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Middle East

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Catalyst For Advocacy

Rally
mobilized
thousands;
continued
support
for Israel
urged.

Jamie Lederman, 11, and Dean
Hamer, 10, of West Bloomfield
show their support.

Israel Scouts Goni Tzafrir, 14, of
Ramat Gan and Michal Cohen of
Ganey Tikva cheered for Israel.

Harry Kirsbaum
Staff Writer

M

ickey Levin of
Farmington Hills says.
he's always been active
in supporting Israel, but last week's
"Stand With Israel Now" rally has
spurred him to write more let-
ters to the editor and increase his
donation to Israel.
"The rally motivated me, but
then again I'm highly motivated;'
he said. "The question is will it
motivate others?"
Waving Israeli flags, and car-
rying signs, about 4,000 sup-
porters of Israel streamed into
Congregation Shaarey Zedek in
Southfield on July 19 for the soli-
darity rally for Israel.
Sponsored by the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit
and in partnership with the Jewish
Community Council, the rally was
one of many held nationwide to
support Israel's two-front fight
against Hezbollah in Lebanon and
Hamas in Gaza.
Aileen Bloom of West
Bloomfield handed out Israeli flags
with her son, Evan, 12, as people

arrived. She was happy with the
large crowd.
"What is going on over there is
just awful and we need to support
Israel with everything we have,' she
said."We sit back too much some-
times, we say a lot to ourselves and
to our friends. We're not heard as
much as we need to be heard."
Allan Gale, assistant director of
the Jewish Community Council,
says the community needs to capi-
talize on the momentum gener-
ated by the well-attended rally.
"Unfortunately, population
wise, the Jewish community is
shrinking so we must increase our
effectiveness to send our message
of support for Israel to political
leaders, business and labor leader-
ship, the media and the interfaith
community," he said.
"To do that, our own commu-
nity must be educated, then mobi-
lized to become active pro-Israel
advocates, writing to the news-
papers, to members of Congress,
speaking to friends, neighbors and
co-workers, activating their syna-
gogues and working within their
other organizational affiliations.
"While not comparable to

northern Israel, we are also on
a 'front line: that of American
public opinion toward Israel." (See
Speaking Out For Israel, page 32)

Turn Up The Volume
At the rally Federation President
Peter Alter brought the conflict
back home. "In the last eight days,
Israel has been barraged with
more than 1,000 rocket attacks,
including a number that have fall-
en in our Partnership 2000 region
of the Central Galilee, where we
have dear friends, so dear that we
call them family
"Our voice is our strength, our
voice turns up the volume on a call
to action. In the loudest words we
say,`Am Yisroel Chai:"
With the Partnership region is •
under rocket attack, Federation
CEO Robert Aronson announced
that Federation had wired $1 mil-
lion to the region's three munici-
palities to fix their shelters and
send their children south to pro-
tective summer camps.
"We haven't raised it yet," he
said, "but we sent it anyway.
"It's not just about financial sup-
port, its about letting our people

july 27

A

2006

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