Insight
Pr a
Sev a, 't Place-
Remember
When •
totttrAe
Neither Left Nor Right
From the Jewish News pages for this
week 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 years ago.
Israeli Consul General Alon Pinkas tells what's really going on.
DON COHEN
Special to the Jewish News
A
ny news junkie can place Alon Pinkas. Tune in
cable news at almost any time and Pinkas,
Israel's consul general in New York, is likely to
be laying out Israel's perspective or debating a
Palestinian spokesperson. Like any good communicator in
the media age, Pinkas persistently pounds home themes to
establish a framework to understand breaking events.
But on June 13, the 600 people who packed the
Birmingham Temple in
Farmington Hills were treated to
more than the standard political
message. Pinkas made it clear he
was not there to give a briefing.
"You don't need me for that," he
said, giving credit to his audience.
"You know what is going on."
As a former Israeli Foreign
Ministry chief of staff and a top
aide to former Prime Minister
Ehud Barak, Pinkas was intimately
involved in "peace process" discus-
sions with the Palestinians. And
though the process failed, he says
much was learned.
"We tried interim agreements
and a final arrangement. Oslo was
the "first down," Pinkas said, using
a football term to describe the
incremental progress, "and Camp
David was the 'Hail Mary,'" — a
risky, last-ditch effort to come to a
negotiated agreement. "Neither worked," he said. "And
now we have to re-evaluate that fateful and painful deci-
sion."
Additionally, he says, both of the prevailing political
philosophies were disproved in the collapse of talks. He
referred to the political right, "who thought it was fine to
control 3.3 million Palestinians because we are right and
time is on our side," and also the "left-wing belief that 'if we
build it, they will come" because the logic of compromise is
so compelling the Palestinians "won't be able to reject it."
As a leader in the Jewish Secular Humanist movement, it
is perhaps not surprising that Pinkas argues for rationalism.
He said, "This is not about ideology; it is not about right
or wrong [or] whose country it is . . . it's about a reality, a
democratic reality."
But demography, in addition to democracy, has Pinkas
convinced that today's reality means Israel must find a way
to disengage itself from the Palestinians.
"There is a demography out there we cannot avoid. In
the year 2017, Jews will no longer be a majority in the area
that Israel controls," Pinkas said. "If we cease to be a
majority in the land we control, Zionism is over."
Pinkas also addressed the complex relationship between
Israelis and American Jews. While careful to recognize the
important financial, political and emotional support of
American Jewry for Israel in times of need, he feels an
enduring relationship will take even more commitment.
"We are not on the verge of destruction, there is no wave of
anti-Semitism in the world, [Jews and Israel] are much stronger
than you think — both in Israel, in Detroit and [also] through-
out the U.S.," Pinkas'said. His worry is that if the future of
The Jewish Historical Society of
Michigan's annual Leonard N.
Simons History Award goes to U.S.
District Judge Avern Cohn.
The Zionist Organization of
America presents the Louis D.
Brandeis Award to Philip
Slomovitz, the Detroit Jewish News
editor, at a ceremony in Southfield.
Temple Beth El holds a mortgage
burning ceremony at the synagogue
at Telegraph and 14 Mile in
Bloomfield Township.
1972
"If we cease to be
a majority in the
land we control,
Zionism is over.
— Alon Pinkas
Israel and the Jewish people is seen simply as a
fight against anti-Semitism, "we will lose the
next generation and Jewish existence outside of
Israel, period. It is wrong; it is not constructive;
it will not get us anywhere." As evidence, he
told the crowd, "you lost interest in Israel"
before Israel was under attack.
"Israel's problem is that we don't have time to deal with
these issues [of Zionism and the Jewish future]," he said.
"It is not easy being an Israeli today," Pinkas continued.
"Life can be unbearable and confusing. We have F-16s,
Merkava tanks and Jane's Weekly [a British publication deal-
ing with military issues] says we have other types of power-
ful weapons, but we can't send our kids out for pizza."
He urged the audience to stay engaged on many levels. "You
have the responsibility to keep the dialogue alive; it is up to you."
Martin Baum, an attorney living in Detroit, liked what
he heard.
"Tying the issue of Israel's security and disengagement
from the Arabs with the concept of being Jewish is new
and strong," he said. "[During a crisis], we put the issue of
Jewish identity on the back burner, but [Pinkas] brought it
to the forefront by tying it all together and showing how it
helps define who we are."
Sue Luria of Birmingham agrees with Pinkas that "we
need a positive Jewish identity, not a defensive one. We need
to spread the word that Israel is strong in many ways." ❑
More than 20 graves at the
Congregation B'nai Moshe ceme-
tery in Royal Oak are desecrated;
anti-Semitic literature is left
behind.
1962
Former Detroiter Fred Hittman, an
expert in nuclear science, receives
an assignment with the Aerospace
Division of the Martin Marietta
Corp., which has received a con-
tract from the Atomic Energy
Commission.
Rabbi Richard Hertz of Detroit's
Temple Beth El publishes his pew
book The American Jew in Search of
Himself
. 195216M011.111111111.
Abner A. Wolf, Inc., a wholesale
grocer, will dedicate the world's
largest dry groceries warehouse
under one roof at Joy Road and
Schaefer in Detroit.
1942
•
Nearly 260 Jews were executed in
Berlin by the Gestapo in retaliation
for an alleged attempt to blow up
the anti-Bolshevist exhibition now
on view in the German capital.
The University of Michigan
Hillel acquires its own building,
Mack House, on Hill and Haven
Streets in Ann Arbor.
— Compiled 17y Holly Teasdle, archivist
the Rabbi Leo M Franklin Archives,
Temple Beth El
6/21
2002
35