LE'S

TaE21&

Seeking The

Making A Difference

Word of Max M. Fisher's death
reached Joel Jacob of West Bloomfield
in Argentina, where he was touring
sites funded by the American Jewish
Joint Distribution Committee.
"This was very sad for all of us,
including the U.S. government offi-
cials who knew of Max's work," he
said. "We were all aware of the fact
that, in large part, it was Max's devo-
tion to the JDC that enabled these
programs to exist. What a great tribute
to a great man."
Jacob, along with Rabbi Jonathan
Berkun of Congregation Shaarey
Zedek and Under Secretary of
Agriculture Erik Bost and his key staff,
spent four days visiting feeding sites
and other places helping Argentina's
impoverished Jewish community and

the general community — all funded
by the JDC and MAZON: The Jewish

Response to Hunger.
"Our dollars are being put to very
good use here; we are
making a really big
impact," Jacob said.
"Seeing this firsthand
has reinforced the point
of how important our
donations are to the
Jewish Federation and
also MAZON."

Positive Out

Of Protest

— Keri Guten Cohen,
story development editor

Rabbi Jonathan Berkun
and Undersecretary of
Agriculture Erik Bost at a
JDC-sponsored feeding sta-
tion in Buenos Aires.

Local Patients Test Israeli Drug

The Detroit Medical Center's
Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan
(RIM) is looking for volunteers to test
an experimental drug developed in
Israel that could someday provide a
cure for many spinal cord injuries
The drug is ProCord, a blood-based
serum that may heal and regenerate
damaged cells in the spinal cord of
those injured within two weeks of
becoming paralyzed. RIM is the first
Midwest rehabilitation center in
Proneuron's international, multi-center,
randomized-controlled phase II study
of ProCord.
The drug was developed by
Proneuron Biotechnologies at the
Weizmann Institute of Science in

Rehovot, Israel. Derived from specially
treated white cells isolated from
patients' own bloodstreams, it is inject-
ed directly into damaged spinal cords.
Detroit Receiving Hospital is assist-
ing RIM in screening spinal cord injury
patients for the experimental_proce-
dure.
'As a leader in the spinal cord injury
community for more than 50 years, we
have been following Proneuron's
research with great interest. We are
excited to be involved in the second
phase of this study and contributing to
further advancements in SCI research,"
said Terry Reiley, president of the
Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan.
RIM treats more spinal cord injury

1 SS PLEFNET 'cha
Don't Know© 200 5

While Israel tourism still has not recovered to its
pre-2000 level, one country with a large Jewish
population set a record in 2004 in sending Jewish
tourists to Israel. Which one?

— Goldfein

*00Z ur
smal tpua.rd 000'00Z Imp ago : ~ annsu ~

patients than any hospital in Michigan.
It recently opened its Center for Spinal
Cord Injury Recovery to implement
and study innovative treatments.
The Phase II trial commenced at
Sheba Medical Center in Tel
Hashomer, Israel, in September 2003
and expanded to the U.S. in 2004.
Currently, six other centers in the U.S.
are participating in the study: Craig
Hospital, Denver, Colo.; Mount Sinai
Medical Center, New York; University
Hospital, Newark, N.J., with Kessler
Institute for Rehabilitation in West
Orange; Shepherd Center, Atlanta; and
Shriners Hospitals for Children,
Philadelphia.

— Alan Hitskj associate editor

For the past 18 months, a small
group of protesters have gathered
every Saturday morning outside
Beth Israel Congregation in Ann
Arbor demonstrating against Israel.
In response, a grassroots effort
called SPURN was launched in July
2004, aimed at finding a positive
response to these protestors.
In addition, donations were
accepted by the group to benefit
Magen David Adom, Israel's Red
Cross.
Congregants, friends in the com-
munity and friends from as far away
as New York and Israel learned of
these efforts and donated generous-
ly. Currently, more than $25,000
from more than 200 donors has
been raised.
To honor and celebrate this effort,
an MDA event featuring the chief of
MDA's paramedic training will be
held at 7 p.m. on Sunday, March
13, at Beth Israel, 2000 Washtenaw
in Ann Arbor.
His topic is "Israel's Emergency
Medical Responders: Successes and
Challenges at Home and Abroad."
The underlying theme of the
evening will be an appreciation
(from MDA) of what has been
accomplished by this grassroots
effort.

— Keri Guten Cohen,
story development editor

Quotables

Do You Remember?

"We want to show that Israelis are struggling to
live a normal life despite all the stress. We want to
humanize the conflict and make people realize
that Israelis are suffering, too, not just the
Palestinians. If people really understood what life
is like in Israel, they would be more supportive of
its struggle."

March 1985

— New York philanthropist Joey Low, founder of
Israel at Heart, a public relations initiative to count-
er the intifida; quoted in "Israeli Life" in March's
Hadassah Magazine.

The international Maccabiah Games Committee
approved a resolution at its closing session to
eliminate the display of national flags from all
future Maccabiah Games.
The chairman of the committee explained that
the feeling was the flags were symbols of the sepa-
ration of Israel and people in the diaspora. The
flag tradition began in 1932 at the first
Maccabiah Games.

— Sy Manello, editorial assistant

Jiff

3/10

2005

49

