Something Extra

Color It Purim

Proud Girl Scouts

Temple Emanu-El in Oak Park has
taken its first mishloach manot (Purim
treats) project to a new local standard.
Members are baking all hamentashen
and cookies themselves — all 800
pieces. They'll also include various
candies.
Members also will get a hand during
the assembly phase from participants
of the Dorothy and Peter Brown
Adult Day Care program. The Purim
parcels will be delivered over this
weekend.
An added extra in the package is a
coloring book created by member Ann
Costello of Utica that tells a modern-
day Purim story, complete with King
Ahasuerus calling Queen Vashti on
her cell phone and a brainy Esther
dressed in a business suit. Of course,
crayons are included in the parcel,
too.
Freya Weberman is project chairper-
son.

Marsha Raimi Brand of West
Bloomfield, liaison to the-National
Jewish Girl Scout Committee, was
excited to see the JN's cover story about
local Jewish Boy Scout troops, but says
we missed the other half of the story —
Jewish Girl Scouts.
For more than 10 years, Hillel Day
School of Metropolitan Detroit has
sponsored Girl Scouts troops, she says.
At one time, Yeshivat Akiva in
Southfield also had a few Girl Scout
troops and did activities jointly with
the Hillel troops.
Currently, nearly 60 girls are regis-
tered in four troops at Hillel, ranging
from kindergartners to fourth-graders.

Bea Sacks of Huntington Woods and
Jennifer Wolin Patterson of Farmington
Hills, president of Temple Emanu-El, show
off a mishloach manot package complete
with homebaked hamentashen and a
hand-drawn coloring book.

While the girls haven't yet tackled a
Shabbat campout, the junior troop
spent a fully observant weekend in Ann
Arbor, staying at the University of
Michigan Hillel.
What the girls do have over the boys
is cookies! Kosher Girl Scout cookies
will be sold through March 12.
Any boy or girl interested in Jewish
Scouting is welcome to attend the joint
Scout Shabbat at 6 p.m. Friday, March
12, at Adat Shalom Synagogue. To
make reservations for dinner, e-mail
jewishscouters@aol.com For more
information on Jewish Girl Scouts in
the Detroit area, contact Brand at (248)
855-5535 or mbrandi 101@aol.com

— Keri Guten Cohen,
story development editor

Years Of Grit

Rabbi Arthur Starr greets guests to
his congregation with a warm
"Where are your from?", a deep tan
and several inches of sand on his
floor.
Formerly from Manchester,
N.H., Rabbi Starr has been spiritual
leader of the Hebrew Congregation
of St. Thomas, West Indies, for the
last 2 1 /2 years and has seen the con- Sa nd covers the sanctuary floor.
back to Israel through the Jewish
gregation grow to more than 100
Federation of Metropolitan
Caribbean and one is in Syria.
families.
Detroit. -
Rabbi Starr dismisses speculation
The synagogue, in a hilly residential
Last week, leaflets placed on car
that the sand is a reference to the Jews'
neighborhood high above the harbor in departure from Egypt and 40 years of
windshields from the group
Charlotte Amalie, was rebuilt in 1833
"Jewish Witnesses for Peace and
desert wandering.
Friends" called for a boycott of his after a devastating fire. The facility on
"If that was the case," he told those
Crystal Gade Street has a sanctuary,
Ann Arbor store.
at Shabbat services recently, "why
small foyer and upstairs office, and a
"I would let my business sink
wouldn't every Ashkenazic synagogue
community hall across the street.
rather than back up one inch on this,"
in the world have a sand floor?"
Weekly Friday night and Saturday
said Hiller. "In fact, my response is that I
The rabbi's theory: Sephardic Jews in
morning services, which the rabbi
will extend the program of donating to
Spain during the Inquisition muffled
Israel indefinitely, and I intend to increase describes as "Reconservadox," can draw their prayers that must be said aloud
50-60 congregants and guests.
the number of products from Israel in
— such as the Shema — by putting
The sand in the sanctuary covers a
every way that I possible way can."
sand on their floors.
— Harry Kirsbaum, sta f fwriter tile floor. The St. Thomas synagogue is
The Hebrew Congregation of St.
one of five in the world with a sand-
Thomas is keeping the tradition alive.
covered floor — four are in the
— Alan Hitsky associate editor

— Keri Guten Cohen,
story development editor

Standing With Israel

Boycott threats against support
for Israeli products at Hiller's
Supermarkets are having the
opposite effect on owner Jim
Hiller.
"I received an e-mail from
some guy who claims to speak
for a group that is comprised
Hiller
of Jews and non-Jews," said
Hiller, whose family has run the business
for 65 years. "He threatened me with an
economic boycott and leafleting if I did
not publicly apologize for my stance in
supporting Israel and agree to withdraw
support immediately."
Hiller angrily rebuffed the man.
Hiller has been donating the profits of
the sale of Israeli products in his six stores

F_PLFM 'cha

Don't Know.2004

A familiar Israeli agricultural product is the Jaffa
orange, named after ancient Jaffa, which is south
of Tel Aviv. Can you identify any other produce
named after Biblical cities?

Yiddish Limericks

"I can't take these snow storms," said Lauren.
"The squalls and bitter winds roarin'.
I'm wearing this pelts*
Until it all melts.
Without it, I'm good and fafroren**."

—Martha Jo Fleischmann

— Goldfein

•Jamou tualpitpag
Jo Juis alp puu artpp.m wafesrual
:Jannsuy

* fur (pelt)
** frozen

Do You Remembe&

March 1994

Anger and sadness continue to be generated by the
thoughtless acts of a few.
Jewish students at Wayne State University in
Detroit discovered a swastika outside the Hillel
office, following the news of killings at a mosque in
Hebron. The Hillel office is on the sixth floor of the
Student Center Building. The swastika was scrawled
in black marker on a wall behind a door; the partial-
ly opened door likely shielded the perpetrator.

— Sy Manello, editorial assistant

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