Opinion

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Editorials

What No

The state of the Frankel Jewish Academy.

R

everberations from last week's
news of an administrative
shake-up at the Frankel Jewish
Academy continue to be felt throughout
the Detroit Jewish community. There was
no inkling that changes at the top were
imminent. And it was odd that they came
mid-year, just two weeks after midwinter
break.
Still, the job of teaching and learning
at a rigorous level must go on and the
school's hard-earned national reputation
must be safeguarded. The burden falls to
the FJA board and the transition admin-
istrative team to assure that happens for
the sake of the 225 students as well as the
school staff and the community's invest-
ment. The Class of 2008 deserves special
attention so it graduates on a high note.
Academy leaders felt that whatever
prompted the high-level personnel moves
was compelling enough to not wait until
the end of the school year. They concluded
that changes now would balance the
impact on students, staff, parents and the
community. Time will tell whether it was
better to act now or wait until June.
We have to trust the intent of the FJA
board, all lay volunteers. But the com-
munity is left to speculate what led to
the changes because there had been no
outward administrative discord. In fact,
working in harmony, the FJA community
moved from temporary adjacent facili-
ties into the Jewish Community Center in

West Bloomfield amid fanfare last August
against the backdrop of a strong financial
commitment from the Frankel family.

Revealing Hint
Dr. Marc Borovoy, president of the FJA
board, told the IN that changes in the
middle of an academic year are not
unusual. He said no one issue spurred
the board to reassign founding Rabbi Lee
Buckman and part ways with Academic
Dean Rosalie Cohen. Judaic Dean Rabbi
Aaron Bergman previously announced
he will join the clergy at Adat Shalom
Synagogue in Farmington Hills after he
fulfills his FJA contract on July 1.
The board lauded Buckman's "indis-
pensable contribution to the school's
establishment and development?'
Buckman certainly provided pioneering
vision, passion, focus and energy in the
critical early years of the high school,
which has attracted students from all
three major streams of Judaism.
We wish Buckman, Cohen and Bergman
well as they pursue new career options.
Under Buckman, the school became a
prime model for any potential community
Jewish high school startup. Since opening
in 2000 with 51 students, the school has
experienced steady growth, which triggers
opportunities and challenges. Borovoy
hinted at the need for the administrative
shuffle when he told the IN, "The board
has to make decisions for the school based

on these opportunities and challenges?'
Clearly, the board felt that changes were
needed to fulfill those opportunities and
meet those challenges as the school moves
from the entrepreneurial phase to a prime
development phase. Heads of school must
excel in an increasingly diverse range of
areas, from curriculum-building to reli-
gious underpinnings to fundraising.

Looking Forward
While we wonder about the timing and
impact of the sudden changes, we believe
Borovoy, as president, tried hard to walk
the fine line between understanding that
people want to know what prompted the
changes and doing what would be right for
the school and the people affected.
Could the lay leadership have handled
the shake-up better? Were Buckman and
Cohen given chances to correct any per-
ceived shortcomings or were the differ-
ences more philosophical? Will procedures
be adopted to make administrative evalua-
tions and changes more transparent given
that the school continues to receive annual
communal funding via Federation's
Annual Campaign?
Beyond the long-range challenges that
Borovoy alluded to, FJA faces more imme-
diate challenges like keeping student and
staff morale up, remaining sensitive to the
families of the departing administrators
and re-engaging donors and potential giv-
ers so this pivotal wellspring of support

doesn't diminish. With tuition at $17,700
for the next academic year and 38 percent
of all students on tuition assistance, fund-
raising at FJA becomes as important as
ever. So does assuring that the school, if it
truly wants to be inclusive, doesn't move
too far right on the religious spectrum
and disengage Reform Jews.
With three new top leaders in place
by fall, school life around Frankel Jewish
Academy will certainly be different. With
dramatic change and continued growth
will come a different sort of school, one
that will have to work hard to retain its
distinctive family flair.
Let's hope the administrative changes
deemed necessary by the board better
position FJA in the broader Jewish com-
munity without compromising its still-
sound core principles.
Perhaps the school can leverage its
remarkable achievements, lure back some
of the teaching talent that chose to leave,
showcase its first-rate facility at the JCC
and allow Jews from as broad a religious
spectrum as possible to access the many
good things it offers.
Frankel Jewish Academy will need a
pro-active communications strategy,
internally and externally, that assures this
professional leadership change becomes
a positive change over the long haul as
opposed to a disconcerting obstacle. The
school's high-flying national reputation is
at stake.

The freedoms allowed by Western civiliza-
tion in the last half of the 20th century could
be the greatest challenge that Judaism has
ever faced. Adversity kept the Jewish people
together for millennia. Freedom is allowing
us to drift apart in less than 60 years.
We've even taken the "we vs. they" sce-
nario into our religion as new models
of Judaism have grown up. How often
do we visit other Jewish houses of wor-
ship? Is Reform, Conservative, Orthodox,
Reconstructionist, Humanist, Sephardi,
Ashkenazi or any other form of Jewish prac-
tice as authentic as ours?
Tolerance is a wonderful thing. So is
Judaism, in all of its guises. And what we
need to do to keep our wonderful religion
and heritage alive is to truly celebrate it.
We need to teach our children and grand-

children that Judaism is a wonderful thing,
something to be enjoyed in all of its many
wonderful forms.
While we have the freedom to turn away
from it, we choose not to. Not because there
is safety in numbers, not because we support
the State of Israel, not because Israel and
Judaism are our safety valves, our insurance
policy.
We are Jewish because being Jewish is a
choice we have made and a choice we wish
the next generations to make, because of
Judaism's beauty, its joy, its freedom, dignity,
history and the way it brings us closer to
God. If we can't help our offspring discover
that celebration — that beauty — for them-
selves, than all the hand-wringing about
intermarriage, community, religion and heri-
tage become meaningless.

❑

We And They

I

nteraction. Integration. Inclusiveness.
Intermarriage.
We've just celebrated a period of
study about the modern prophet, the late Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr., and yet, what have
we learned?
Are there black families in your neighbor-
hood and, if so, do other Jews turn up their
noses when they hear where you live?
Does your intermarried son or daughter
bring his/her non-Jewish spouse home for
Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur or
Pesach? Do they celebrate these special days
when you're not around? Or did you sit shi-
vah over the wedding?
Does your synagogue welcome gay
couples or intermarried families? Really
welcome them with full participation, with
warmth and caring, or do many straight

members of the congregation and/or the
clergy stand their ground and offer a cold
shoulder?
With the national presidential election
campaign in full swing, do your Jewish
friends look at every candidate through an
Israel-only filter or do domestic economic
issues, social issues and the war in Iraq enter
the equation?
The Jewish community has survived as
a distinct minority for 3,000 years because
of exclusivity, not inclusiveness. Through
the imposition of restrictions placed by
outsiders, Jews have learned to survive by
staying together, worshipping together, living
together and relying on each other. The great
challenge of the 21st century is whether
Jews can learn to survive without external
oppression.

❑

SN

February 7 • 2008

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