OTHER VIEWS

A Learning Experience

STEVEN DUNN
Community Perspective

S

ix weeks have slipped by since
my family and eight other fami-
lies returned from a phenomenal
trip to Israel.
A core group from Adat Shalom
Synagogue in Farmington Hills teamed
up with family and friends from
Madison, Wis., Chicago and Detroit for
a 15-day experience.
This was not the first trip to Israel for
most of the adults; however, all — new
visitors and old travelers — came away
with a deeper and more intense sense of
connection to Israel and Am Yi srael
(Nation of Israel) than we ever imag-
ined before leaving.
This was no small feat when consider-
ing the spread of ages (4 to 50+) and
the various demands: the desire to learn
about Israel's past and present; the hope
of getting to know and understand
what Israelis have gone through to reach
Israel and to live there through the cur-
rent turmoil; a need to explore the land
— to hike its trails and swim it's rivers
and, on top of it all, come away with a
heightened religious awareness.
A sense of community, of belonging,
was one of the first things I felt after
landing at Ben-Gurion Airport and set-
ding into our seaside hotel in Tel Aviv.
It was a sense of being home, being in
an environment that was welcoming,
accepting and familiar. This was a feel-

Steven Dunn is a Bloomfield Hills
resident and Adat Shalom Synagogue
member.

ing that was very different from that felt
in other countries to which I have trav-
eled over the years. On several occa-
sions, I have pondered the origin of
these feelings.
In the end, I came to the conclusion
that they are a mix of familiarity and
ethnic pride — of pride in the vision of
Jews who, in spite of and as a response
to the anti-Semitism of the 19th and
20th centuries, the enmity of Israel's
neighbors and the harshness of the land,
have created something truly phenome-
nal: A nation that is modern and throb-
bing with a sense of life, purpose and
forward motion.
Our travels focused primarily on the
Galilee, Golan and Jerusalem areas, with
a quick excursion into the Negev.
We traveled the recently completed
"interstate" along the fence-wall separat-
ing parts of Samaria from Israel. With
all that one hears in the press, we
expected a tall, imposing, obstacle akin
to the Great Wall of China.
The fence-wall is 95 percent fence
and 5 percent wall — the latter primari-
ly in areas where an Israeli and
Palestinian community have grown
together, and/or where sniper attacks
have occurred. Landscaped in some
areas, twisted wire or gray concrete in
others — pretty? No. Disruptive? Yes. A
deterrent? Without doubt.
We spent time meeting with immi-
grants from Ethiopia in one settlement,
Ma'ale Adumim, and learned of the dif-
ficulties they experienced when leaving
Ethiopia for Israel. We spent an after-
noon talking with a group of residents
from Nofei Prat, a settlement in the

Amy and Steven Dunn with sons Asher, 18, left, and Jacob Dunn, 14, at Mt. Arbel
in Israel.

"suburbs" of Jerusalem, about the com-
munity dynamics in an integrated (reli-
gious and non-religious) settlement.
Israeli society has a lot of unanswered
issues that it is struggling with. The
solutions are not easy ones or readily at
hand; but there is a clear sense that the
issues need to be addressed.
One short aside regarding the "settle-
ments" of Ma'ale Adumim and Nofei
Prat. As an American, the term settle-
ment calls to mind a "village" of dirt
roads with unstable, temporary build-
ings. That is as far from reality as one
could get. These settlements could be
transplanted to Southfield or West
Bloomfield and would seem out of
place only because of the Hebrew signs
and their use of local limestone as exte-
rior building material rather than wood
or brick. There is nothing temporary
about these suburban areas of as many
as 30,000 residents.

Ma'ale Adumim and Nofei Prat were
built on the hills to the east of
Jerusalem in view of Mt. Scopus and
the Mt. of Olives. They are on terrain
that is dominated by rocks — a land-
scape made for a lunar rover — empty,
forbidding and yet beautiful, with a tex-
tured, sculpted feeling.
At some level, no matter how mat-
ter-of-fact we tried to be, all the families
had concerns regarding the terrorism
that has become part of Israeli life. In
preparing for the trip, our group
expressed the desire to have an armed
guard with us. We asked about security
updates,. etc.
Once in Israel, the sense of danger, as
we imagined it sitting here in Detroit,
was left behind! One could not ignore
the unobtrusive but ever-present guards
and doormen at most stores and restau-
rants; however, these precautions were
not stifling, but rather reassuring.

God's Name, Our Responsibility

New York
s we approach the 2004 presi-
dential election, I note with
some concern that both par-
ties continue to invoke God's name
on a regular basis.
Clearly, religious organizations do
that all the time. It is part and parcel
of our mission and our belief system.
But even here, we don't call upon God
to carry out actions we should under-
take ourselves. What, then, are the
two parties trying to accomplish?

A

gni

9/24
2004

46

Jerome M. Epstein is the executive vice
president of the United Synagogue of
Conservative Judaism, the association of
Conservative congregations in North
America. E-mail• info@uscj.org

It is well-known to those who have
studied the Bible that one book —
the Book of Esther — contains no
mention of God. Jewish tradition does
not interpret this to mean that the
heroine, Esther, or the hero,
Mordechai, were people of little faith.
Quite the contrary.
The story is used to suggest that
people must accept some responsibili-
ty for solving their own problems.
Thus, even as the Jews in ancient
Persia faced annihilation, they not
only prayed, but also undertook a
program of self-help or positive action
to • ensure their own survival.
We should use the same approach
to evaluate and interpret the positions
of the parties contesting the upcom-
ing presidential election.

Do they set out the chal-
— or not referring — to God
lenges that face us as a nation?
is beside the point, though, as
What plan of action do the
a nation, we have long wres-
candidates intend to follow if
tled with the notion of
elected?
including explicit references
It is not the voter's job sim-
to God in public documents.
RABBI
ply to reward a candidate's reli- JEROME M.
Interestingly, other coun-
giosity. Rather, it is our
tries have faced the same
EPSTEIN
responsibility to choose among
problem. In drawing up the
Special
specific policy initiatives that
Commentary Declaration of Independence
may (or may not) derive from
of the State of Israel, the
a public servant's personal reli-
drafters, as a compromise,
gious orientation.
made mention in the final paragraph
For a candidate to speak of God's
of the "Rock" of Israel. According to
love, for example, while skirting issues
Israel's founding father and first prime
such as stem cell research, poverty,
minister, David Ben-Gurion, such
homelessness, and health care, would
wording enabled each person to
be disingenuous and unfair to the
understand the phrase in his or her
voter.
own way.
When all is said and done, referring
God — and religion in general —

