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December 01, 2011 - Image 77

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 2011-12-01

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Guest Column

Editorial

A New Generation

We need young Jewish leaders
to emerge and help Detroit.

y

oung Jewish 20- and 30-somethings in
Southeast Michigan have lived through
turbulent times. Despite our region's
magnificent history, geography and people, we
have never known the benefits and joys of a flour-
ishing state with a booming Downtown that rou-
tinely offers fun and excitement.
Our lives have partly been defined by economic
hardship. And we've endured the stigma left by our
state's damaged national image — the
result of a beleaguered domestic auto
industry, high unemployment, failing
public schools and national news-mak-
ing crime.
But these difficult circumstances have
forged even stronger bonds among us,
especially in our tight-knit Jewish com-
munity, shaped by solidarity, entrepre-
neurship and far-reaching influence on
economic and social trends in Michigan,
which have always played a critical role
in helping to sustain our way of life.
Our legacy of business and civic con-
tributions must be told and retold to promote our
community and secure our state's future. And our
older generations, who have led the way, need to
step forward and play a more aggressive role in
mentoring young Jewish leaders.

system of viral connections across the globe that
brings us closer to other communities successfully
eradicating urban decay. We must tap our networks
to discover new and unique models that we can
adapt to create a brighter future here in Michigan
and, importantly, in Detroit.
A new energy has surfaced within recent months
among Michigan's emerging Jewish leaders. A
grassroots-like activism has taken hold in the
living rooms of homes across Metro
Detroit. And a number of initiatives,
examples of "relentless positive action"
encouraged by Gov. Rick Snyder, are
popping up in Michigan's young Jewish
community.
Earlier this month, a group of emerg-
ing Jewish leaders talked about building
a planned micro-community in Detroit,
similar to the one in Columbia, Md.,
as one of many possible solutions to
stimulate growth and create jobs in the
city with new homes, new schools, new
parks, synagogues and other amenities
such as shops, gas stations, doctors' offices, banks
and restaurants. This lively and passionate brain-
storming session happened in my living room,
with a whiteboard and lots of candy.

A Team Approach

Luring Jewish families back to the city of Detroit
would help spur its transformation as elected offi-
cials and business leaders work to improve public
safety and provide essential services. Most of all, it
would give future generations of Michigan Jewish
youth, young families and empty nesters the satis-
fying urban experience that we crave.
New problems and tougher times call for new
solutions and unshakeable resolve. Although many
of us in our 20s and 30s have mostly experienced
the aches and pains of Michigan's woes, our endur-
ance has engendered optimism and resourceful-
ness to seek answers and the stamina to work until
they come to pass.
Michigan is on the rebound. Our young adult
population is rolling up its sleeves, not to slow
the bleeding, but this time to heal the patient by
rebuilding a contemporary version of our wonder-
ful state that is home to us all.
But new leaders need time and nurturing. To the
seasoned leaders in our community: Leadership
can be learned. Please teach the emerging Jewish
leaders in our community so we can learn from
you, while using a contemporary lens for today's
environment. I 1

Michigan's young Jewish adults have a clear under-
standing of the problems that the region must
tackle because we've had "up close and personal"
experiences with a declining economy throughout
our entire young adult lives.
Still, our trials have fortified our resilience
and left us feeling responsible for one another. No
single individual or organization can effect sweep-
ing change.
Importantly, few among us believe Michigan
can fully recover without revitalizing the city of
Detroit, where our parents, grandparents and
great-grandparents once lived and prospered. The
city's decline has cascaded to the rest of the state
and driven many in our young Jewish community
away.
In decades past, our parents faced questions like,
"When are you moving back to Michigan?" The
state and the city were once havens for hardwork-
ing families where basic aspirations of safety, envi-
ronmental beauty and commercial viability were
met. My generation has watched as our friends flee
— leaving us to ask, Are you ever moving back to
Michigan?"
We've had to be creative to survive and thrive
here. And in doing so, many have left Detroit
behind.

Garnering Wisdom

Lena Epstein Koretzky of Bloomfield Hills is a principal,

board member and general manager of Detroit-based

Vesco Oil Corporation. She is a board member of the Anti-

Stepping Up

So, what can we do to help our community?
We live in a digital environment built on an eco-

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

Defamation League/Michigan Region and Temple Beth El,

Bloomfield Township, and serves on the Jewish Federation

of Metropolitan Detroit's Marketing Committee.

Beef Up Sanctions -
Repel A Nuclear Iran

T

he International Atomic Energy
Agency, the U.N. nuclear
watchdog, confirmed in a
Nov. 8 report what the civilized world
knew: Iran is almost capable of gener-
ating nuclear arms, possibly a nuclear
payload for a missile. The Islamic
Republic has stockpiled low-enriched
uranium and is on a fast track to secretly
producing weapons-grade enrichment uranium in
a mountainside plant. Clearly, economic pressures – such
as America's near-sanction of all Iranian banks and its ban
on dealings with Iran's energy sector – are the best non-
invasion means to deterring Iran's nuclear breakout.
It's time for tougher sanctions on Iran, especially the
Central Bank of Iran – a director of Iran's weapons of mass
destruction proliferation and terrorist activities. It's time,
too, for stronger pressure on Iranian sympathizers Russia
- and China. Iran has made a cottage industry of defying
international monitors and sanctions.

Consider the Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2011 (HR
1905) and the Iran, North Korea and Syria Sanctions
Consolidation Act of 2011 (S1048). They would further
sanction foreign firms that do business with Iran's repres-
sive ruling alliance, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC), thereby bolstering our diplomatic arsenal. For the
first time, they would make it U.S. policy to prevent Iran
from acquiring or developing a nuclear weapons capability,
stiffen sanctions against government officials complicit in
human rights abuses and strengthen enforcement of cur-
rent sanctions law.
Iran, a major state sponsor of global terror, doesn't hide
its desire to destroy Israel and destabilize the Middle East.
Importantly, the House bill would tighten U.S. sanctions
on investments in Iran's energy sector and clarify exactly
when the president would investigate a foreign entity for
violating U.S. sanctions for doing business within this sec-
tor. The bill would mandate new disclosure requirements
for companies doing business in Iran and also require a
terrorism-related report on the Central Bank of Iran.
The Senate bill would further require the president to
develop a diplomatic initiative to assist countries in reduc-
ing their dependence on Iranian oil; require the president
to impose sanctions on entities that give to or get from
Iran, North Korea or Syria goods or technology that is
likely to have military uses; impose new sanctions in the
transportation sector of these three countries; increase
financial sanctions in the countries; and bar visas not
only to senior government officials of the countries, but
also members of the IRGC.
Existing sanctions on Iranian ports and airlines are
pressuring the regime and, in turn, triggering economic
disruption. The energy sector is faltering as a result of
international energy firms and financial institutions boy-
cotting Iran.
Sanctions are working, but they aren't steep enough
to disrupt Iran's unrelenting march toward nuclear arma-
ments. Urge your U.S. representative to embrace House
Resolution 1905 and your U.S. senators to approve
Senate Bill 1048, or appropriate variations. We can't let
down our nuclear watch against Iran's Revolutionary
Guard. II

December 1 2011

61

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