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Managing Editor
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6 July 26 • 2012
F. Kevin Browett
Realist's View
Of The Torah
I commend Rabbi Tamara Kolton's
honesty regarding Torah contain-
ing many violent acts and behav-
iors that, today, we do not respect
or want to emulate ("Do You 'Do
Torah?'" July 12, page 27).
Torah was written by pre-scientif-
ic people, and it's not necessary to
bend ourselves into pretzels trying
to make its words have meaning in
a modern age.
It's an act of bravery on the
rabbi's part to assert this publicly,
knowing that many of your read-
ers still worship Torah. The realists
among us can respect the Torah as
an amazing piece of Jewish litera-
ture for its time.
Barbara Kopitz
Charlevoix
Adopted Kids Just
Like Anyone Else
I was greatly disappointed by the
article "The Other Side: Mother final-
ly writes on adoption's nightmares
and blessings" (July 19, page 31).
While I am glad for the positive
changes and realizations in her
family's experiences with adop-
tion, Ms. Lehman-Wilzig does great
damage to the adoption community
with both her tone and her mis-
taken claims.
On the one hand, she argues
that 75 percent of all adopted kids
have serious behavioral issues. On
the other hand, she argues that
researchers have largely rejected
nurture for nature — "it's mostly
genes, genes, and more genes:' she
claims.
I'm not quite sure how these two
ideas fit together. If these outcomes
are largely about genes, it must be
that an outsized number of adopted
children were genetically predis-
posed to behavioral problems and
presumably would have experienced
them whether they had been adopt-
ed or not. That doesn't make a lot of
sense to me.
Luckily, there are researchers
who point to strong evidence that
the same percentage of behavioral
issues is found in adopted children
and children who remain with their
birth families. That makes sense to
me because adopted children are,
well, just children who experience
much of life just like everyone else.
Unfortunately, Ms. Lehman-
Wilzig resurrects the unfortunate
stereotypes that most adoptive
families thought had finally faded
away. Her statement toward the end
of the article in which she says to
her son, "It's too bad that we never
had children of our own ..." is a sad
indication of her dated conception
of adoption.
Adoptive parents today don't use
this language. Who do our children
call mom and dad? Who is raising
our children? Not her own chil-
dren!? If not hers, than whose chil-
dren are they?
The Jewish News would be doing
all of its readers a service by bring-
ing us stories which match the con-
temporary experience of adoptive
families in our community.
Rabbi Steven Rubenstein
West Bloomfield
Jewish Institutions
Should Benefit Jews
In response to last week's letter
welcoming the entire non-Jewish
community to use our Jewish insti-
tutions ("JCC Teen Center Can't
Discriminate," page 5), I suggest
the letter writer would also like to
change the name of the JCC to just
CC. While name-changing, how
about JFS and JVS becoming FS and
VS?
Our Jewish institutions were
established to serve the Jewish
community and derive their vast
amount of support from the Jewish
community. Jewish parents have
every right to expect that their
teenage children at dances at the
JCC will receive the benefits of the
support of the Jewish community.
All Jewish institutions' primary and
major responsibilities are to instill
Jewish values and traditions to its
constituents.
If two-thirds of the participants
at Jewish-sponsored institutions
are non-Jews, perhaps some serious
thought should be given to the mis-
sion of the organization.
Richard Leland
West Bloomfield
Correction
In "Primary Preview" (July 19, page
16), candidates for Oakland County
Commissioner for the 14th District
(Farmington and the portions of
Farmington Hills) were inadver-
tently left out.
Those candidates are:
• Republican: Bill Dwyer of
Farmington Hills
• Democrat: Todd Stearn of
Beverly Hills
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