. —
Editor's Letter
•
Marc;
I Get Mail
like to receive mail because it keeps me connected to the com-
munity. Some letters are absurd. Others are poignant. Many are
informative. All are welcome. The best letters enlighten, edu-
cate and entertain — even challenge and provoke.
Here's a sampler of the more insightful correspondence that I
reviewed over the past week via the electronic mailbag:
I
• Ben Mayer of Royal Oak wrote to me about
a Farmington/Farmington Hills Gazette story
that detailed the unhappiness of Max
Richardson, a 6-year-old Sunday school stu-
dent. Max was upset with the lack of a
Chanukah presence amid the secular decora-
tive snowflakes and large holiday candle out-
side his city hall. Farmington Hills Mayor Vicki
Robert A. Sklar Barnett, who is Jewish, told the Gazette that the
city is limited by law to putting up only secular
Editor
decorations. Mayer said that even if the city
hall grounds were aglow with Christmas tinsel, he wouldn't get
excited. The Christian super majority in the U.S. is entitled to cele-
brate this major religious holiday without a cry for equal rights, he
said. He didn't think the story merited publication.
"In this country," Mayer said,"we are not being gassed to death,
we are not being corralled into ghettos, we are free to hold services
and seders as we please and we are permitted to attend any univer-
sity and hold any employment for which we are qualified."
True.
I can't get too worked up over a little boy's wish to see dreidels
and a chanukiyah outside the city hall.Yet in the wake of overbear-
ing assimilation and diminished religious interest among Jewish
kids, the boy's outcry was refreshing.
But Mayer is right: There are more pressing matters for Jews than
holiday decorations that come down even as debate lingers.
In a year where the Israeli government ordered sol-
diers to forcibly remove Jews from their Gaza Strip
homes and synagogues "so that those homes and syna-
gogues would ultimately be destroyed by Islamist fanat-
ics," Mayer wrote in a letter to the Gazette, "lights and
tinsel at city hall are hardly an affront worthy of the ink
you devoted to them':
I supported Israel's pullout from Gaza. But I agree
that American Jews too often dwell on expressions of
our great country's dominant religious faith rather than
on worsening global anti-Semitism and Israel's struggle
against Palestinian terror.
Still, three cheers for little Max Richardson for know-
ing enough about his Judaism at age 6 to recognize the
lack of Jewish expression outside the Farmington Hills
City Hall during the seasonal holidays.
Dec. 29 attack; 10 others were wounded.
"Anat, our youth counselor, taught us really cool Israeli words and
Israeli chants',' Rottman said. "She really has kept us entertained
and she has kept our minds off of any worries. I also don't feel
threatened because we've got a lot of security."
Embracing the spirit of Israel yet mindful of reality — JAMD
student Geoffrey Rottman clearly grasped what the mission was all
about.
• Pessie Busel Novick, a new teacher at Yeshivat Akiva in
Southfield, tells about 10 teenage students regaling seniors with
Chanukah stories, puppets and songs at the Fountains of Franklin
in a program organized by 12th-graders Shoshana Barth and Emily
Fox-Craft. The troupe also gave out gifts of home-baked cookies
and hand-drawn bookmarks prepared by younger Akiva students
at the Southfield senior complex.
When the Chanukah tunes changed to folk songs and segued to
Shabbat music, a resident, "her sparse white hair caught up in a rib-
bon, mouths the words to 'Shalom Aleichern:" Novick recounted.
Then a teacher walks over and hugs the woman, who says,`That
feels so good. Could you please hug me again?'"
The student singers are inspired by that exchange. After lighting
the Chanukah candles, they extend their own hugs as they say
goodbye. "The shyness that had accompanied them has dissipated
and in its place, one senses the warmth of another Chanukah mira-
cle," Novick recalled.
At a time when material gifts have infiltrated Chanukah, these
Akiva teens gave a collective spiritual gift — a part of their
neshamah, their very being.
• Michelle Passon, development director of the Bloomfield
Township-based Women's American ORT Michigan Region, wrote
to share the thoughtful words of Dr. Ellen Cannon, professor of
political science and public policy at
Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago.
Addressing our local region on Dec. 12, Dr.
Cannon said: "As world terrorism continues,
recent studies on counterterorism under-
score that despite their strong vision of social
welfare and providing for the poor, despite
their endless speeches that they the terrorists
are the solution to real freedom, despite their
shrill denunciation and demonization of the
West, terrorists have a very weak economic
vision, program or path toward improving
the daily lives of people in desperate need.
"Their primary goal is for the state to
implement Islamic law as the only form of
law. This, they argue, will solve all of the eco-
nomic and political problems. This is a
Geoffrey Rottman: thoughtful
recipe for failure. The real solutions can only
• Talk about an astute teenager. Geoffrey Rottman, 15, teen
be reached through education, research and
is a 10th-grader at the Jewish Academy of Metropolitan
the development of technology for peaceful and secular purposes."
Detroit and a congregant at B'nai Moshe, both in West Bloomfield.
Dr. Cannon was linking these solutions to the excellent work of
He was one of more than 700 travelers on the Jewish Federation of
ORT in helping underdeveloped communities worldwide install the
Metropolitan Detroit's Family Miracle Mission to Israel over
technology to improve literacy and teach purposeful skills — and
Chanukah. When asked about fear after a Palestinian suicide
thus spur economic growth and human services.
bomber blew himself up at a temporary checkpoint near the West
We know what ORT and other caring Western organizations like
Bank settlement of Avnei Hefetz en route to reportedly trying to
it can do. I can't fathom why so many Arab lands don't recognize •
explode amid Israeli kids at a Chanukah party, Rottman said: "We
Western lights of opportunity — unless they hate us so much that
really can't help prevent attacks, but we can help Israelis recover
they are willing to sacrifice their people to defend their "princi-
from the attacks that do happen."
ples." ❑
Israeli Lt. Uri Binamo, 21, died along with two Palestinians in the
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January 5 • 2006
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