OTHER VIEWS

Slain Reporter's Quest To Teach

have, like most Americans I
afford each other. His was a lonely
would venture, been giving a
quest, to bring knowledge of what
lot of thought to Wall Street
was happening there to a news-hun-
Journal reporter Daniel Pearl,
gry world and to do it largely alone
but my thinking of him began from
and at the mercy of what author
a somewhat unique perspective. I
Herman Wouk aptly described as the
envied him — not in the way he
"Winds Of War."
died — but in the way he lived.
In his horrific death, he ought not
When I heard that Geraldo Rivera, to be made-larger than he was in life
a fellow Jew, and like me, a
for in his life he was large
former Neighborhood Legal
enough. Rather, in a time
Services lawyer, was leaving
when being a Jew is becom-
his cushy television show to
ing harder in the face of
go and cover the war in
anti-Israel propaganda and
Afghanistan, I envied him
the rise of Muslim funda-
too.
mentalism, it is good to
One might ask, especially
remember that there was a
in light of the kidnapping
Daniel Pearl, that he was a
and murder of Daniel Pearl,
Jew, and that by the reports
why anyone, let alone a Jew,
DWI GHT
surrounding his death, his
would go to such a place
-A,. 0 WEN
last words included, "My
and expose himself or her-
SCH WEITZER father is Jewish. My
self to such a level of risk?
Mother is Jewish. I am a
Sp ecial
It is more than for the
Jew."
Com mentary
adventure, though we are
It was his life that enno-
certainly an adventurous
bled him, but it was in his
people. It is, I think, so prototypi-
death that he calls out to us to remem-
cally a Jewish thing to do. We are, in ber that we are Jews and that he acted
the final analyses, teachers. It is the
in the finest traditions of our faith and
tie that binds all Jews everywhere to
our responsibilities to our fellow man.
ourselves and to the world in which
Like so many Jewish teachers
we live and to which we contribute
before him, his greatest lesson was
so much.
that his devotion to his faith should
It is in the need to teach that the
be no less than our own. ❑
invocation of God to tikkun olam is
founded and takes root. To make the
Related story: page 29
world a better place for our having
been here.
If there is an explanation for why
SHAFRAN from page 31
education matters so much to us
we can be sure that non-Orthodox
and, in the process, why we are the
Jewish leaders will inform us who the
most educated ethnic group in the
villains are: the "rejectionist"
world, it is not I think for the love
Orthodox, the usual suspects.
of learning alone. It is for the love of
Yet, all that those who remain
teaching. Teaching — by the way we
faithful to Halachah have done is
live our lives, raise our children and
uphold the Jewish religious heritage
give back to our society and the
that lies at the roots of all of us Jews.
world.
The Orthodox have not been the
It is no wonder that a population
sowers of discord, but, on the con-
so small and insignificant on the
trary, the nurturers of what forged
world stage would have such a dis-
Jewish unity in the first place, mil-
proportionate number of Nobel
lennia ago.
Prizes for everything from peace to
The story is told of a middle-aged
medicine to economics and mathe-
couple in the front seat of a car, back
matics. Jews have done much to ful-
in the days when bucket seats were the
fill the dictates laid down to them so
exception. The husband addresses his
many millennia ago. Which brings
wife, the driver, and says in an injured
me back to Daniel Pearl.
tone of voice, "Remember the days,
We will never know all the things
dear, when we were young, and would
that motivated him to place himself
sit close to one another on trips?"
in harm's way, and to do so without
The wife responds with a tear in
even the protection that soldiers
her eye, "Yes, I do. But I'm still in
front of the steering wheel, where I
Dwight Owen Schweitzer is editor
have always been. It is you who, over
and publisher of the Jewish Star-Times
the years, has moved gradually away."
in Miami. His e-mail is
That message, in the context of
Dschweitzer@herald.corn
Jews' relationship to the Jewish reli-

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