LETTERS
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emanuel ungaro
PA gIS
FALL 2005
COLLECTION
THURSDAY, APRIL 7
10-9
FRIDAY, APRIL 8
10-6
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Alter's Efforts Lauded
As I read the March 24 issue ("The
Texture Of Learning," page 5), I was
pleased to read about Peter Alter's com-
mitment to Jewish education in his role
as the new president of the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.
I then read about the University of
Michigan students in several organiza-
tions who worked tirelessly to defeat a
resolution calling for divestment from
Israel ("Student Power," page 16).
As a teacher for 18 years at Hillel Day
School of Metropolitan Detroit, I was
delighted to see the students mentioned:
Samantha Woll, Monica Woll, Alana
Kuhn, Matthew Orley, Jennifer Gonik
and Adam Soclof, all of whom are Hillel
graduates. I cannot think of a better tes-
tament to the value of a Jewish day
school education than to read about
these wonderful young people who are
activists working to support Israel on
their college campus.
I commend Peter Alter for his vision
and goal. I hope that many children will
benefit from a renewed effort to increase
the numbers in all of the excellent Jewish
schools that Metro Detroit has to offer.
Sharon Schwartz
Bloomfield Hills
Fighting Anti-Zionism
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Regarding Mr. Mike Odetalla's letter
("What Chutzpah!" March 17, page 5),
I want to thank him for exposing us,
right at home, to what most Europeans
and especially those in every Arab coun-
try see and hear every day in their news
media — hate and venom toward Israel.
We all know it's out there; and now
with Mr. Sklar's courage, we see it in our
local paper. I'm afraid to think of how
many of these hate letters Mr. Sklar
receives. Mr. Odetalla chooses to vili fy
Israel with hearsay and the typical "mur-
der, occupy, oppress, demolish homes,
confiscate lands" we see in the same hate
press without one mention of the brutal-
ities and murder caused by the
Palestinian thugs.
The real villains are Russia
(Chechnya), Communist China (Tibet),
Syria (Lebanon) and the Sudanese; they
" murder, occupy, oppress, demolish
homes and confiscate lands."
Mr. Odetalla, you have it wrong: It's
the Arab press, schools and mosques
that routinely call Jews "vermin, cock-
roaches, a cancer, grasshoppers that must
be squashed."
By the way, regarding the "It is high
time that the silent majority of Jews
stand up and shout, loud and clear, 'Not
in our Name!'" — I am proud to say
that I am part of the loud majority, the
majority that are Zionists and support
the government and State of Israel.
Please show us your "silent majority."
Ed Kohl
West Bloomfield
Record Enrollment
Thank you for the wonderful article by
Special Writer Alan Abrams about the
Specs Howard School of Broadcast Arts
("In Thirty-Five," March 3, page 31).
We're all very proud of my dad and the
thriving business he has built.
Please.-allow me to clarify one sen-
tence in the story that reads, "The
school had 600 students last year and
450 this year." As the company's chief
executive, I am compelled to respond to
what the discerning reader would inter-
pret as a 25 percent decline in business!
What I said was that the school
achieved a record-high number of stu-
dent starts last year, with just under 600
(598, to be precise). I went on to
explain that with our 8-month program
being our most popular offering, we
could, at any given time, have as many
as 450 students or more attending class.
I'm happy to report that we're already
ahead of last year's pace, and we're on
target to surpass the 600-student thresh-
old for another record-breaking year.
Just thought I'd pass along the good news!
Jonathan Liebman
president/CEO,
Specs Howard School of Broadcast Arts
Southfield
What A Purim!
At the end of the Purim story,
Mordechai told the Jewish people to
make Purim "days of gladness and feast-
ing, a holiday, and of sending portions
one to another and gifts to the poor." In
that spirit, Jews everywhere send parcels
with at least two kinds of treats to their
friends, family and community.
In the Detroit Jewish community, we
take the mitzvah one step further ... to
share Purim with the entire community.
We would like to extend our sincere
thanks to Audrey and Bill Farber, the
Detroit Jewish News and the many com-
munity and agency volunteers for your
help in making this year's Great Purim
Parcel Project a huge success.
Almost 60 families joined together at
the Max M. Fisher Jewish Federation
Building to create Mishloach Manot and,
even more importantly, good feelings
and memories of working together to
help others. We were "on the road" with
seven other sites going at the same time
(and three others that were to continue
the mitzvah this week).
Almost 4,000 parcels have been or are
in the process of being delivered to local
seniors serviced through Jewish Home
and Aging Services, Jewish Family
Service, JARC and Yad Ezra as well as to
new Detroiters, Meals on -Wheels recipi-
ents and lots of others!
By helping bring the community
together, we truly fulfilled the mission of
the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit: "Together, we CAN do a world
of good!"
We look forward to next year's Great
Purim Parcel Project on Sunday, March
5, 2006, and many more years of bring-
ing the community together. •
Gail Greenberg
Federations- Alliance for Jewish Education
Bloomfield Township
A Kind Gesture
I saw your Editor's Notebook about the
Detroit family that donated a play-
ground to a moshav [farming communi-
ty] in Israel ("More Than A
Playground," Jan. 7, page 5). You're
right; one doesn't have to go through a
big organization to make a difference.
I'd like to tell you about another
Detroit couple that have made a world
of difference to people in my town.
While their donation doesn't get into the
thousands of dollars, their thoughtful-
ness makes the lives of countless
"Anglos" in Safed much more pleasant.
Dena and Irving Greenberg were
friends of my grandparents and were
very supportive when I made aliyah in
1983. Sometime afterward, knowing
that transplanted Americans yearn for
familiar reading material, they began to
periodically box up books and send
them to us. As the years went on, the
boxes became more frequent, and since
our bookshelf space is limited, we for-
warded them to Safed's English library.
Well, now the local English speakers
of Safed really anticipate the Greenbergs'
biannual boxes! They mostly send popu-
lar mystery titles, which is immensely
popular in the library — a little apart-
ment stuck way in the Old City of Safed
where English readers from all walks of
life, from Breslev chasidim to recently
arrived English teachers from Ethopia,
gather to check out reading material.
But the mysteries are always the most
popular, and the Greenbergs, longtime
Labor Zionists, have put Detroit on the
"where our friends are" map of Safed.
Laurie Rappeport
Safech Israel