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Opinion

Editorials are posted and archived on JNonline.us .

Greenberg's View

Editorial

Stem Cell Bill
Favors Life

p

resident Bush's veto of
a bill permitting federal
funding for embryonic
stem cell research was an unfor-
tunate exercise in pandering to
religion over science.
But it underlines the need for
redoubling efforts in support of
State Rep. Andy Meisner's bill to
remove Michigan's restrictions on
such research.
A 1978 state law criminalizes
embryonic stem cell research in
state-funded institutions, and
conservatives in Lansing have
managed to bottle up Meisner's
bill in committee. An identical
bill was introduced in the state
Senate earlier this year.
The law, one of the most
sweeping in the country, has
made it nearly impossible for
Michigan scientists to advance
their work in this field. It is pro-
hibitively expensive to obtain
such cells from private sources.
Neither the vetoed federal
legislation nor the Michigan law

addresses the use of adult stem
cells. Supporters of the ban claim
that use of embryonic cells is
an unproven method in treating
spinal cord injuries and several
diseases and that adult stem cells
have already shown verifiable
results.
But this is a gross exaggera-
tion, says Sean Morrison, director
of the University of Michigan's
Center for Stem Cell Biology.
Embryonic stem cells were first
isolated only in 1998. The search
for cures is only at its beginning,
but embryonic cells have shown
far greater adaptability because
they have not yet committed to a
specific function in the body.
Adult stem cells, most fre-
quently obtained from umbilical
cords, have shown promise in
treating certain types of cancer.
But since their function has
already been set at extraction
they simply are more limited in
their potential use.
The bitter irony of the presi-

HIDING PLACES

rediffilerArilloOlf

A

2006, J41 LA

steveOgreenberg-artcom

dent's veto is that it is irrelevant
to the right-to-life movement he
supports. Almost all the embryos
used for research are obtained
through in-vitro fertilization.
Most of them end up being
discarded anyhow because they
are no longer needed for fertil-
ity treatment or the donors have
changed their minds.
Meisner's bill would permit
these donors to give embryos that

would otherwise be destroyed to
researchers.
Several Republicans in the U.S.
House and Senate, all of whom
are advocates of the pro-life
position, supported the embry-
onic stem cell bill. Repeated
surveys have shown that a solid
majority of people nationally
and in Michigan also back such
research.
There are thousands of people

in this state whose lives hang
on the fate of Meisner's bill. It
would be an excellent begin-
ning to unshackle the ability of
Michigan's scientists to help them.
These bills deserve an up-or-
down vote on the floor of the leg-
islature without further delay. 1

then had emerged as
the northern Jewish
alternative, a place it
continues to hold to
the present day.
My wife says that
any Jewish person
from the Detroit area
who walks along
Charlevoix's Bridge
Street on a sum-
mer afternoon and
doesn't see half a dozen people
she knows just isn't trying. Even
in spite of that, I like the place.
There is a strong inclination to
spend vacations among people
with whom you are comfortable.
Who needs social stress on a
vacation?
So other Jewish resorts thrived
in Wisconsin and, of course, after
the 1920s Miami Beach became
the paradigm of winter places

— although restrictions limited
Jews only to hotels in the southern
part of town for many years.
- My parents would spend a
week every summer at a place on
Cape Cod which was owned by a
Jewish entertainer from Boston.
It featured haimishe cuisine and
performers who stepped right out
of the Borscht Belt. For my dad, it
was the best vacation imaginable.
Two summers before he died he
insisted on going back, he said,
"because I have to smell that
ocean one more time."
Lake Michigan can't compare
with the Atlantic in the olfac-
tory department. But the South
Haven memories are just as
compelling. D

E-mail letters of no more than

150 words to:

letters@thejewishnews.com .

Reality Check

A Summer Place Revisited

H

istorians date the out-
ing of anti-Semitism
in America to 1877,
when prominent Jewish financier
Joseph Seligman was denied a
room at the Grand Union Hotel in
Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Seligman was well connected.
He had been a friend of Abraham
Lincoln, loaned millions to the
Union cause during the Civil War
and later was offered the position
of secretary of the treasury. The
notoriety of this incident brought
discrimination against Jews to
national attention.
It also underlines how tough
it was for Jews to go on vacation
in this country Most of the "best"
resorts were exclusionary, and in
several Michigan communities
private associations were formed
to make sure property would not
be sold to "undesirable elements."

Meaning people of color,
Mafioso and us guys, I guess.
That's the back story to the cel-
ebration of South Haven's days as
a Jewish resort. An exhibit on the
town's era as "The Catskills of the
Midwest" is currently on display
at Temple Israel. The show was
mounted by the Jewish Historical
Society of Michigan with invalu-
able assistance from the South
Haven Historical Society
On Aug. 10, author Bea
Kraus, whose book, A Time To
Remember, chronicles the his-
tory of these Jewish resorts, will
speak at 7 p.m. at Temple Israel'.
The exhibit itself will continue
through Labor Day.
South Haven has reinvented
itself in recent years. Phoenix
Street, its main thoroughfare, is a
charming, tree-shaded shopping
area with nostalgic brick side-

walks. There are other .
developments along
the Black River, and the
Lake Michigan shore
is still one of the finest
beaches- in. the state.
But to the gen-
erations of Detroit
and Chicago Jews to
whom Mendelson's
and Fidelman's and
Samson's were magic
names, the welcoming South
Haven of memory is the one that
matters. Those places are gone,
although several Jewish families
from the big cities still own prop-
erty in the area.
The place thrived into the
1960s, when rising incomes,
changing travel patterns and dis-
mantling of most discriminatory
practices took Jewish vacationers
to other places. Charlevoix by

George Cantor's e-mail address is

Gcantor614@aol.com.

August 3 2006

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