EDITORIAL BOARD:
Publisher: Arthur M. Horwitz
Chief Operating Officer: F. Kevin Browett
Contributing Editor: Robert Sklar

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Jerry Zo ly ns ky

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Publisher's Noteboo

Editorial

A Tasteless Turkey
Gnawing At Israel

F

Lena Epstein Koretzky of Bloomfield Hills and Matt Potoff of Ann Arbor flank Gov. Snyder at an
Oct. 12 event for emerging young Jewish leaders hosted by Arthur Horwitz, at right.

On Mentoring

Snyder's challenge triggers my
own manure-scented memories.

A

t a gathering in West Bloomfield last
month of emerging Jewish leaders, Gov.
Rick Snyder stressed the importance of
mentoring as an asset in attracting and retain-
ing young talent for our Jewish community and
Michigan. To underscore this mes-
sage, Snyder shared his own story
of turning down a more financially
rewarding job in high-flying Houston
in 1982 to work for the Detroit
accounting office of Coopers &
Lybrand. The reason: An opportunity
to be mentored.
Snyder's mentors at Coopers &
Lybrand, including the well-respected
Jerry Wolfe, provided coaching, guid-
ance and fast-track opportunities for
growth and sympathetic ears. One of
these opportunities led to the lucrative
match between Snyder and Gateway Computers,
propelling him to success as an entrepreneur, ven-
ture capitalist and now chief executive of the state.
As a way to contribute to the re-invention of
Michigan, Snyder challenged the emerging Jewish
leaders to develop, refine and implement a men-
toning model for the Jewish community that can
be used by others across the state. These leaders,
with facilitation by Lena Epstein Koretzky of
Bloomfield Hills and her husband, Brett, con-
vened last week to begin responding to the chal-
lenge.

Looking Back

As I listened to the governor share his story, I
recalled the mentors who helped shape my life and
career. I've been blessed to have many. None of
them fit into a cookie-cutter pattern. Among them,
two were talented, brilliant, occasionally mercurial
and alcoholic. One was a modest, straight-arrow,
bow-tie-wearing, Buick Skylark-driving CEO
focused on saving humanity. But the most signifi-

46

November 17 2011

cant, in hindsight, was Daniel J. Wallace Jr.
In season, Wallace coached the national col-
legiate champion Yale University indoor polo
team (if you can envision hockey on horseback
with an inflated ball instead of a puck, you've got
the picture). An imposing figure of
average build, Wallace had perma-red
cheeks and a booming baritone voice
that reverberated through every nook
and cranny of the team's pigeon- (and
pigeon poop-) infested arena. This was
a man who oozed high expectations
from his players, the stable hands and
the horses themselves.
Into this picture of Protestant privi-
lege walked a 14-year-old Jewish kid
from an adjoining New Haven neigh-
borhood. Enticed by a strange stench
that, depending on which way the wind
was blowing, reminded me of vapors from my
aunt's boiling pe'tcha (jelled cow's hooves) kettle,
I followed that odor after school one day to the
barn door of the Yale Armory. I walked through it.
And my life was about to change.
This was not a place to be a spectator (though I
tried that for a few consecutive afternoons). There
was always movement, commotion and a chore
that needed to be completed. Wallace and lack
of productivity didn't mix, as I was about to find
out. One afternoon, while watching hot-walkers
circle the barn floor with their steamy ponies
between chukkers (periods) of a scrimmage, I
felt a firm hand grasp and twist my shoulder.
Wallace, stern-faced as usual, thrust the lead rope
of a horse into my hand and pushed me into the
line of hot-walkers. But this wasn't any horse. It
was King George III (what, you were expecting its
name would be King Saul?). This horse was mean
and neurotic ... bad combination.

On Mentoring on page 48

ew things in
the Middle
East are
black and white. Such
is the case with the
crumbling relationship
between Israel and
Turkey — Jewish and
Islamic states once
historic allies. Turkey remains home to 26,000 Jews; most are
Sephardi and live in Istanbul.
The good times that Turkey and Israel shared in the 1990s
have degenerated as a result of Turkey's unfriendly Islamic
government; America's prolonged war in Iraq and the existen-
tial threat to Turkey; the Israeli army's reported "dispropor-
tionate" force against Palestinians in the 2008-09 Gaza war;
and Turkey's longstanding war against the Kurds, who number
maybe 12 million and are the country's largest minority group.
Diplomacy between Israel and Turkey essentially stopped
after nine Turkish nationals, including a Turkish-American
dual citizen, were killed in May 2010 during an Israeli raid
on a Turkish-flagged aid flotilla seeking to break Israel's
naval blockade on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Turkey
demanded an Israeli apology for the deaths as well as com-
pensation to the victims' families. Israel extended "regret"
for the deaths, saying naval commandos fired in self-defense.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's 2003 rise to power
didn't help Turkish-Israeli relations. He's a brutal guy who
shrugs off pummeling the Kurds, the country's 37-year occu-
pation of northern Cyprus and its 1915 attempted genocide
against the Armenian people.
Notably, Turkey's leaders in Ankara still had the will to
finally ask Israel for temporary housing structures to house
survivors in the wake of a deadly earthquake on Oct. 23. And
it did send firefighting airplanes to Israel last December to
help battle the Carmel Forest fire.
Clearly, Turkey is moving into a power vacuum left by
Egypt, Iraq and Syria as it attempts to influence regional
policy and Arab regimes. And clearly, Israel is a good rallying
point in the largely anti-Zionist Arab world, cutting across
Shia and Sunni and Arab and Persian lines. Biblical Palestine,
today's Israel and the Palestinian territories, was part of
the Ottoman Empire, the once-powerful Turkish empire that
ended in 1922 and was succeeded a year later by Turkey,
among other states, as a result of the Treaty of Lausanne.
Turkey is a good counter to Iran for dominance in the
region and also a somewhat democratic alternative to Saudi
Arabia and its oppressive monarchy. Its ties to Europe,
though tenuous, make Turkey an important regional player.
The nation of 76 million also is in a position to squeeze Israel
to make a deal with the Palestinians, more so than any other
regime or government except for the U.S.
Israel understands the shifting sands. It accepts that
Turkey may be quietly driving the downfall of the Assad
regime in Syria (versus Hezbollah and Iran propping it up)
and needs to stay on the sidelines for a while. Meanwhile,
efforts by Israel to embrace Greece, knowing it is Turkey's
archenemy, is shortsighted. Greece is an economic, political
and military lightweight compared to Turkey.
Indeed, Israel and Turkey are too significant strategically
to the beleaguered region to forgo renewal of their diplo-
matic bonds.