Staff Notebook
Student Advocacy Session
jr
Movie mogul Irwin Winkler, IPO conductor Zubin Mehta
and Nancy Mehta at a Dec. 4 Beverly Hills, Calif, benefzt
that raised $300,000 for the orchestra.
IPO To Ann Arbor
L
ocal fans of the Israel Philharmonic
Orchestra (IPO) will have a chance to hear
the group without booking a flight to Israel
— if they can wait until March 20, 2004.
The University Musical Society, an independent arts
presenter affiliated with the University of Michigan,
will feature the IPO in a performance on the Ann
Arbor campus as part of the 2003-2004 concert sea-
son, said Angela Duryea of Shuman Associates, the
New York firm that represents the IPO.
Although the IPO's 2003-2004 tour schedule is
not yet complete, the orchestra has confirmed book-
ings Dec. 10-16, 2003, for Los Angeles, Costa Mesa,
Calif , Newark, N.J., Washington, D.C., and
Carnegie Hall in New York City, Duryea said.
The Israeli group, which began as the Palestine
Orchestra in 1936, had been scheduled to perform
at Detroit's Fox Theatre Aug. 24, 2002. That tour
was canceled at all eight United States venues.
So far, the Fox Theatre has not booked any IPO
concerts for 2003-2004, said Kathleen Kennedy,
public relations director at Olympia Entertainment.
— Diana Lieberman
Belgian Compensation
D
wring World War II, 25,000 Belgian Jews
were imprisoned in the Dossin barracks in
Malines, northern Belgium, awaiting depor-
tation to German death camps in Poland.
In the latest round of compensation claims,
Belgian Jews who lost property during the
Holocaust and those Jews' heirs have until March
19, 2003 to file restitution claims with Belgium's
Indemnification Commission.
Following the Belgian government's final report of its
Study Commission on Jewish Assets, an indemnifica-
tion act relating to the plundered, surrendered or aban-
doned assets of the Belgian Jewish community during
the Holocaust formally took effect in March 2002.
In July 2002, a further indemnification agreement
was reached between the Belgian Jewish Community
and the Belgian Banks Association.
Application forms are available at
vvww.premier.fgov.be the Web site of Belgium's
prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt.
For more information, call Jewish Family Service
in Southfield at (248) 559-4566.
— Harry Kirsbaum
2/7
2003
32
ewish student leaders from throughout
Michigan are gathering at Michigan State
University this weekend to become better cam-
pus advocates for Israel and to learn how to counter
bias from campus student groups and the media.
MSU Hillel's second annual Conference on Israel
is expected to draw 100 students from MSU, the
University of Michigan, Western, Central and
Eastern Michigan universities, Kalamazoo College,
and Thomas M. Cooley and MSU's law schools.
Speakers at the Feb. 7-9 event include David Roet,
deputy consul general of Israel; Ben Harris, United
Nations speechwriter and press officer; Michael
Schneider of the Twelfth House advocacy group; and
Neil Lazarus of Awesome Seminars, a Mideast expert.
— Alan Hitsky
A Place Of His Own
T
here's a new option for families seeking a
summer camp experience.
Harvey Finkelberg, former executive
director of the Fresh Air Society, has announced the
opening of Wooden Acres Camp, locate _ d at the
Double JJ Resort in
Rothbury, Mich. It's a
three-hour drive from both
Detroit and Chicago to the
camp, which occupies
1,500 acres of the year-
round conference site.
Finkelberg, Wooden Acres'
owner and executive direc-
tor, also will run a teen
travel program.
"We're looking forward
to opening this summer,
and we hope it will be a
worthwhile endeavor," said Harvey Finkelberg
Finkelberg, a 25-year vet-
eran of Jewish camping.
About the Fresh Air Society's Tamarack Camps,
which he ran for 10 years, Finkelberg said, "It's been
around for 100 years, and it will continue to be an
excellent organization. Two-thousand kids go to
Tamarack every summer; we can take 200-300 on
site. There's room for both of us."
— Diana Lieberman
News From Camp
T
he Fresh Air Society, which has been run-
ning summer programs for Detroit-area
Jewish children since 1902, has a new start-
ing lineup.
Leading the team as interim executive director is
Jonah Geller, who joined the staff in May as assis-
tant executive director. Geller came to Detroit after
two years as director of Camp Tel Yehudah, the
national senior leadership camp of Young Judea and
Hadassah. Previously, he had served as the camp's
assistant director, Israeli program leader and coun-
selor.
The newly reorganized staff also includes Debbie
Landau and Missy Siegler, junior side and senior
side directors, respectively, at Camp Maas; Beth
Sonne, Agree Outpost Camp director; and Susie
Zaks, teen travel director. Each of these directors has
15-25 years experience with Fresh Air Society camp-
ing programs.
In addition, the Fresh Air Society is opening a
new village at its Tamarack Camps in Ortonville.
Called Ruach Village, it will serve older campers.
— Diana Lieberman
Direct From Israel
R
achel Kohn, a 2002 graduate of Yeshivat
Akiva in Southfield, is studying in Israel at
Michlelet Orot. She was the subject of an
Editor's Notebook column on Sept. 13, 2002. She
had asked Editor Robert A. Sklar if she could be a
student correspondent for the JNwhile she studied
in Israel. He encouraged her to e-mail her observa-
tions.
This week, as news broke about the shuttle disas-
ter, Kohn sent Sklar an e-mail with quotes from
people — Israelis and Americans — she'd spoken
with about the astronauts.
It seems the Columbia tragedy was on people's
minds, but so was a stabbing in the Rova (Jewish
Quarter of Jerusalem), where, after a verbal dispute,
Arab assailants inflicted light-to-moderate stab
wounds on three Jews. Two suspects were appre-
hended.
Kohn talked with two students from Michigan
who found the stabbing more relevant to them.
For example, Sonya Brystowski, 18, of Oak Park
described the story of the space shuttle to Kohn as
something distant from students studying in Israel.
"I felt what happened in the Rova was more rele-
vant to me; it's something I deal with every day," she
said. "The thing with the shuttle was history in the
making, while what happened in the Rova was more
of a practical disappointment; it's scary."
When Joshua Kimmel, 19, of West Bloomfield,
spoke to Kohn, he said, "No matter how it hap-
pened, I think it was God telling us, as Jews and as
people, that we should fix our problems at home
before we worry about our 'neighborhood' in space.
The Rova definitely hit closer to home. It's some-
. place I've been to, unlike outer space."
— Keri Guten Cohen
New Assistant Whip
s
tate Rep. Andrew Meisner, D-Ferndale, is the
new assistant whip in the state House. He was
named to the post by House Democratic
Leader Dianne Byrum, D-Onondaga.
His new duties include monitoring Democratic
caucus positions on bills and sharing concerns with
the full leadership team.
The former aide to U.S. Rep. Sander Levin, D-
Royal Oak, is active at Beth Shalom Synagogue in
Oak Park. .
Meisner's district includes Berkley, Ferndale, Hazel
Park, Huntington Woods, Oak Park and Pleasant
Ridge.
-- Robert A. Sklar