world >> travel €.c?„0\1* JEWISH 41/ CYc/004DATi 04/ co. 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.