Editorials are posted and archived on
JNOnline.com

Still Unfinished

igh school graduation means mortar-
boards, flowing gowns, bittersweet good-
byes and serious speeches to mark a com-
ing of age.
Yes, graduation is not an end, but a beginning in
so many ways. Most high school graduates in our
community are going on to college in the fall. They
and their parents recognize that to get a good job,
to acquire additional life skills and to gain more
maturity, more education is needed. The graduates
are ready to fly the nest, but not fly too far. They
are still under their parents' wing.
The same premise applies when we assess our
graduates' Jewish connectivity. They have stepped
from the nest — some as long as five years
ago when they became bar or bat mitzvah
— but are they ready to fly on their own
Jewishly? Are we ready to let them? Do
they match their parents' Jewish connectivity, at
whatever level that may be?
According to a number of recent studies, includ-
ing the latest National Jewish Population Study, our
recent high school graduates have:
• individualized world views
• a strong emphasis on diversity
• a lack of interest in traditional religious institu-
tions
• distinctly less interest in religious life
• less intense feelings about Jewish peoplehood
• less intense feelings about Jewish collective

responsibility.
Our Jewish institutions are discovering what we
individually have known for years: We are not our
parents and our children are not us. Our parents
went to cheder four days a week, we went to
Hebrew school three days a week, and our chil-
dren attend twice a week, if that. Day schools are
trying to reverse that tide, but they are still the
exception, not the rule.
So what can we do? Our synagogues are making
valiant efforts, trying to reach youth and young
adults with alternatives employing music and
shorter prayer services, social action, teen pro-
gramming, adult education classes and coffee
talks.
Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish
Campus Life is working hard to do that
on our college campuses around the
country. Locally, we have strong Hillel organiza-
tions on both large and small campuses. The
University of Michigan, with an estimated 6,000
Jewish students, is one of the largest Hillels in the
nation, boasting numerous student-run organiza-
tions with interests ranging from Israel to sports to
singing. Michigan State University, with 2,000
Jewish students and a new Hillel building, is
quickly becoming the MSU campus Jewish address.
Hillel of Metro Detroit makes its presence felt at
Wayne State, Oakland U., Oakland Community
College and Lawrence Tech, while smaller Hillels at
Eastern, Central and Western Michigan are becom-
ing a home for Jews on their campuses.
Sounds great, doesn't it? It is, if our high school
graduates take advantage.

Dry Bones

IF WE PULL OUT NOW,
THE TERRORISTS WILL
BE ENCOURAGED.

ARE WE TALKING
ABOUT ISRAEL IN
GAZA OR AMERICA
IN IRAQ?

EDIT ORIAL

E-mail your opinion in a letter to the editor of no more
than 150 words to: letters@thejewishnews.com .

The Price Is Wrong

S

omething whooshed past my head last week,
like a bullet in the night. It missed, but it sure
made me blink.
I have written before about having Gaucher's
Disease, one of those rare genetic catastrophes that
befall Ashkenazim Jews. It wasn't diagnosed until
eight years ago, and the treatment will last for the rest
of my life.
An IV supplying the enzyme my blood
lacks goes into my veins for an hour twice a
month. No big deal in return for keeping
me alive.
• On the other hand, it is a very big deal
for my insurance carrier. About $15,000 per injec-
tion. Yeah, you read that right.
So last week when a call came in that the insurance
company was contending I had exhausted my life-
time benefits, it was a bit unsettling.
It turned out they were wrong, and I was still cov-
ered. But for a day or so, I went around wondering
how I was going to come up with $30,000 a month.

t *

)

E97

www.mrdrybones.com

Michael Brooks, director of U-M Hillel, has said
more than once, "Hillel is the last Jewish gas station
on the road to life." Encourage your student to "fill
up." Go behind their backs and submit their name
and campus address to their campus Hillel. It does-
n't mean that they will go. But it is one more chance
at creating that Jewish connection. ❑

case with other procedures today.
If only my mom hadn't thrown out my base-
There are those who think a Canadian-
ball card collection.
style
health care system is the answer.
So that was a happy ending. But a recent
Confidence in this system, however, seems to
study conducted by Harvard University con-
increase in direct proportion to one's actual
cluded that many endings involving health
distance from Canada.
insurance are not.
In Quebec, they didn't think it's so hot. As
Even with company-paid coverage, people
a
result
of a lawsuit filed there, the Canadian
can be wiped out financially after a major
Supreme
Court recently ruled that a law bar-
medical procedure because of increasingly
GEO RGE
ring
private
care for patients willing to pay
higher deductibles and co-pays. Others lose
CAN TOR
for it is unconstitutional.
their jobs, and their insurance, during Colu mnist
That may well lead to a two-tier system:
recuperation. Those who are self-
Private care for the wealthy, government care
employed see their incomes dry up for
for the poor and the sick. Insurance companies will
months and can't pay the premiums.
then cherry pick the best risks and dump the rest
And these are people who thought they
onto the tax-supported system. It can't possibly work.
were protected from this sort of disaster.
General Motors already is pushing for concessions
What an anomaly medical care has become. In an
from the UAW on health care, and the next round of
era when medical technology can save their lives,
contract talks looks to be a bumpy ride — because
people find that getting access to the system may ruin
that agreement will set the pattern for coverage in all
their lives. We have come to expect miracles, and
of American industry.
they never come cheap.
My Gaucher's Disease doesn't hurt, although it did
One of the ironies of medical progress is that as
collapse
a hip on me. It doesn't really interfere with
soon as a less expensive and invasive procedure is
.much
in
my life. I had reached middle age before I
developed, the cost to insurers usually goes up —
even knew it was there.
because people who would have passed on it other-
But for one bad day last week, it was the stuff of
wise now choose to have it. That was true of laparo-
nightmares.
scopic surgery in the early 1990s and remains the

REA LITY
CB ECE

George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor@thejewishnews. corn.

❑

'IN

6/23

2005

29