Opinion
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On The Day Of Atonement
hen the shofar sounded the
end of Yom Kippur a year
ago, many American Jews
were thinking about Israel and
the campaign of terror that the Palestinians
had launched at Rosh Hashanah.
The idea that the world that was being
made new in 5761 might be worse, very
much worse, for America was hardly credi-
ble. We were thinking about the booming
economy and the coming presidential elec-
tion. As Jews,.we worried about what might
happen in the Middle East and we hoped
that the "peace process" had not come com-
pletely off the track.
In this country, we did not fear
for our safety Our neighbors
were allies, Canada and Mexico,
who shared our goals and beliefs about
personal freedom, about the rightness of
democracy. Great oceans protected us from
anyone who would want to do us harm.
Whether we truly repented our sins or
not, most of us saw no reason why we
should not all be sealed in the Book of Life
for another year.
This Sept. 11, not quite a week before
the start of Rosh Hashanah, all our com-
fortable beliefs were shaken to their core
by an act so evil, we still cannot under-
stand how anyone could have envisioned
it, much less carried it out. What had
5,000 people done, we cried, to deserve
that? Was God punishing America for
hubris or for something far worse?
liv
As we have tried in this last week to
make some sense of the inconceivable, we
have returned again to the understanding
that this colossal act of terror was the work
of man, not of God. The Maker of the
Universe gives each of us the capacity to
do good or evil; that some choose evil is
only a comment on them.
Against the evil, we have set qualities
like the courage of the New York Firefight-
ers and police officers who gave their lives
to try to save the people trapped in those
towering infernos. Against the evil, we
count the resolve of this nation to wage a
war on terrorism and the gov-
ernments that tolerate it and the
causes that create its "martyrs."
The year 5762 will begin in
America on the most somber of notes. But
it will begin with every bit as much poten-
tial for a more joyful future as 5761 did.
We know that ultimately the outcome will
depend on what we choose to do, as indi-
viduals and as a nation.
When the shofar sounds again this Yom
Kippur, we will not be able to avoid hear-
ing in it the echoes of the sirens on the
streets around the World Trade Center.
But we will also hear the sound of God's
promise that the world has been born
anew, that it is filled just as much with
the promise of sweetness and goodness as
it was with possibility of the evil and sad-
ness that marked the beginning and the
end of 5761. El
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EDITORIAL
Israel Needs Us
And We Need Israel
Aboard El Al Flight 031
T
here we were, 81 strong; 81 members of
the Detroit Jewish community who had
joined with 450 other participants in
.
the IsraelNow Solidarity Mission spon-
sored by the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit and federations throughout North
America.
Our friends and family members asked, "Why
are you going? Is it safe?"
We were confident that the mission was well
planned, safe and, most of all, absolutely essential.
Under the leadership of the national mission
chairwoman, our own Jane Sherman, we were res-
olute in our commitment to travel to our homeland
to support our brothers and sisters in Israel. We all
Mark Davidoff of West Bloomfield is chief operating
o zcer and executive director of the Jewish Federation
of Metropolitan Detroit. El Al Flight 031 was the first
non- U S. carrier to re-enter U.S. airspace on the East
Coast following the Sept. 11 attack on America.
We Chose Life
knew that Israel needs us and we need Israel.
The mission started Monday evening,
It was Tuesday afternoon. We had stopped
Sept. 10, with an address by Foreign
at a highway junction in route to Detroit's
Minister Shimon Peres. In a prophetic
partnership region in the Central Galilee.
statement, he warned mission participants
Amongst the casual conversation, the first
that "suicidal" terrorism had changed the
cellphone rang. The look on the face of
rules of the game, not only for Israel, but
the listener told the story.
also for the entire free world.
One by one, cell phones began to ring.
MARK
Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, we heard
DAVIDOFF Bits and pieces of information were corn-
from Raanan Gissin, spokesperson for
municated to our group: The first tower of
Community
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. He declared
the World Trade Center. The second
Views
he was a soldier by commission, a politi-
tower. The Pentagon. An unknown num-
cian by profession and, most of all, a Jew
ber of hijacked planes still in the air.
by birth and conviction. He highlighted how the
In that moment, we all experienced the emotion
recent wave of suicide bombers had changed the
and terror that every Israeli experiences when
face of Israeli society.
sirens ring out and news bulletins fill the air-
Once again, in a prophetic statement, he asked
waves. Where is my family and are they safe?
us the do the math. The current Palestinian intifiz-
As the gravity of the situation became clear, our
da (uprising) had claimed 170 Israeli lives. If a
81-member delegation had to make a decision.
proportional number of Americans were killed in
Waiting for us one hour to the north were 200
like kind attacks, the numbers would reach into
MARK DAVIDOFF on page 36
the thousands.
9/21
2001
33