomfield
march with youths from Detroit Jewry' Partnership 2000 region in the Central Galilee at Timrat.

HARRY KIRSBAUM

Staff Writer

3

11 ust moments before hearing the first report
of the terrorist attack in New York City,
Andy Roisman of Franklin was approached
by a tearful woman at the McDonald's in
the Alonim Junction in Israel's Central Galilee.
The woman had noticed the pair of tour buses on
the highway while she was driving the other way. In
an emotional surge, prompted by the IsraelNow and
Forever Solidarity Mission signs on the buses, she
sped to the next exit, turned around and raced back.
"She was crying and hugging me and carrying on
and telling me how wonderful it was to see us,"
Roisman said. "Then she got back in her car and left."
The encounter made participants of the Sept. 9-14
mission feel wonderful they were in Israel with other
Jews in an effort to show that even in the toughest
of times, when suicide bombings in Israel were
becoming a daily occurrence, Jews would never
abandon Israel.

9/21
2001

12

No one could have envisioned what the group
would learn just minutes later. And no one could
have anticipated that the solidarity the 81 Detroiters
set our to show Israelis would be reciprocated with
such impact.
"This trip is going to be different," said Larry
Jackier, incoming president of the Jewish Federation
of Metropolitan Detroit, in a prophetic statement
before the mission.
"We're not going to see sights, we're going to see
people. \X/e're going to address issues, and we're
going to look and see what the impact of all this is
having on our brothers and sisters in Israel."
This trip would be far different than anyone could
have imagined.

Full Circle

Goals of this national United Jewish Communities
mission were to show solidarity with distraught
Israelis and to let participants see where their over-
seas dollars are going. But all this turned upside

down on Sept. 11.
"I remember when [President John F.] Kennedy
was assassinated, where I was and what I was doing.
I also remember the Challenger [space shuttle explo-
sion], and this is another momentous event," said
Jill Sidman of West Bloomfield.
"I was thinking how ironic it was. Everyone was so
afraid of coming here [to Israel], and that happened
there. And I feel so safe here."
According to Mark Davidoff, Federation's execu-
tive director, the mission took its natural course —
until the news broke.
You could see throughout the afternoon that the
group was coalescing around our own tragedy, then
we were delivered into the Partnership 2000 region,
and there wasn't anywhere else in Israel that you'd
rather be with that circumstance in your face —
except to be with people you know, who you consid-
er your family," he said.
"You couldn't have written a more appropriate
plot to a Shakespearean tragedy than for us to be

MISSION on page 14