SAVE THE DATE AND NOMINATE!

EIGHT
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Farewell, Friends!

The Tikkun Olam Award

WHY: To recognize eight senior adults and their lifetime achievements

Do you know a deserving older adult who...

✓
✓
✓
✓
✓

Is at least 80 years old?
Has been a life long volunteer- in the community?
Is active and volunteering today?
Is dedicated to maintaining strong Jewish values?
Is an inspiring leader or mentor in the community?

HOW TO NOMINATE:

Write or email JAS describing the worthiness of the nominee.

Please include (as applicable)

✓ Name and age of nominee
✓ Duration of volunteer service (years, decades)
✓ Involvement in Jewish organizations and causes
✓ Leadership positions held
✓ Current accomplishments
✓ Letters and newspaper articles supporting nominee's
' accomplishments

Also explain how the nominee's long-standing activities exemplify a

commitment to the Jewish value of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world).

MAIL/EMAIL TO:

Eight Over Eighty
Jewish Apartments & Services
David and Miriam Mondry Building
15000 W. Ten Mile Road
Oak Park, MI 48237
Email: PWurdock@Jasmi.org

ALL NOMINATIONS MUST BE RECEIVED BY JANUARY 31, 2006.715.2o

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8

December 22 • 2005

Something Extra

hen the two jetliners carrying
730 people ranging in age
from 6 months to 80 on
Federation's Family Miracle Mission touch
down at Ben-Gurion International Airport
—one this week and the other next week
-- Detroit Jewry will have brought more
than 4,000 mission-goers to Israel over
the past 10 years, more than any U.S.
Jewish community. Considering that we're
only the llth largest Jewish community in
population, this is a stunning achieve-
ment, one that we can be proud of.
The threat of terror is ever present, the
economy is sagging, coming elections
could oust current leaders and the weath-
er isn't the best this time of year. The
Gaza-Egyptian border is porous and the
route of the security fence along the West
Bank continues to be contentious.
But nothing has stopped the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit-spon-
sored mission to Israel, Federation's'fifth
mega-mission. Almost 200 families are
taking part. The Detroit Jewish News and
the Michigan Board of Rabbis are co-
sponsors.
Security will be tight and the itinerary
is certain to change. Still, interest in going
on the mission met expectations. Just by
their presence on the common turf for the
Jewish people, mission-goers, emissaries
for all of Michigan Jewry, will provide an
emotional lift. By breaking bread, praying
and schmoozing with Israelis, and spend-
ing money in their hotels, shops and
restaurants, the travelers will be giving
our ancestral hom-eland a major boost.
The mission takes place during
Chanukah. Families will connect the valor
of the Maccabees to the educational and
religious life of our people as they light
the chanukiyah, the Chanukah menorah.
The glow of the candles will remind us
of the triumph of the Jewish people over
the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV
Epiphanes, who demanded that Jews wor-
ship like all of the other people in his
Hellenistic Syrian kingdom and not pray
to our God in the Temple in Jerusalem.
. The Jewish revolt led by the Maccabees in
the second century BCE led to rededica-
tion of the defiled Temple in Jerusalem.
How fitting that the Detroit sojourn
begins with a tree-planting ceremony in
Modi'in, home of the Maccabees. Rabbi
Harold Loss of Temple Israel in West
Bloomfield, who will lead 300 of the mis-
sion-goers, put it well. There in Modi'in,
the travelers — pilgrims all — "each in
their own way, will be reminded of the
importance of the State of Israel for those
who live there and for Jews who live in

W

every corner of the world."
I wish each traveler a n'siyah tovah, a
good journey!
May each be blessed with health, expe-
riences that both energize and elevate
and, most importantly, a shalom sukkat-
a shelter of peace. ❑

Robert A. Sklar, editor

LIVE

Vicariously!

• Check out JNOnline.com daily
for news and photographs from
Federation's Family Miracle
Mission.

• Watch the Jan. 5 issue of the
JN for a stories on Mission
b'nai mitzvah and Chanukah in
Israel.

• View winners of the JN's first-
ever Mission photography
contest in the Jan,19 JN, with
most entries posted at
J.1•10nline.com a veil.

Answering
Israel's Critics

The Charge:

Some Palestinian intellectuals cham-
pion the concept of a "one-state solu-
tion," where Jews and Arabs in what-is
now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza
live peacefully side-by-side in a
democracy. The concept sounds liber-
al, Western and egalitarian.

The Answer:

For Jews, the one-state solution con-
cept has one major flaw. Twentieth
century Zionists did not work to cre-
ate a multi-ethnic nation, but to re-
establish the world's one and only
Jewish state. That state would rescue
Jews -from harm, prevent another
Holocaust, and give Jews the tools to
build their own future. Israel's Jews
accept their non-Jewish neighbors as
full citizens; but, to remain "the
Jewish State," Israel must maintain
its Jewish majority.

— Allan Gale, Jewish Community Council of

Metropolitan Detroit

