Editor's Letter JARC salutes its BUSINESS BUDDIES for donations of goods and services over the past 12 months. Provocative Moments After T he most insightful moments of U.S. Rep. John Conyers, Jr.'s appearance as keynote speaker for the Martin Luther King, Jr. commemorative event at Detroit Jewry's headquarters came after he spoke. . Conyers, D-Detroit, ended his fcirmal remarks during the Jewish Community Council-sponored program at the Max M. Fisher Federation Building in Bloomfield . Township by lauding the - impact of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, who died last October at age 92. She adopt- ed Detroit as her hometown a few years after she refused to give her seat to a white passenger and thus spurred the Montgomery., Ala., bus boycott of 1955, a seminal point on the timeline leading to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Robert A. Sklar Parks' 48-year embrace of Metro Editor Detroit, memorialized by the Montgomery bus now residing at the Henry Ford in Dearborn, has strengthened us as a com- munity, Conyers said. "We now have closer reconciliation with the ideals and philosophies of Martin Luther King," Conyers said in closing his Jan. 13 speech, two days before what would have been Dr. King's 77th birthday. Conyers was elected to the U.S. House in 1964, thanks in part to Dr. King's endorsement. He's a founder of the Congressional Black Cau .cus. I met him in the 1970s while doing a school paper on one of Detroit's then-model urban renewal projects: Hobart Street. His politics are sometimes too liberal, and we see the Israel-Palestinian conflict differently, but he, as much as any black leader, recognizes Jews as integral to the soul and vitality of Metro Detroit. America's middle class has propelled Jews into the mainstream, but the road was rocky because of our ethnicity. Still, Conyers left me pondering when he shared corn- ments cut from his original speech because of time: "Jews need to understand, and each new Jewish generation needs to be taught, that although they have faced discrimination in America, it was never official policy or as systematic as slavery and Jim Crow. It has been far easier for Jews to fit in and enter the middle class than it has been for blacks." Yes, American Jews became middle class quicker, and in larger numbers. We were never government-recognized slaves despite the prejudice we continue to confront although to .a much-lesser degree as evidenced by an Orthodox Jew nearly becoming vice president in 2000. America's middle class has propelled Jews into-the main- stream, but the road was rocky because of our ethnicity. Jews were systematically kept out of top schools and many neighborhoods as well as country clubs and resorts. Jews rose to the upper echelons of Hollywood, finance, politics and the professions. Yet not so many years ago, we felt com- pelled to build Sinai Hospital of Detroit, in part, because our physicians were barred from practicing elsewhere. Conyers went on to declare, "Jews need to understand that many blacks feel the Holocaust is used to justify any Jewish behavior, while centuries of slavery, the era of Jim Crow and lynchings are sometimes rejected as even partial explanations for economic or social difficulties." That's a mouthful. Jews sometimes cite the Holocaust as the undercurrent of continuing Jew-hating and Jew-baiting, but no Jew I know cites it as wholesale justification for personal conduct. Jews have been at the forefront of the civil rights movement so are as mindful as anyone of how slavery and lynchings in the past still affect black opportunities today. Jews of the 19th and early 20th centuries in America suf- fered extreme hate and even were lynched remember Atlanta pencil factory manager Leo Frank? But I would never claim that Jews had it as bad as-blacks, whose skin color and bondage to tenant farming and forced indebted- ness intensified the oppression. For years following their mass emigration, European Jews, even the poorest ones, had more of a chance to escape the American ghet- to than blacks. Here in Metro Detroit, we live in the most segregated metro region in America. I'm not proud of that. But that doesn't mean we can't work together, whites and blacks, on a host Of Rep. Conyers: Frank conversations common con c erns like child rearing, drug fighting, mass transit, interfaith bridge building and cultural and economic development while we get our act together on tackling segregation and the reasons.for this great divide. Talk doesn't have to be cheap. Rep. Conyers is right: "Our conversations need to be frank, but sensitive to each other's history and feelings:' ❑ Related coverage: page 20 Action Video & .Imaging,Inc. Advance Packaging Technologies American Blind, Wallpaper, & More Ronald M. Applebaum, Esq. Danny Aronovitz, DPM and • Marvin Aronovitz, DPM Artistic Outdoor Services, Inc. Automatic Apartment Laundries Blossoms, Inc. Bodman LLP Cheryl Melamed Photography Detroit Popcorn Company Dykema Faces in the Air, Ltd. FASTSIGNS of Farmington Hills Barry W. Feldman, M.D. Forest Post Productions Full Circle Graphics, Inc. Goren & Associates — Keith Levick Great Lakes Landscape Design, Inc. GT Photographic Harper Furniture Harry's Garden Centers, Inc. Hersch's Lawn Spray JAX Kar Wash Jo Bruce Corporate Training Associates Joe Cornell Entertainment Kleiman, Carney & Greenbaum, P.C. Lapides Publicity Group Lighting Supply Company Linwood Pipe & Supply Company, Inc. Maddin, Hauser, Wartell, Roth & Heller, P.C. Mattko Systems Matt Prentice Restaurant Group Metropolitan Heating & Cooling, Inc. Michael Jonas Photography Mobile Dentists — Dr. Marcy Borofsky & Dr. Margo Woll Bobbie Miller — Re/Max in the Hills Miller Canfield . Gary D. Miller Pest Arrest, Inc. Pitt, McGehee, Mirer, Palmer and Rivers,P.C. Production Tool Supply Resource Data Systems Corporation Rock Equities, Inc. S tar Trax Event Productions Technihouse Inspections Tracey and Associates Victor/Harder Productions How do you rate Jewish-black relations in Metro Detroit? o 0 0 : 0 What role can Jews play to spur integration in the metro area? E-mail letters to: letters@thejewishnews.com Vision Specialists of Birmingham Walker Printery, Inc. Wallside Windows Zack and Chandler, C.P.A., P.C. aaaaaaaa aaaaaaaa jam Become a ARC Business Buddy! 248.538.6610 I x 314 1057760 January 19. 2006 5