Dry Bones

Opinion

Editorials are posted and archived on JNonline.us .

r

'mg

EUROPE HAS JUST
WARNED THE TURKISH
ARMY NOT TO
PREVENT

Editorial

The Greater Good

I

t was an insightful thought: To be
recognized for the work you do in the
general community by those whose
faith calls for making the world a better
place is a really special honor.
Bill Ford Jr. was talking about how
honored he was to receive the Jewish
Community Center of Metropolitan
Detroit's new City of Detroit-Boneh
Kehillah Builder of the Community Award.
Ford is the Dearborn-based Ford Motor
Company's executive chairman of the
board. He was honored at the JCC's second
annual gala for helping make his company
more environmentally aware and corpo-
rately responsive while also contributing
to an array of charitable, civic and com-
munity causes — despite Michigan's
embattled economy.
His desire to give back really resonates.
Giving back certainly brings personal
reward. It's rooted in the art of humani-
tarianism. Helping others, even in a small
way, is richly fulfilling.
The JCC also honored Weight Watchers
Group Inc. President and CEO Florine
Mark, a communal leader and a philan-
thropist in her own right, with the Jewish
Community-Boneh Kehillah Builder of
the Community Award. Proud to be on the
same platform as Bill Ford Jr., she said:
"The Ford family has been the backbone of

our great city for many, many generations."
"For them:' Mark added, "it's not only
about automobiles. It's also about educa-
tion, progress and community develop-
ment."
The Ford Motor Company Fund gives
annually to the Jewish Federation's Annual
Campaign. In 2002, it also made a $2 mil-
lion gift to the JCC via Federation to fund
Shalom Street, the largest corporate gift
ever given to the Detroit Jewish community.
The JCC awards don't just honor the
winners; they honor everyone who gives
back, whether in boardrooms or our
neighborhoods.
These are tough times; but Detroit has
a history of greatness and prosperity over
the last 100 years, born in part from the
industriousness of the Ford family. But it's
largely because Detroit relied so heavily
on one major industry that we as a region
suffer economically today — and why the
auto industry faces its sternest challenge
ever. Everyone who lives in the metro area
is affected.
Bill Ford Jr. acknowledged some of the
issues that making cars and trucks have
spawned: energy security, climate change,
traffic fatalities, environmental damage.
Companies willing to address these con-
cerns not only will improve their stand-
ing, but also help build a better world.

Though slow to respond,
the local auto industry
now respects the urgency
REMEMBER WHEN WE
to reinvent itself while
. AND NOT
WERE WORRIED THAT
doing its part to revital-
THE OTHER WAY
TURKEY WOULD MAKE
ize Detroit.
AROUND?!
Bill Ford Jr. has the
EUROPE ISLAMIC
smarts and means to
spur a turnaround. He
spearheaded transforma-
tion of the Ford Rouge
complex, which makes
the F-150 truck, from the
world's largest brownfield
reclamation project into
DryBonesBlog.corn
a tourist attraction. And
he insisted on incorpo-
largest in population in America, but
rating the Hudson's warehouse into Ford
Field, combining a piece of old Detroit into claims the fifth-largest Federation Annual
Campaign, a testimonial to our commit-
a vibrant component of new Detroit.
Time will tell how well Ford Motor Co.
ment to tikkun olam through the infra-
reverses its sales slide. But Bill Ford Jr.'s
structure built by Federation despite our
shrinking ranks and lousy economy.
closing remarks at the JCC really speak
to tikkun olam: "We have to give back.
Our challenge as a community is allo-
We have to give back in our business lives
cating our limited "repair" dollars so
and our personal lives — and in our roles that we're adequately caring for our own,
but also extending financial lifelines to
as both a citizen and a neighbor. We can
our brethren in Israel and Jews in need
make a difference. We can build a better
world. The work you are doing here in this
throughout the diaspora.
building and in this community is proof
E-mail letters of no more than 150 words to:
of the
letters@thejewishnews.com .
Detroit's Jewish community is the 21st

Reality Check

Father Knows Zilch

N

etwork television has seen many
changes over the course of its
long history, but one thing has
remained fairly constant.
It's always Mother's Day on TV.
Husbands and fathers are usually depicted
as morons. Sometimes, as in the case of
Alec Baldwin's taped diatribe at his 11-
year old daughter, they actually behave
like morons.
But you'd almost have to go back to
"Father Knows Best" in the '50s to find
a long-running series in which dad was
shown to be something more than a half-
wit. That was Robert Young, though, and
he was so smart he went on to become
Marcus Welby, M.D.
In the usual TV series it is the wife who
keeps things calm and under control while
the children, especially the teenage chil-
dren, are repositories of an innate wisdom
denied to their dopey dad.
There is a very good reason for this, of
course. Women and teens make most of

the buying decisions in the
American household. No
sponsor wants to offend them.
It is also the contention of
the geniuses who run net-
work TV that the standard
family unit — two hetero-
sexual parents and their
offspring living under one
roof — is an anachronism. At
least, nobody they know lives
like that anymore.
Moreover, most of these
alternative households are headed by
women. Men can be dispensed with.
Ideas, even stupid ideas, have conse-
quences. And a steady diet of denigrating
dads is a very stupid idea; especially since
so many men are eager to duck out of the
responsibilities of fatherhood anyhow.
If you want to deal seriously with the
problems of Detroit, you have to get to
the underlying reality; tens of thousands
of missing fathers. Behind all of the city's

woes in schools, crime, drugs,
work ethic, are all those house-
holds without a stable male fig-
ure to exert authority and act as
a role model.
There is no casino or stadium
or downtown loft that is going to
save a community whose fathers
have taken a powder.
A former colleague of mine
at the Detroit News liked to
describe Detroit as a "city of
fianceee It seems that every
woman who figured in an urban crime
story was about to get married, but some-
how never quite did.
They can tinker with this and that. Elect
the City Council by districts instead of at
large. Pave the riverfront with platinum.
But until they reverse the trend of shat-
tered families and men who refuse to be
fathers, nothing much will happen.
Stand at the corner of Woodward and
Michigan and everything looks great.

But the battle is being lost at the corner
of Woodward and Philadelphia. At Seven
Mile and Greenfield. At Gratiot and Van
Dyke.
Having said all that, I must admit that
there is one strong, wise female figure on
television that I am just nuts about. I refer
to Judge Judy.
I love my wife; but if Judge Judy swore
to be mine, it would be a tough call.
The attraction of a wisecracking Jewish
woman in black robes is more than I could
resist. When she asks one of these poor
shnooks who appear before her, "Pardon
me, sir, but are you a complete idiot?" my
heart goes pitter-pat.
The title of her best-selling book was
Don't Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It's
Raining. I doubt a male jurist could get
away with that. But I love her for it any-
how. I I

George Cantor's e-mail address is

gcantor614@aol.com .

iN

May 10 • 20077

25