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Dry Bones
Learning From Our National Tragedies
e are marking two mournful anniver-
saries — two years since the
Palestinians began their current intifada
(uprising) against Israel, and a year
since Islamic fundamentalists attacked New York
and Washington, D.C. It is a time to look back and
consider what has been learned in this time of vio-
lence and terror.
Israelis have surely learned — for some it was a
reaffirmation rather than a new lesson —
that far too many Palestinians still do not
want to live in peace with the Jewish state
and believe that they can somehow still
force its collapse. For all that it seems to be waning,
this intifada made a mockery of the high hopes of
the Oslo Accords of 1993 by killing some 600
Israelis and more than 1,400 Palestinians, and ruin-
ing the economies of both sides.
The Israel that had wanted to trust Palestinian
leader Yasser-Arafat now knows that peace cannot
come until he and his entourage of terrorism and cor-
ruption is fully purged. That lesson is so bitter that
even the Palestinian Legislative Council's ouster of the
Arafat cabinet on Sept. 11 cannot be taken at face
value as a meaningful regime change. It is a step in the
right direction, like Fatah's announcement that it
wanted to eschew violence, but many such steps will
be needed before Israel can resume any serious negoti-
ations with the Palestinians for a permanent solution.
It is far from clear that the diminished violence
grows from a change of heart rather than from the
presence of Israeli troops in the cities of the West
Bank and Gaza.
It is hard to know what the Palestinians and their
Arab and Muslim supporters have learned since the
intifada. All of the vile rhetoric of anti-Zionism and
anti-Semitism continues to spew from the Arabic
press, and virtually no leader has acknowledged the
obvious fact that the intifada was a terrible
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mistake. The Arabs continue to deny that their
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backward, tyrannical regimes are the problem,
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preferring to blaming Israel and the West for
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their own inability to cope with the 21st cen-
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tury.
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And while Israel and the United States have
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worked hard to understand the motives and con-
ditions of those who would do them harm, there
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is no evidence of any Arab or Muslim
interest in trying to understand our
countries' ways of life and belief.
Instead of reflection and a desire to
promote tolerance, there is only blind insistence
on seeing the Western world as arrayed against
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everything they say they cherish. A huge percent-
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age of the Moslem world still insists, for example,
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that the 9-11 hijackers were not Arabs or
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Muslims and that the attack was a plot by
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Mossad (Israel's intelligence organization) to dis-
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credit Islam.
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American Jews have learned anew how vital-.
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ei
ri
ly important Israel is to them over the last two
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years. The outpouring of financial and emo-
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tional help is a welcome marker of our
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renewed commitment to the state as well as to
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the nation of Israel. Even young American
Jews who have been denied the opportunity
for a safe visit to Israel seem concerned with
to begin than we are to sustain the effort that will
what is happening there and how they can help.
be
needed to bring real change to the nations and
Less clear is what Americans in general now con-
philosophies
that seek our destruction.
sider to be the moral of 9-11. Unlike the Israelis,
As
we
marked
the High Holidays, our thought was
. who have internalized the need to combat terrorism,
that
if
we
do
not
view
the tragedies of the last two
Americans seem more eager to get on with their
years
as
victories
or
defeats,
but rather as opportunities
lives as if nothing much has changed, as if Osama
to learn and to move forward, then perhaps all the
bin Laden and Al Qaida and Islamic fundamental-.
pain and horror in New York and Washington and Tel
ism were a quirk rather than a lasting threat. We
Aviv
and Jerusalem will not have been in vain. ❑
seem to be more eager for the new television season
--
EDITO RIAL
The Cycle Of Life
obert Naftaly recently earned Detroit
Jewry's highest honor, the Fred M. Butzel
Memorial Award, for demonstrating the
highest ideals of communal service and
leadership, especially in teaching kids about Judaism
and treating our seniors with reverence.
Both stops on the life cycle resonate as
key concerns for all of us.
Providing an inspired, inspiring base of
Jewish learning for our children is per-
haps the most important thing we as a community
can do to help assure passage of our history and rit-
uals from one generation to the next.
Thanks to the success of the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit-led Millennium Campaign for
Detroit's Jewish Future, we've significantly boosted
the amount of money available for student scholar-
ships and school support.
But educational costs continue to rise. Our day,
synagogue and supplemental schools wrestle with
keeping tuition affordable while trying to recruit
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and compensate high-quality teachers and adminis-
trators, as well as provide the best programming
possible.
Today, 9,000 children are learning Jewishly: 2,500
in day schools, 5,000 in afternoon schools and
1,500 in preschool.
And who teaches them is the keystone
to what they learn, no matter how enrich-
ing the curriculum. That's why we must
hold teachers in high esteem. As Naftaly
says, "There is no greater mitzvah than transmitting
our Judaic values and heritage to future generations."
Meanwhile, our elderly should hold a special place
in our hearts for all they've done to help make us
. who we are, and our community what it is. Naftaly
put it well Sept. 10 at the Butzel Award presenta-
tion: "How we treat our elderly is a test of our val-
ues as a people."
With life expectancy increasing, we clearly will
have more seniors to serve each year. That means a
growing need for housing with portions subsidized
EDIT ORIAL
for low-income seniors. It also means a need to
expand in-home services to allow people to live
independently. Unfortunately, one byproduct of
people living longer today is more Alzheimer's dis-
ease; that means more seniors-will require related
assistance.
Other substantial needs also confront the Detroit
Jewish community — at the same time that
Federation's Annual Campaign, which raises money
to meet the needs of the Jewish people, faces one of
its toughest years in the wake of a sagging economy
and fewer donors. These additional needs range
from job training and placement to a host of social
and mental health services.
Naftaly is right: Our community's safety net is
shrinking.
And the best way to reverse that troubling trend is
to inspire our children to embrace Jewish values
through learning and to secure the dignity of our
elderly, without whom we wouldn't enjoy the caliber
of community that we do today.
❑
9/20
2002
25