OTHER VIEWS
Mission To Remember
L
'shanah haba'a
b'Yerushalayim: Next year in
Jerusalem! For years, these
words signaled to me that
the seder was over and I could start
folding up the aluminum tables and
the bridge chairs and shlep them
back down the basement.
But now this phrase has a totally
different meaning because for 10
days next year, April 18-28, the
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit will conduct its fourth
Michigan Miracle Mission to Israel.
This means that during Passover
next year, you can conclude your
seder by saying, "Next week in
Jerusalem!"
Nothing compares to walking
down the stairs of an El Al plane at
Ben-Gurion Airport for the first
time while listening to the strains of
"Hatikvah." Several of us kissed the
ground.
In 1984, my wife, DeDe, and I
left Detroit with a group ofacquain-
tances on a temple adult trip to
Israel and returned home as part of a
family of 40. Several of us have
become deeply committed to temple
life as a result of that trip.
Visiting Israel, to me, is not about
touring a country, even one with his-
toric implications for us as Jews; it is
about meeting and getting to know
Jerrold H. Weinberg, M.D., is presi-
dent of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield.
He delivered these remarks May 16, dur-
ing Mission 4 Shabbat in metro Detroit.
family and friends that we have
never met before. A whole country
full of brothers and sisters, cousins
and aunts and uncles who have the
same genes as us but come from all
over the world — Poland, Russia,
India, South Africa, Morocco,
Ethiopia, Brooklyn — live in Israel.
I immediately felt a sense of being
at home and immensely proud of
what our people had accomplished
in this tiny sliver of desert, 30 miles
wide and less than 200 miles long,
that our people begged for and
fought for and died for after the
Holocaust almost relegated us to his-
tory.
How do I explain Israel? You may
have been to a Chinese restaurant,
but if you've never been to Israel,
you have never been to one with a
Vietnamese waiter handing you a
menu in Hebrew,-with a Russian
singer at the piano singing Motown
tunes in English in the background.
You may have done rock climbing,
but if you haven't been to Israel, you
haven't stood on Masada as the sun
comes up over the Dead Sea. You
may have been to museums, but if
you haven't been to Israel, you
haven't been to Yad Vashem and seen
the floor of six million tiles that
commemorates the Shoah.
And, I'll never forget how amazed
I was at the greenery and flowers
and forests that we saw. Imagine
learning that every blade of grass
and every flower and every tree was
planted by Jewish hands. I even
Day) with dancing and
singing in the streets — an
intensely emotional 24
hours.
We will visit our partner-
Uplifting Experience
ship region of the Central
Galilee and be graciously
Many of you may be under-
invited into homes of
standably worried about the
world situation and the possi- JERROLD H. Israelis. You will no longer be
ble dangers of traveling to •
WEINBERG a tourist, but a relative. We
will meet Israelis from all
Israel. So why now?
Community
walks of life, hear briefings
Especially now! The. Israeli
Views
from top Israeli officials and
economy has been devastated
tour with the best guides in
by the events related to the
intifada (Palestinian uprising). By the the world. We'll see the sights, eat
.
well, shop, sing and dance: If you
sheer size of our presence, Miracle
have been to Israel before, you will
Mission 4 will lift the spirits of our
be treated to special programming
Israeli brothers and sisters more than
for repeat visitors. You will kvell as
you could ever believe.
The storekeepers will greet you like
you watch your friends see Israel for
the first time.
a long-lost relative, because that is
Thank God that the Itaq war is
exactly who you are! Our Detroit
behind us, and there is reason to hope,
Jewish community has always taken
again, for peace in the Middle East.
the lead in helping Israel. Mission 4,
It's hard to describe the feeling of safe-
led by Peter Alter and Richard Krugel
ty and security that you will feel in
and Federation President Larry
Jackier, is co-sponsored by Federation, this beautiful homeland of ours.
We all talk about going to Israel
the Detroit Jewish News and the
some day. Well, some day is just after
Michigan Board of Rabbis. We will
Passover 2004. You will be truly
celebrate Shabbat in Jerusalem, an
doing a mitzvah for yourself and
indescribable experience.
your people. This will be a life-
On Yom HaZikaron, Memorial
changing experience. E.
Day in Israel, as sirens sound across
the entire country, traffic will stop
and all of us will stand silently wher-
For an application, call Sally
ever we are to commemorate the fall-
Krugel, mission director, (248)
en Israeli soldiers from all wars.
203-1485, or visit the Web site
Then, at sundown, we will change
www.thisisfederation.org
moods and celebrate Yom
HaAtzmaut (Israel Independence
looked for the trees that I
paid for when I was in
Hebrew school!
Troubling Contradictions
Washington
n May 31, President George
W. Bush visited Auschwitz,
and spoke about the horrors
of the place where 1.5-mil-
lion Jews were gassed to death by the
Nazis.
This week, President Bush was to
embrace a Palestinian Arab leader who
has written that the Nazis didn't murder
millions of Jews, that the Holocaust is a
myth. How can one explain the presi-
dent's apparently contradictory actions?
The president walked across the rail-
road tracks leading into the death
0
•
*IN
6/ 6
2003
30
Dr. Medoff is director of the David S.
Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies,
which focuses on issues related to
America's response to the Holocaust. His
e-mail address is rafaelmedoff@aol.com
camp, viewed the gas chambers and
paused at a display of shoes taken from
children and hair cut off women before
they were gassed. Auschwitz and the
other Nazi death camps "remind us that
evil is real and must be called by name
and must be opposed," Bush comment-
ed.
In a few days, he will fly to the
Middle East where he will meet with
Palestinian Authority prime minister
Mahmoud Abbas, who does not believe
that the Nazi evil was real at all. Abbas
is the author of a book that depicts the
gas chambers and the piles of shoes and
hair as a Zionist hoax.
Abbas's book, The Other Side: The
Secret Relations Between Nazism and the
Leadership of the Zionist Movement, is
based on his doctoral dissertation at
Moscow Oriental College. Published in
French Holocaust-denier
1983, it declares:
Robert Faurisson. Abbas has
"Following the war, word was
never retracted or apologized
spread that 6 million Jews were
for writing the book.
amongst the victims and that a
war of extermination was aimed
primarily at the Jews ... The
Recurrent Theme
truth is that no one can either
This is not the first time that
confirm or deny this figure. In
other words, it is possible that
DR. RAFAEL an American president has
expressed seemingly heartfelt
the number of Jewish victims
MEDOFF
sentiments about the
reached 6 million, but at the
Special
same time, it is possible that the
Commentary Holocaust or taken action to
memorialize the victims of the
figure is much smaller — below
Holocaust, but then, for politi-
1 million ... Many scholars have
cal reasons, said or done some-
debated the figure of 6 million
thing inappropriate regarding the
and reached stunning conclusions —
Holocaust.
fixing the number of Jewish victims at
For example, the Reagan administra-
only a few hundred thousand."
tion ordered the airlift of starving
Abbas denies that the gas chambers
Ethiopian Jewish refugees in 1985, and
were used to murder Jews, quoting a
then-Vice President Bush, who was
"scientific study" to that effect by