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Beyond The Moment

S

habbat was still a few hours
away when I listened to a
voice-mail message from an
embittered college student.
The anonymous call last Friday
pointed up how conditioned we are to
letting anti-Semitism anger us, but not
having a clue how to substantively
address it.
The morning call came from a mem-
ber of the Jewish Law Students
Association (JLSA) at Wayne State
University in Detroit's Cultural
District.
He said that sometime the previous
weekend, the JLSA notice board, post-
ed in a commons area of the law school
basement, was vandalized.
"I imagine it probably had something
to do with events going on around the
world," said the caller, who didn't give
his name.
"It's disturbing to us," he said. "We
thought you should know."
He then hung up.
I appreciated the
call, even though it
was vague. It was
another example of
anti-Semitisni's contin-
ued foothold in metro
Detroit.
Still, I didn't quite
ROBERT A. know what to make of
the incident described
SKLAR
since the details were
Editor
so sketchy.

Reining Our Impulses

Then I went to the Michigan Jewish
AIDS Coalition's World AIDS Day
healing service on Shabbat morning at
Temple Israel in West Bloomfield.
And the call that I had since moved
to "Message Archives" resonated for me
as Rabbi Josh Bennett, a former MJAC
board member, spoke. He asked con-
gregants to purposely look to "the
power of the human experience to
bring forth hope for the future."
He seemed to be saying that each of
us should make it our business not only
to learn what stirs up illness or evil, but
also share that knowledge with others.
He added that we control our des-
tiny: "We have something deep in our
souls that at times pulls us toward the
good and at times pushes us toward the
bad."
He said we must win this inner tug
of war if we are to bring sustained heal-
ing — whether physical, emotional,

spiritual.
"That's it!" I thought. "The law stu-
dents shouldn't just shrug off the van-
dalism as an isolated act of ignorance.
Rather, they should consider it an
opportunity to enlighten the ignorant
about the ideals we believe in and to
dispel their obvious myths about us."
I didn't know exactly how they
should proceed. But it struck me that
they could designate part of their notice
board to teach the larger school corn-
munity about Jews
in the context of a
pluralistic, multicul-
tural society Against
the backdrop of the
deadly conflicts in
the Middle East and
Afghanistan, they
also could urge the
law school to host
events that promote
Rabbi Bennett
ecumenism.

Power Of Unity

"Each of us has struggles," Rabbi
Bennett said, drawing from the Torah
about the strained relationship between
Jacob and his older brother, Esau.
"Let us look into our own hearts, our
own souls, to find wholeness, comple-
tion, to find shalom— peace."
That search is where we will find the
strength to stand up to hate-mongers
and the courage to try to change their
way of thinking, he said.
The Jewish Law Students Association
had its notice board vandalized about a
week after basketball players and chap-
erones from Hillel Day School of
Metropolitan Detroit were called
"kikes" by opposing players and adults
on hand for a varsity game at Conner
Creek West, a public school academy in
Warren. The Academy administration
quickly censured the ignorant behavior.
Yes, ecumenism is growing, but clear-
ly, Jews are still targets of slurs. There's
still a caseload for the Anti-Defamation
League.
At the end of the day, Detroit Jewry
must stick together. Our best defense?
Embracing "one another with a sense
of our tradition," as Rabbi Bennett
put it.
Let us celebrate our individuality,
but not overlook what we can
achieve collectively by tapping what
the rabbi called "the power of the
human experience."

❑

Take Land For
Each Killing

Israel and the Palestinian Authority
could have made a peaceful agree-
ment and a binding partition, but
with Hamas and jihad killings hav-
ing brought an image of mistrust, it
is now impossible to get together a
binding acceptable agreement; so
Israel will now have to decide the
borders on its own (see "War On

Terrorism," page 17).

Seeing the world insist that we
can't retaliate in kind, we have to
take a different approach, which, in
the end, will prove to be more effec-
tive in the long run.
For every act of violence and
killing of our civilians and children
by Hamas and jihad groups, we will
annex a square mile of West Bank
territory; each square mile taken
back will be named in memory of
an Israeli victim. The Palestinians
caught in these conquered areas will
have the offer of living under Israeli
sovereignty or be put into the
remaining West Bank.
When the Palestinians see that the
so-called West Bank is shrinking
instead of getting bigger after every
killing, the general Palestinian pub-
lic will have second thoughts on this
ongoing war. It will tell Hamas and
jihad gangs that enough is enough
and to stop this madness so we can
get some kind of agreement and live
in peace.

Irving Handelman
Oak Park

Does Arafat
Want Peace?

The American Jewish Committee
condemns the horrendous terror
outrages that have struck Israel in
the past 24 hours — two suicide
bombing attacks in central
Jerusalem Saturday night and a
third suicide bombing attack in
Haifa Sunday (see "War On
Terrorism," page 17). Our hearts go
out to the families of the victims
and to the scores of wounded.
The significant gains in Israeli-
Palestinian peacemaking made dur-
ing the past decade have been effec-
tively nullified by the daily terror
attacks against Israelis since the
Palestinians chose violence over
negotiations more than 14 months
ago. For too long, the international
community has tolerated this con-

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12/7
2001

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