Opinion
Dry Bones OE',
Editorials are posted and archived on JNonline.us .
•
IT'S JUNE 20061
EXACTLY 2.5 YEARS
SINCE JUNE 1981
Editorial
A Tale Of Two Cities
T
he Jewish communities
in Atlanta and Detroit
are polar opposites, yet
both are traveling in the same
direction.
Both communities unveiled
top-line findings of their respec-
tive demographic studies in
May What the data reveal are
two communities with different
strengths and weaknesses.
The metropolitan Atlanta
Jewish community is estimated
to number 120,000, up 43,000
since the last comprehensive
study 10 years ago. This makes
Atlanta the 11th-largest Jewish
community in America, based on
numbers compiled by University
of Miami demographer Ira
Sheskin. At the same time, levels
of Jewish affiliation and involve-
ment in Atlanta (for example,
synagogue or Jewish Community
Center membership or contribu-
tions to the Jewish Federation of
Greater Atlanta) are below aver-
age. Among other facts, a major-
ity of Jewish Atlantans do not
read any Jewish publication with
regularity.
The metropolitan Detroit
Jewish community is estimated
to number 72,000, down about
24,000 since it was last studied
in 1989. While there are now
valid statistical analyses that
show the 1989 number (96,000
Jews) was overstated, various
in-migration and out-migration
patterns show a downward trend.
Detroit is now the 21st-largest
American Jewish community.
But levels of Jewish affiliation
and involvement in Detroit are
among the highest in the coun-
try, and only 22 percent of the
Jewish community never reads
the Detroit Jewish News. In
fact, according to Sheskin, the
Detroit Jewish News has the
highest level of readership of any
of the 38 Jewish communities he
has studied.
Part of the difference: 12
percent of Atlanta's Jewish
population is age 65 and older,
compared with 24 percent of
Detroit's. Two cities at polar
opposites? Hardly.
While Atlanta is growing in
Jewish population, it faces the
unique challenge of bringing
those migrating young Jews
into the fold. Only one-third of
Atlanta Jewish households are
affiliated with a synagogue.
It's not that Atlanta's Jews lack
an interest in their religion. One
of the encouraging trends in the
new study is that 82 percent of
Jewish Atlantans identify them-
selves as members of a particu-
lar stream of Judaism, whereas
one-third said they were secular
or nondenominational a decade
ago. That means Atlantans
increasingly understand and
care about the different ways
people practice Judaism. What
seems to be missing is the
knowledge of how to follow
through on those beliefs to get
involved at a synagogue.
By outward appearances,
Detroit could teach Atlanta a les-
son in Jewish connection, with
its 71 percent of households with
children having synagogue affili-
ation.
But that would be true only if
Detroit could attract and assimi-
late unrelated Jews from other
areas. Connecting your children
to your institutions is much
easier than connecting with
A LOT NAS
r CHANGED
IN THE
LAST 25 YEARS.
•
WHEN ISRAEL
BOMBED SADDAM'S
NUCLEAR PLANT IN
IRAQ.
THE THREAT IS
NOW SOO MILES
FURTHER TO THE
EAST, IN IRAN
someone else's children. Atlanta,
Detroit and every other Jewish
community in North America
can testify to that truth.
So Jewish Atlanta, while grow-
ing, and Jewish Detroit, while
shrinking, face the same dilem-
ma — how do we make our
synagogues and service institu-
tions relevant for an increasingly
assimilated and disconnected
young-adult generation?
Detroit needs to attract that
generation — both our own and
natives of other areas — and
Atlanta needs to connect them
Jewishly. (11
to kill at leisure.
Any abuses at
Guantanamo and Al
Ghraib Prison, and
there certainly were
some, pale beside
the brutality per-
formed purpose-
fully by al Qaeda
on a daily basis. We
have gone to war
with Murder, Inc.,
an organization that exists for
no other reason but to slaughter
defenseless people.
Wring my hands over their
rights? I think not. Nor do I
believe my rights are threatened
and diminished by our govern-
ment's actions. They sure would
be, though, if the government
bowed to pressure and let these
thugs loose because it didn't
want to risk revealing classified
information at a civil trial.
Civilian deaths occurred
in Germany at the hands of
American troops in the last
weeks of World War II. But no
one rent their garments and
flagellated themselves. Wars kill
people. That's what war is.
We value life too highly. That's
what Osama bin Laden said
after 9-11. He believed it was his
greatest advantage over us, that
we will shrink from answering
brutality with brutality, sav-
agery with savagery. ❑
E-mail letters of no more than 150
words to:
letters@thejewishnews.com .
Reality Check
When Rights Are Wrong
I
suppose this makes me
a moral leper in the eyes
of some but I really don't
think that the military prison at
Guantanamo Bay is the greatest
blot on America in the nation's
history.
In that prison are men who
would slit your throat in two
seconds if they had the chance.
Or blow up your relatives. Or
drive a truck full of explosives
into the nearest church or syna-
gogue.
They are first cousins to the
scum who tortured and mur-
dered two U.S. soldiers captured
in Iraq. Or those who set off
rockets into Israeli cities and
then wave their arms and shriek
like they live in a tree when
Israel dares to retaliate.
Israel withdrew entirely from
Gaza, turned the whole bloody
mess over to the Palestinians.
Still the Palestinians fire their
rockets into Israel, the Israel
that exists behind the pre-1967
borders. They say it's their right.
This is the nature of the enemy.
There is no opprobrium
attached to lying in that culture.
No restraint about murdering
innocent civilians or placing
their own people in harm's way,
as in Gaza. That's the whole
idea. It makes great front-page
pictures in the European news-
papers.
I am supposed to feel
ashamed because they have not
had every last one of their rights
upheld at Gitmo to the last peri-
od and comma? Or that their
interrogation has been
sometimes indelicate?
I am supposed to
beat my breast in
anguish when three of
these prisoners decide
to kill themselves?
Would that more of
them had observed
their actions carefully
and hastened to do
likewise.
It is one thing to kill in the
heat of combat. Terrible things
happen to the mind of even a
well-trained soldier when he
sees a friend blown apart before
his eyes. This is not to condone,
but the wonder is that given the
nature of the combat in Iraq it
has happened so seldom.
It is another thing, however,
George Cantor's e-mail address is
gcantor614@aol.com .
June 29 ® 2006
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