First Round
Digging For The News
Friday
November 10, 2006
CSZ Southfield
6:00 PM
Friday Night Fever Services
Join us for a musical "come as you are" celebration of the
Kabbalat service followed by an
optional Shabbat dinner.
7:00 PM
New Member Dinner
Let's celebrate together as we
welcome our new member families
to Congregation Shaarey Zedek.
Traditional Shabbat dinner.
To RSVP for dinner, please call
248/357-5544 by November 7, 2006.
Adults $20 • Children $7
New Member Dinner is sponsored by
the Rita and Jerry Keywell
New Member Fund
8:00 PM
Guest Speaker,
Dennis Prager
Join us as guest speaker Dennis
Prager presents the topic: "Does
Judaism have anything to say to
the world?"
There is no charge to attend this
portion of the program.-
Babysitting is available during the
presentation by reservation.
Dennis Prager
Radio and Talk Show Host
Dennis Prager is one of
America's most respected radio
talk show hosts. Dennis has
engaged in interfaith dialogue
with Catholics at the Vatican,
Muslims in the Persian Gulf,
Hindus in India, and Protestants
at Christian seminaries
throughout America. For ten
years, he conducted a weekly
interfaith dialogue on radio with
representatives of virtually
every religion in the world. New
York's Jewish Week described
Dennis Prager as "one of the
three most interesting minds in
American Jewish Life."
Saturday • November 11, 2006
CSZ Southfield
12:00 Noon
Lunch and Learn with Dennis Prager
Welcome our guest, Dennis Prager, as he presents the Lunch and
Learn topic:"Is the Liberal Agenda the Jewish Agenda?"
$13.00 per person. Reservations are a must.
For more information, or to RSVP, please call the synagogue
offices at 248/357-5544.
Dennis Prager's appearance is generously sponsored by
The Morris and Beverly Baker Foundation in memory of Morris D. Baker
ARRANGEMENTS FOR DENNIS PRAGER MADE THROUGH
THE B'NAI B'RITH LECTURE BUREAU
10 November 2 • 2006
I t's been a couple of busy weeks in
the news besides sports.
With the Tigers in the World
Series, the undefeated Michigan
Wolverines, and 18 minutes of stel-
lar Michigan State University foot-
ball played against Northwestern, a
Detroiter had to turn to page 16 in the
dailies to get to the news.
On Oct. 11, Ginnah Muhammed
of Detroit appeared before a small-
claims court in Hamtramck over a
beef with a rental car company.
The judge threw out the case
because Muhammed refused to
remove her niqab, the
scarf and veil used to cover
everything but her eyes.
Even though Judge Paul
Paruk said he offered to let
her wear the veil unless she
was testifying, the Council
on American-Islamic
Relations cried foul — as in
civil rights.
Reading elsewhere, in a
U. S. congressional race in
Minnnesota, Democratic
candidate Keith Ellison could become
the first congressional member to
put his hand on the Koran during the
swearing-in ceremony.
Ellison is a state rep who was born
in Detroit, and his former links to
Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of
Islam have been pointed out by his
Republican challenger Alan Fine (in
a down-and-dirty campaign that
thankfully never happens here). But
Ellison has received support from the
National Jewish Democratic Council,
the Minneapolis Star Tribune and
Bonnie Raitt.
These two stories might raise hack-
les on some or send a wonderful sign
of American multiculturalism to oth-
ers.
To get an objective, educated view-
point, I asked a former Israeli court
judge for her opinion.
Hadassa Ben-Itto, a judge for 31
years in courts of all levels, includ-
ing acting justice in Israel's Supreme
Court, said that Muslim women "are
free to wear head scarves; but we don't
have women of any denomination that
cover their faces, just their heads, and
this is not a problem?'
"There was a time when witnesses
in court had to place their hands on a
holy book; and yes, Muslims swore on
the Koran," said Ben-Itto, who wrote
The Lie That Wouldn't Die: The
Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion,
(Mitchell Vallentine & Company,
2005). "This has now changed and
witnesses swear to tell the truth
— but there is no holy book."
And Knesset members are not sworn
in on a holy book; they just read a
declaration, she said.
Like it or not, religion is part of
American life. Notice the cover story
on fashionable hijabs (Muslim head
coverings) in a recent Detroit Free
Press weekly supplement.
Notice the maize and blue, and
green and white yarmul-
kes that some Jewish U-M
and MSU supporters are
wearing.
Notice the Detroit Tiger
baseball caps we wrote
about last week with the
Hebrew letter daled writ-
ten in Olde English.
Can we all understand
that religion is tied to
almost everything in the
United States?
Can we all appreciate the weirdness
of the phrase, "daled written in Olde
English?"
If Israel can handle those issues of
Muslim beliefs and still retain a dem-
ocratic government, why can't we?
In other news, St. Louis and Detroit
gained another type of notoriety on
Oct. 30 as they became the top two
ranked as the most dangerous cities
in the country, according to a national
FBI crime statistic ranking by Morgan
Quitno Press, a private research and
publishing company.
It's a wonder that St. Louis fans
didn't tear down their arch and melt
it down into automatic weapons after
they defeated the Detroit Tigers in the
World Series.
We shouldn't be bragging, though.
Not when our local news cameras
are doing those heart-warming stories
this week about the Angel Night vol-
unteers, who annually patrol the city
just before Halloween to make sure
that their neighbors don't start house
fires in all the abandoned buildings
used as crack houses.
Trick or treat. Let's toast some
marshmallows over an open house
fire.
Harry Kirsbaum's e-mail address is
hkirsbaum@thejewishnews.com .