EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK

AN AMAZING
EVENT TO HELP
CHILDREN WITH
SPECIAL NEEDS!

Israel Needs Us

t was a Tuesday night, Feb. 19. Israeli soldiers were
stationed at a West Bank roadblock, near Ramallah, a
key city for Yasser Arafat's Palestinian. Authority.
Suddenly, snipers opened fire in ambush. Soon, six
soldiers lay dead, giving their lives in defense of Israel's
pursuit of a peaceful co-existence in the region.
In a sign of the times soon afterward, Ramallah reverber-
ated with gunshots — fired by residents to celebrate the
attack.
Moshe Eini, 21, was one of the six vic-
tims of the snipers.
The next morning in West Bloomfield,
6,000 miles away, Rabbi Harold Loss of
Temple Israel was notified about the tragic
incident. For him, it was personal.
Moshe was the son of Nurit and Ezra
Eini, dear friends of the rabbi. For 20
ROBERT A. years, Ezra has been a guide for Temple
SKLAR
Israel's adult and family missions.
Rabbi Loss and his wife, Susan, quickly
Editor
extended their condolences by phone.
.
Within three hours of the initial call, the rabbi was on a
plane to Newark to connect to a flight to Ben-Gurion
Airport.
Rabbi Loss arrived in Israel one hour before the
Thursday funeral, held at the military cemetery in Petach
Tikvah. He arrived in time to watch the family gather
behind the army truck carrying the body of their beloved
"Moishele." Six friends in uniform then carried the flag-
draped coffin on their shoulders.
In a letter to Temple Israel congregants
this week, Rabbi Loss grieved over the
brazen act that killed the soldiers. He
exhorted how American Jewry must stand
with Israel in its war against aggression
•
and hatred.
"My friend was not the father of a sol-
dier who had died," he wrote, "but a par-
ent burying his youngest child. It was not
Rabbi Loss
about Middle East politics. It was about a
young man whose future in a moment had
been taken away. When our eyes met, Ezra
could not comprehend."
Neither could Rabbi Loss.
Among the thousands of mourners were uniformed -
young men and women who had served with Moishele, as
well as friends of his brother and sister, Shmuelik and Yael,
and brother-in law, Yaron.

I

A Time To Reflect

As we sat together for Shabbat dinner March 1 at Temple
Israel, warmed by the glow of the Shabbat
candles, Rabbi Loss reflected on the
human toll, on both sides, of the raging,
17-month-long Palestinian intifizda (upris-
ing) — which continues to be fueled by
shootings and suicide bombings.
He recounted how, over the years, he
has heard Ezra Eini say Kaddish many
times, but how to hear him say it for his
murdered son was especially humbling.
Shmuelik Eini, in Singapore, sensed his brother's death
moments before learning about it. As Rabbi Loss tells it:
"At 4 a.m. Wednesday [Feb. 20], Shmuelik had awakened
and called his family, fearing that his brother had been

killed. The tragic news validated the feeling in his heart. He
told me that he simply knew."
During the shivah (seven days of mourning), Rabbi Loss
said Moishele's relatives told him his being there "validated
Ezra's years of partnership" with Detroit Jewry through
Temple Israel and, on a higher level,
with America.
At the Kabbalat Shabbat (Welcoming
Shabbat) service following the March 1
dinner at Temple Israel, Jewish education
guru Joel Grishaver of Los Angeles spoke
about what it means to pray. He
described Shabbat prayer as "a new
dawn, a new light and a new possibility
Joel Grishaver
to start over."
He defined meaningful prayer not as
"beating ideas about God into yourself to the point where
you might actually believe them," but as "matching life
experiences to the experiences of early Jews, thereby reliving
the Jewish experience and creating a modern performance
of ancient life."
He was telling us not to see prayer as an abstract idea,
but as "a soundtrack of Jewish history" inspired by God.
That soundtrack, he said, plays on a "heavenly jukebox."
The jukebox seemed to be playing the day Rabbi Loss
was confronted with the call about people he loved who
were in pain in our ancient homeland.
The Einis plan to dedicate a rock-climbing park to the
memory of Moishele, an avid climber. "With God's help,"
Rabbi Loss told his congregants, "we will stand and remem-
ber a special young man whose life was taken on what we
hope will be the road to an enduring peace."

Supporting Israel

An "enduring peace" won't happen, however, unless we, the
American Jewish community, stand with Israel and under-
stand its way of thinking.
"When the other side claims Israel engages in 'massacres'
and suggests that if only Israel would end the 'occupation
there would be peace," Don Cohen, Israel advocacy consult-
ant for the Jewish Community Council of Metropolitan
Detroit, told me March 3, "we have to be able to point out
the role of incitement in the Palestinian community and the
Arab world, and that Israel committed to the Oslo peace
process in order to end the occupation."
Cohen, as I do, believes we're at a critical moment in both
Israeli and Jewish history. "We can't afford to be silenced by
confusion or the belief that others will carry the load for us,"
he said. "American Jews have always had a role in helping
Israel to repel attacks. We have forged strong bonds with
Israel, affected American foreign policy, and strengthened
Jewish identity and security."
Moshe Eini's death won't be in vain if we instill in our
younger generation the kind of unconditional love toward
Israel and being Jewish that resonates from Harold Loss, Joel
Grishaver and Don Cohen.
Israel needs not only our economic help, but also our emo-
tional support.
As Cohen put it: "We lead by example. If Jewish Americans
are non-committal or inactive, we lose our effectiveness with
opinion leaders, but even more, we lose effectiveness with our
younger generation, who see their parents sitting on the side-
lines during a time that can truly be termed a crisis."
Cohen's frank assessment serves as a wake-up call that no
Jew can ignore.

❑

The Merle and Shirley
Harris Children and
Family Division

Att

3/8
2002

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