This Week

Parallels

Holocaust commemoration ceremony's theme is connected to Israel amid Mideast turmoil.

HARRY MRS BAUM

Staff Writer

T

he contrast between what
happened to the Jews in
World War II and what's
happening in Israel now has
never been more clear, said Rabbi
Charles Rosenzveig during a Holocaust
commemoration ceremony at the
Jewish Community Center inWest
Bloomfield on Sunday, April 7.
Fifty-nine years after the liquidation
of the Warsaw ghetto began on a seder
night in 1943, a suicide bomber killed
27 people in Netanya, Israel, on
March 27 — a seder night.
The objectives of those who sent the
suicide bomber " are essentially the same
as those that entered the Warsaw ghetto
in 1943," said Rabbi Rosenzveig,
founder and executive director of the
Holocaust Memorial Center in West
Bloomfield. "Namely, the hope that in
so doing, it will be the beginning of
what they would hope to be the destruc-
tion of Israel and the Jews."
Speaking before a hushed crowd of 600,
Rabbi Rosenzveig said that the parallels did-
n't stop there. He compared the lack of
action of Pope Pius XII during World War
II with the Vatican's recent strong statement
against Israel. He added that the world
looked away while Jews were slaughtered in
the Holocaust, and now the United Nations
is doing the same as Jews are murdered in
suicide bombings and sniper attacks.
"They [United Nations] didn't call a
meeting to condemn the suicide bombers,"
he said. "They find the time and the ener-
gy to condemn Israel for attempting
uproot the murderers that perpetrated

Photos by Bill Hansen

those abominable crimes."
"The right of the Jews in Israel to defend
themselves and uproot as much as humanly
possible the source of that terror is an
unalienable right of any sovereign state, any-
where in the world," he said.
The annual event represents Detroit
Jewry's Yom HaShoah (Holocaust
Remembrance Day) observance. This year,
Yom HaShoah began at sundown Monday.
Sunday's event was marked by speakers
ranging from political leaders to leaders of
local Holocaust survivor groups all told the
same basic message — that Israel needs sup-
port. And those in the crowd agreed.

"The generation that attended this service
understands the importance of Israel, but
the younger generation doesn't understand
why Israel is so important to the Jewish peo-
ple," said Deanna Tachna of Birmingham.
Morry Levin of Farmington Hills said the
violence caused by the nearly 19-month-old,
Palestinian-led intifida (uprising) is like a
repeat.
In the Holocaust, he said, "people died
because they were Jewish, and now there is
Israel, and people are dying and suffering
again. These people [survivors] live throughout
these horrors and now they have to watch it
again. It's got to be a nightmare to them."

❑

Clockwise from left:

Mrs. Henry Lewin
lights a memorial
candle at the JCC.

Veteran Max Rothschild
of Bloomfield Township
during the JCC
ceremony.

Dr. Morrie Dubin and
Mal Reisman, both of
West Bloomfield, join
others at the HMC
candle-lighting.

Holocaust Center Construction Starts In June

he HMC's move to its new
home on the west side of
Orchard Lake Road, north of
12 Mile, took another step last month as
its site plan was approved by the
Farmington Hills Planning Commission
following a presentation by architect
Kenneth Neumann of Neumann/Smith
& Associates of Southfield.
Planning commission chairman
David Haron said he did not know the
"political, economic or practical prob-

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trig

4/12
2002

28

lems" that led to the Center's decision
to move from the Eugene and Marcia
Applebaum Jewish Community
Campus in West Bloomfield.
"What I do know," he said, "is the
City of Farmington Hills will be the
home of a significant cultural institu-
tion whose beautiful, challenging and,
perhaps; controversial building will be
seen by thousands of Jewish and non-
Jewish motorists.
"At a time when many of the les-

sons of the Holocaust seem to be for-
gotten by many in the world — when
Israel, the state born out of the dark-
ness is under attack — the more peo-
ple that remember from whence we
came, the better we all will be."
According to Rabbi Rosenzveig,
construction will start in mid-June
and will take about 14 months. He
said close to $4 million has been
raised so far, but the $15 million
fund-raising campaign won't . officially

begin until the end of April.
Not everyone is happy the
Holocaust Center is leaving its present
location next to the JCC on the
Applebaum Campus.
"It should stay right here because
this is the focus of the Jewish commu-
nity,. and one of the reasons it was built
here was to be by the Jewish Center,"
Deanna Tachna of Birmingham said.
"It's defeating the purpose."
— Harry Kirsbaum

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