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SAVE THE DATE!
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Berman Center for the Performing Arts
West Bloomfield Jewish Community Center
The Detroit Jewish News
Foundation
Inaugural Community Event:
A Conversation with Aaron Lansky
Founder, National Yiddish Book Center
Best Selling Author: Outwitting History
Proceeds To Benefit the Detroit Jewish News
Digitization Project
Lansky's brilliance and passion literally saved much of Yiddish culture from the
dumpsters and landfills of history. His National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst,
Mass. possesses more than 1 million volumes, with a significant portion digitized
and accessible online.
The Book Center sponsors a wide range of programs and initiatives designed to
"open up" the treasures of Yiddish culture for a new generation.
A dynamic and spellbinding speaker and storyteller, Lansky is a recipient of a
"genius grant" from the McArthur Foundation. He is a member of the Detroit Jewish
News Foundation honorary board of advisors.
If you would like further updates on the event and the work of
the Detroit Jewish News Foundation, please forward your name and
e-mail address to: ahorwitz@renmedia.us
The Detroit Jewish News Foundation's goal is is to digitize every issue of
the Jewish News, dating to March 27, 1942, and make them available and
searchable to the public. The Foundation will also support and sponsor
forums, town hall meetings and other educational events to best utilize
and share this historical community resource.
To assist the Foundation in its work, simply go to
the website wiNvvithejewishnews.com and
click on the word "donate"
at the top right portion of the home page.
The Detroit Jewish News Foundation, Inc. is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization.
46
August 16 ® 2012
Cantors' Trip from page 45
First they evacuated and gassed
inconvenient Polish residents who lived
in the area and its surroundings. We
learned that only in Poland was the
penalty for helping a Jew death for the
whole family. Still, Yad Vashem lists
more Righteous Gentiles from Poland
than any other country. Some of our ste-
reotypes need to be readjusted.
In Germany
In Berlin, Emily Haber, the German
State Secretary, and the American
ambassador welcomed us graciously
to Germany. The opening concert was
at the Berlin Concert Hall, a gorgeous
building in the Gendarmenmarkt,
in former East Berlin. Fittingly, the
theme was "Musical Migration: From
Germany to America and Israel."
All the concerts featured music of
Louis Lewandowski and other classic
Ashkenazi composers along with newer
works in the German tradition.
In Potsdam, we saw the magnificent
baroque palace Sans Souci, then we
toured the Cecilienhof Manor, which
documents the Potsdam Conference
held there in July 1945. We were
amazed to drive away past the new
Geiger College, the home of a new
cantorial and rabbinical school.
In Berlin, we visited the beauti-
fully restored New Synagogue on
Orianienburger Strasse and the
Holocaust Memorial. The opening
concert was at the Jewish museum. We
also visited the site of the notorious
Wannsee Conference, Jan. 20, 1942.
Here they signed off on the "final
solution to the Jewish problem," devel-
oped by Reinhard Heydrich, head of
the Reich Security Main Office. The
museum in this villa chillingly docu-
ments the events leading up to, during
and following the conference.
Shabbat services were spectacular.
Of the 45 cantors, some of the younger
ones — men and women — gave
jumping, rollicking versions of our
usually sedate prayers. It would be
great to hear these tunes in our ser-
vice at home.
On Sunday afternoon, with the pres-
ident of Germany as a distinguished
guest, we heard a cantorial and inter-
faith concert in the Berliner Cathedral
Dome. There, 70 cantors and cantorial
soloists, a cathedral choir and a cathe-
dral organist performed. It was ironic
to see the statue of Martin Luther
glowering down on the cantors in tal-
litot as they opened the concert with
their shofars.
In Munich, we went to the site of
the 1972 Olympics, and later, the can-
tors presented a special service in
memorial to the Jewish athletes who
lost their lives there.
At the Dachau Concentration Camp
Memorial Site, the cantors presented
a special ceremony of music and read-
ings. While shadows of ghosts certainly
haunted the tour, I have to report that
Auschwitz was so overwhelming that
Dachau lost some of its impact com-
pared to that.
Then we saw proof that the Jewish
community in Munich is alive. Charlotte
Knobloch, formerly the president of the
Central Council of Jews in Germany and
now president of the Jewish community
in Munich and Bavaria, addressed us
at the new Jewish Community Center
while Jewish school children played
noisily outside the hall. In the light-
filled new Hauptsynagogue we met the
new rabbi and cantor, and we asked the
young Israeli cantor if he would sing for
us. His voice was magnificent. The can-
tors in the audience joined in several-
part harmony, and it was a high point of
the whole trip.
Another high was at the farewell
Fourth of July concert, "From Mahler to
Mack the Knife," in the Residenz Palace
of Munich. Cantor Randy Herman —
who comes from Grand Rapids but
whose present congregation is in Mt.
Kisco, N.Y. — played the piano and sang
an absolutely electrifying rendition of
"Mack the Knife"
In his closing lecture, Professor
Berk of Union College addressed what
many attendees were thinking. As a
history professor, he is keenly aware of
Germany's history, but he emphasized
that we must not fall into the trap of
always fighting the last war. Both WWI
and WWII were about the rivalry
between France and Germany; that
chapter is over.
Today Germany is a steadfast ally of
Israel, fully cognizant of its historical
responsibility, and it supplies Israel
with advanced submarines. Our new
war is not with Germany, not with
Evangelical Christians or even with
Christians. Our challenge is with
radical Islam, he said. Even more, it is
assimilation in such countries as the
U.S. He urged us to focus on becoming
better Jews, better educated and more
knowledgeable. His point was that we
must let the past go so we can concen-
trate on the battles to come.
Susan Hershberg Adelman, M.D., is a retired
pediatric surgeon who divides her time
between painting and making jewelry as a
silversmith, traveling and studying Hebrew.
The community is invited to
experience the recent Cantors
Assembly Mission to Germany in
pictures and song at Adat Shalom
Synagogue in Farmington Hills at
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 21. Free.
Information: (248) 851-5100.