EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK
Share Solace, Too
larmingly, nearly one in five Israelis lives below the
poverty line. More than 25 percent of all kids in the
Jewish state live in poverty, a rise of almost 2 per-
cent. This grassroots peril stands to be more
destructive to Israel's struggle for normalcy than the latest
Palestinian uprising, devastating as the intzficla is, says the
Jerusalem-based Israeli liaison to Detroit Jewry.
And I agree.
"The socio-economic crisis facing Israelis today is much less
publicized than terrorism or the conflict with the Palestinians
but, in the long run, much more potentially destructive for
Israeli society" says Tova Dorfman, director
of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit's Israel and Overseas Department.
The intifada, she says, has all but drained
tourism and high-tech industry, two of
Israel's economic underpinnings. This has
"dramatically weakened the network of social
services," she says, "in particular, those affect-
ing the most vulnerable sectors of Israel's
.
population:
single parent families, residents
ROBERT A
of peripheral regions, the elderly and new
SKLAR
immigrants."
Editor
With massive cuts in social service spend-
ing forecast for Israel's 2003 state budget, liv-
ing condition s will no doubt deteriorate, she con-
cludes.
She caught my attention with that conclusion.
Could something be worse than the deadly suicide
bombings, sniper attacks and anti-Jewish teachings
that have come to hallmark the Palestinian people
under crazed leader Yasser Arafat?
Dorfman shared her impressions of the Mideast sit-
uation in remarks to Federation's Board of Governors
on Nov. 13 at the Max M. Fisher Federation Building
in Bloomfield Township. She based her assessment on
the findings of Israel's National Insurance Institute
and the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, so I had
no reason to be skeptical.
A
Matter Of Quality
Yes, we as American Jews should buy Israeli products, corre-
spond with Israelis, invest in Israel and advocate on Israel's
behalf. But Dorfman sharpens the focus on what else we
should do: boost the quality of life for Israelis.
"This, I believe, is the best way for world Jewry to assist
Israel in times of emergency," says Dorfman, noting that social
cohesion is "the active ingredient" of Israel's successful struggle
against aggressors these past 54 years.
She underscores how the Detroit Jewish community's gifts
to this year's Federation-sponsored Israel Emergency
Campaign especially benefited youngsters, who represent
Israel's future.
I can't help but feel that Israel's backbone, its young people,
will never crumble before Islamic radicals dedicated to wiping
Israel from the map. That sense of destruction clearly perme-
ates Palestinian leaders, if not the Palestinian people.
As columnist Jeff Jacoby wrote in his Nov. 14 Boston Globe
column, "The Raw Truth in the Kibbutz Slaughter":
"It is an abiding myth that a Palestinian state in the West
Bank and Gaza is the key to peace. If that were true, peace
would have broken out in 2000, when ex-Prime Minister
Ehud Barak proposed a Palestinian state comprising all of
Gaza, virtually all of the West Bank and half of Jerusalem.
Arafat responded by launching a new war of terrorism.
"It has never been about the '67 territories. From the maps
on its walls to the textbooks in its schools to the broadcasts on
its airwaves, the Palestinian Authority has made clear that it
craves much more. Arafat's war is not for a state in which
Arabs can live beside their Jewish neighbors. It is for their
Jewish neighbors' state."
What We've Done
To help stave off the terrorism and sustain a sense of purpose
for Israel's youth, Detroit Jewry has raised more than $7 mil-
lion in emergency funding, in part for our partner region in
the Central Galilee. Over the past nine months, we've defi-
nitely made a dent in turning around the lives of kids in our
Partnership 2000 region, with which we share business, learn-
ing and social ties in concert with the Jewish Agency for Israel.
The extended-day programs we fund provide hot lunches
and enrichment classes for 2,200 students in 10 elementary
schools and four ORT junior and senior highs. The after-
noon sports programs make organized soccer and basketball
available to 500 kids from families too pinched to pay. PACT
(Parents and Children Together) offers an afternoon program
for 1,000 infants through 6 year olds and their parents.
Our caring hand reaches beyond just the Central Galilee,
though.
Youth at risk throughout Israel receive psychological help
through Orr Shalom, which our Federation aids.
SCE (Supportive*Communities for the Elderly)
extends emergency aid in a larger area of central
Israel to vulnerable seniors who have seen their
form of social security drop by 4 percent to an
average of $400 a month.
Another program we support, the Natal/Terror
Victims Fund, has provided $2.2 million in relief
to 300 Israelis victimized by terror.
Dorfman thoughtfully draws the parallel that by
reversing the disturbing social and economic trends
in Israel, we help counteract the effects of terror
against Israelis.
But while we address Israel's economic crisis, let us not
forget the people ravaged by mindless Islamists just because
they are Jews living in the Jewish homeland — people with
names, families, feelings and dreams like each of us. We, as
American Jews, must do more to relate to them — to per-
sonalize them beyond just mention of their tragic death.
People like Michal Bat Batya, 23, Iran Ben Esther, 19,
Aluma Bat Rachel, 17, and Gavriel Eli Ben Rivka, 14 —
all Jews, traveling toward the center of Jerusalem during
rush hour aboard the No. 20 Egged bus on Nov. 21.
Real names, real people.
They were left unconscious and badly hurt in the
Hamas-provoked suicide blast of the bus in the Kiryat
Menahem neighborhood. At least 11 died and another 50
were wounded.
More terror came Thanksgiving Day in Kenya and Israel; at
least nine Israelis were among the dead that day and nearly 50
more were hurt.
Palestinian terror and violence have taken more than 690
Israel lives over the past 26 months. We must never grow so
numb from the trauma triggered by Islamic clerics who
brainwash their young to bloW themselves up in the name
of Allah that we no longer can grieve for the Israelis who
die in the struggle to keep a mere sliver of land in the
Arab-dominated Mideast the Jewish state.
As Tova Dorfman stresses, we owe our brethren in Israel
solace as well as support. ❑
Jimmy Choo SARTORE
Sigerson Morrison Rocco P.
Alessandro DeII'Acqua
Robert Clergerie Henry Cuir
Guiseppe Zanotti
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