Spirituality
Work It Off!
Science center explores value of healthy living.
A
new exhibit, open at the Detroit
Science Center in January, will
help visitors understand the
value and effort of "Working It Off." The
exhibit is made possible by a gift from
the Detroit Jewish community's Jewish
Fund.
In Working It Off, visitors will ride a
bicycle, walk on treadmill and propel
a wheelchair to demonstrate the effort
required to burn off calories. They will
be able to race to see who can burn off
the calories equivalent to various foods
and see the spectrum of calories in vari-
ous foods from low-calorie broccoli to a
double cheeseburger.
As they exercise, they will learn how
much effort is required to burn off the
calories from these foods.
Working It Off is one of more than
120 new exhibits that the Detroit Science
Center is building for its new Beaumont
Hospitals and Oakland University Medical
Marvels Gallery, a 15,000-square-foot
exhibit gallery coming in 2009.
The exhibit, dedicated Feb. 26, will be
part of an area focused on modifiable
behaviors and will demonstrate how
great it can feel to be healthy. Visitors will
experience the fun of fitness, imagine the
"yum" of good nutrition, learn the dif-
ference between healthy and unhealthy
stresses and better comprehend the battle
of addiction.
The Jewish Fund was established in
1997 from the sale proceeds of Sinai
Hospital to the Detroit Medical Center.
Since its creation, the fund has awarded
$38.6 million in grants to expand health
and human services to residents of Metro
Detroit.
The Detroit Science Center: Call (313)
577-8400 or visit the Web site,
www.detroitsciencecenterorg.
Zach Herschfus, 10, from Yeshivat Akiva in Southfield, demonstrates the
Working it Off exhibit during the dedication.
❑
Conservative's Plan
Mega-Calendar
Eisen optimistic on future of movement.
The OU shares a simple way to plan.
A
N
ll five Metro Detroit
Conservative congregations were
represented among the 300 peo-
ple attending a "Town Hall Meeting" with
Chancellor Arnold Eisen of the Jewish
Theological Seminary
of America in New
York on March 5 at
Congregation Shaarey
Zedek West Bloomfield,
B'nai Israel Center.
Eisen struck a
decidedly upbeat
note on the future of
Arnold Eisen
his movement while
recognizing significant challenges face
Conservative Jews and American Jewry
as a whole.
Community and meaning are at the
top of Eisen's list of what will retain and
attract Jews. "If you give them commu-
nity they will respond, they will belong,
and you need to give them meaning that
speaks to them," he said.
"Do not use the language of crisis and
decline," Eisen counseled, rejecting that
the declining number of Conservative
Jews is because of competition from
Orthodoxy and Reform.
"Very few people choose based on
denomination," he said. "They want qual-
ity, they want excellence, they want a ser-
vice that inspires them, and they want a
quality school."
He said Conservative Judaism's ground-
ing in Jewish law and tradition, with an
eye toward the future, makes it strong.
He also cited "an incredible talent pool"
among the 800,000 Conservative Jews
overrepresented in Jewish communal
institutions as both staff and lay leaders.
"It's a huge number of people," he said,
"think what we could do if we can turn on
another 10 percent of the population:"
On Gossip
Although gossip is not permitted between spouses, it is permissible for
them to warn each other that certain individuals may be dishonest if it will
prevent loss of money.
Presented by Lubavitch Women's Organization. For information on keeping kosher or lighting
Shabbat candles, contact Miriam Amzalak, (248) 548-6771, amzalak@yeshivanet.com .
❑
Shelli Liebman Dorfman
Senior Writer
of only does the Orthodox
Union's new online creation
allow viewers to check when
holidays and daily rituals and prayers
take place in nearly every major city
around the globe, it displays this infor-
mation for the next 20 years.
The Orthodox Union (OU) Community
Calendar is invaluable for information
like knowing what time to plan a Saturday
evening wedding so it begins after
Shabbat and not scheduling a vacation
over the Yom Kippur holiday. It indicates
everything from the time to light Shabbat
candles in cities worldwide to the earliest
time a tallit may be worn in the morning
or the latest time the morning Shema may
be said.
The calendar site includes explanations
of holidays and general answers like when
do the Hebrew months begin, what is the
Torah reading on a specific date and how
to find out when someone's Hebrew birth-
day is.
Information on the location of
Orthodox synagogues and mikvaot in or
near various cities is also sited. There is
even a listing of job openings for commu-
nities throughout the U.S., courtesy of the
OU's Job Bank.
"The Orthodox Union, as a communal
organization, has always worked to service
the Jewish community as a whole — and
its individual members:' explained Gary
Magder, OU director of Internet develop-
ment, who oversaw the project. "Through
these online services, the OU is extending
its reach, using the Internet to connect the
world's Jewish communities. With over
100,000 cities, you can find information
on just about every location where there
are Jews:'
The calendar makes use of the open-
source PHP (hypertest pre-processor) pro-
gramming language, which, among other
things, pulls information from a variety
of databases, calculates postal codes and
looks at latitude and longitude to deter-
mine Shabbat candle lighting times.
"Given the tools available to us, we have
almost all the world's knowledge in our
hands',' said Magder, who worked with OU
senior Web developers Aharon Grenadir
and Avi Block on the project.
"And we're working to make that
knowledge easily accessible to our con-
stituents." ❑
To access the Orthodox Union
Community Calendar, go to:
www.ou.org/holidays/calendar.
March 13 • 2008
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