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 .