Opinion

Greenberg's View

Editorials are posted and archived on 1NOnline.com

Editorial

Fragility Of Hope

he headline in the Detroit
newspaper read: "Gazans
Celebrate Freedom!'
It was not a cheerful party,
however. Synagogues left behind
in the former Jewish settlements
went up in flames. Then the cele-
brants went on to smash many of
the hothouses that had been left
intact and were intended to be an
important element in the local
economy.
As beginnings go, this was not
auspicious. It seemed, in fact, to
confirm all the fears about the
destructive impulses of the
Palestinians, who would damage
even their own livelihoods if it
meant defying Israeli intentions.
This was an emotional issue
for Israelis and for Jews every-
where. The images of syna-
gogues being destroyed
inevitably brought back memo-
ries of other burnings in count-
less other lands. It was difficult
to watch without a visceral
response.
To spare Jewish observers
exactly this sort of pain, howev-

T

er, the Israeli government origi-
nally had decided to have the
IDF tear down these buildings.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
even referred to them as "hous-
es that were used as syna-
gogues!'
All religious objects had been
removed from them and Israel's
Supreme Court ruled the tear-
downs would be permissible. But
objections from the observant —
not only in. Israel but also world-
wide — were so intense that the
government decided to reverse
its policy. By a Cabinet vote of
14-2, it left the structures stand-
ing for the Palestinians to
destroy.
There was little doubt that
was exactly what would happen.
Palestinian Authority
spokesman Jibril Rajoub said
the land was "needed for devel-
opment plans" and that they
were seen as "symbols of occu-
pation" rather than religious
structures.
The U.S. State Department
also weighed in, saying Israel's

A voice for the
voiceless, the
conscience of the
unconscionable.

Simon Wiesenthal
1908-2005

Israel was unaffected by it, one
way or another.
If the Palestinians had to be
given their moment of exultant
destruction, let us hope this was
it. The symbolic price was
unpleasant but bearable. But the
newly opened border with
Egypt means that arms will
flow into Gaza virtually
unchecked. With many factions
in the P.A. interpreting the Gaza
withdrawal as an unmitigated
Israeli defeat, there is good rea-
son to believe the main goal of
its leaders, as always, is not to

rebuild its economy but to
enhance its firepower.
Whether the Gaza syna-
gogues were destroyed by Jews
or by Muslims, these buildings
were doomed. We can only pray
that the fragile hopes engen-
dered by leaving Gaza will not
be thrown into the inferno as
well.

never out of earshot of
he's the only one
singing in those days
they've got.
because there seemed to
It is customary for
be a shul on every block.
the chazzan to have a
It's odd what sticks in a
sob in his voice when
child's mind. I remember
he chants this prayer,
the old-timers starting to
and that concerned my
wobble from their fast at
grandmother a good
George Cantor the concluding service of
deal when she heard
Colum nist
Yom Kippur and men
it.
rushing up with smelling
And when he got to
salts to bring them around.
the Aleinu and sank to the floor
Then, in later years, were the
as a token of his submission to
walks to and from shul with my
God, it was too much for my
dad and brother. It was almost a
grandmother. She started to leap
mile when we attended services
to her feet, convinced her hus-
at Ahavas Achim, on Schaefer;
band was having a coronary
and the long discussions on
right up there on the bimah. She
those hikes about the state of the
had to be pulled back down and
reassured by her sons that every- world and the Tigers and the ser-
mon and the meal that awaited
thing was going according to
us.
plan.
There was something about
I remember walking to that
those late-afternoon feasts, the
shul down Linwood. You were

only time all year when you'd eat
like that with the sun still high in
the sky. And the keen anticipa-
tion of breaking the fast when
the shofar's final blast had faded.
The only time I was ever away
from home for the High Holidays
was when I was on a reporting
assignment in Israel, and attend-
ed services in Jerusalem on erev
Rosh Hashanah. Not a bad deal,
and certainly a memory I treas-
ure.
But not as much as I do those
holidays from long ago, sitting at
the back door of that little shul,
watching my father and learning
how a Jew prayed on these holi-
est of days. ❑

decision left the P.A. in the
position of being "criticized for
whatever it does!' It should
have been recognized, however,
even more than televised
images of settlers being forcibly
removed, that the burning syn-
agogues would stir emotions
that can impede future rela-
tionships.
If you doubt that, simply visit
the Ha'aretz Web page, where
more than 300 readers of the
Israeli newspaper responded to
the destruction in little more
than two days. Hardly anyone in

❑

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

Reality Check

Holidays Past

y dad always managed
to wrangle a seat near
the rear door of the lit-
tle shul on Linwood.
Not that it made much of a dif-
ference. No air was stirring, even
when it was open. If you stepped
outside for a few moments, that
made it even worse because you
were in direct sunlight.
I was not yet wearing a tallis,
but I sat and sweltered in my one
suit and tie because Rosh
Hashanah was always hot. That
you could take to the bank.
Even if the weather was mod-
erate, this shul had been built on
the architectural principle of
"hold in the heat." A necessity
back in Russia, perhaps, but not
so good for late summers in
Detroit.
That is my earliest memory of
the High Holidays, sitting back

NI

JN September 29 2005

there with my dad and Uncle
Seymour and trying to decipher
a prayer book that was written in
Yiddish with Hebrew characters.
I started enjoying the holidays
a lot more when we went to a
place that had air conditioning,
and some English words on the
pages.
My grandfather had been the
chazzan at this shul, and even -
after his death my family went
there for the holidays. They
always told the story of the time
my grandmother made one of
her rare appearances to watch
her husband daven (pray) on
Rosh Hashanah.
There is a prayer at the start of
the Musafservice in which the
chazzan acknowledges, in
essence, that he may be a poor
representative to pray for this
congregation but, unfortunately,

George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor614@aol.com .

99