Opinion

A MIX OF IDEAS

Editorials are posted and archived on JNonline.us.
George Cantor's Reality Check column will return next week.

Greenberg's View

Editorial

Embracing Our
Survivors

ust like their rescuers, they are
quietly disappearing.
ihill As America's World War II
veterans are dying, so too are the Jewish
community's Holocaust survivors.
Once estimated to be a population in
excess of 4,000 in Metropolitan Detroit,
now the individuals who experienced
Hitler's horrors and survived have
dwindled to 1,000 in this area, with nearly
400 being assisted by Jewish Senior Life
of Metropolitan Detroit (JSL) and Jewish
Family Service of Metropolitan Detroit
(JFS).
The local survivors remain a cohesive
community, celebrating life while trying
to mask their 65-year-old nightmares. Led
by their organization, Shaarit Haplaytah-
Survivors of 1945, they come together
annually to remember the Nazi horrors
and their lost families. But they also
celebrate life and have twice led this com-
munity in building a Holocaust memorial
center to teach peoples of all nations about
respect, tolerance, diversity and the evils
that erupt when those virtues are over-
whelmed by hate and fear.
The New York-based Conference on
Jewish Material Claims Against Germany
has been working since 1951 to "secure a
measure of justice for Jewish victims of
Nazi persecution." Over six decades, their
efforts have led to $60 billion in restitu-

gffOrgerp, .., 0 2010

.4 - ev,, APgrwent'erg- ameorn

tion from Germany for the
murders of 6 million Jews, the
physical horrors perpetrated
against millions of others
"FOR
during the Nazi era and the
"FOR IRAN'S
confiscation of property.
ENERGY
DOMESTIC
But despite those pay-
PURPOSES'
NEEDS"
ments, studies show that
the needs of the victims of
Nazism will increase over the
next few years as the popula-
tion ages and more survivors
require on-going services
like in-home care.
After several years of
negotiations with the Claims
Conference, Germany agreed
last year to allow second
a monthly Cafe Europa at the Jewish
applications to a survivors' hardship
Community Center in Oak Park, a friendly
fund of $42 million. After the agree-
visitors
program, the Mishpoch-chai
ment, monthly applications jumped from
matching
of 28 young Jewish families with
an average of 421 to 3,810. The Claims
28
survivors,
and a Jewish-Yiddish video
Conference estimates that 13,000 Jewish
series.
Dr.
Silow
continues to provide psy-
victims of Nazism in 36 countries could
chological
counseling.
benefit.
In addition, JSL and JFS have stepped
In the Detroit area, the Jewish
up
their supports for indigent survivors
Federation, JSL and JFS have provided a
with
housing, in-home health care, clean-
wonderful net of services for the survivor
ing
services
and as sponsors of Dr. Silow's
population. In 1993, Dr. Charles Silow, a
program.
child of Holocaust survivors, started the
Linda Blumberg, planning director at
Program for Holocaust Survivors and
the
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Families through Sinai Hospital. It con-
is piloting a needs assessment for
Detroit,
tinues today, with three support groups,

israet
must f)e
ended
once
and for
at(r.

"PEACEFUL
USES
ONLY"

the survivor community that will be com-
pleted in the next couple of months. "We
are doing a good job of providing a con-
tinuum of care Blumberg said. "We just
want to see how we can make it better."
In the 12 years between 1933 and 1945,
Nazi Germany snuffed out the lives of 11
million civilians, including 6 million Jews,
just because they were different. More
than 20 million died in the terror that we
call World War II. Now, as the last survi-
vors of the Holocaust become older and
frailer, we, and the world, have a duty to
celebrate and ease their lives, and to never
forget.

'New Anti-Semitism' On Campus

The campaign distorts reality,
too many campuses, its offen-
and
hijacks and perverts human
sive tactics go unchallenged
rights
values. Natan Sharansky
and its extremist views
ome 75 Muslim students and
identified
"3 D's" in this propa-
are echoed by numerous
their sympathizers repeatedly
ganda
that
constitutes the "New
professors. A University of
screamed and jeered to shout
Anti-Semitism:'
with Israel
Michigan-Flint student told
down Israeli Ambassador to the U.S.
replacing
"the
Jew"
in tradition-
me a few of his classmates
Michael Oren during his speech at the
al
anti-Semitic
imagery.
feel intimidated enough to
University of California, Irvine (UCI) on
• Delegitmization: Claims are
hide their Jewish identity.
Feb. 8. Similar disruptions dog Israeli
made
that Israel has no right
This campaign goes far
officials at other universities. Welcome to
to
exist,
that Jews are foreign
beyond any reasonable debate
Roberta P.
the campus war against Israel.
interlopers
who "stole" the
about Israel's policies. It is
Seid
I have been on its front lines for eight
Palestinians'
land.
not "pro-Palestinian." It does
Special
years as education/research director for
Israel is
Double
standards:
•
Commentary
StandWithUs, an international Israel edu- nothing to help Palestinians
judged
and
condemned
by a
cation organization, and as a UCI lecturer improve their civil society
standard
expected
of
no
other
or daily lives. Its purpose is
teaching a course on Israel.
nation.
Its
actions
in
the
Gaza
war,
for
to incite hatred against Israel and, often,
The anti-Israel campaign is becoming
example,
are
not
compared
to
NATO's
Jews.
more organized and aggressive. On far

Los Angeles

S

in Kosovo or Afghanistan, but rather
to some otherworldly standard for, as
Britain's Col. Kemp testified, no nation
in the history of warfare had done more
than Israel to protect civilians during its
battle against Hamas.
• Demonization: This is unique to
hatred of Jews. Israel is portrayed as a
cosmic evil. The terrorism and existential
threats Israel faces are erased or justified;
Palestinians are depicted as innocent vic-
tims of Israeli malice. The Jewish state is
equated with the worst evils of the 20th
century: colonialism, Nazism, racism,
apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing.
The "3 D's" enter our universities

Anti-Semitism on page 24

February 25 • 2010

23