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Editorial

Make Living in Jewish Detroit A Major Priority

We urge Federation to name a team of local visionaries to recruit nationally.

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s a Jewish community, we've
identified such priorities as
stabilizing a declining base
population, bolstering Federation's
Annual Campaign as Michigan resets
from the last economic downturn,
brightening the financial picture at our
Jewish Community Center following
bookkeeping irregularities, increasing
the scholarship options for our day
and afternoon schools, and expanding
the services for our growing number of
seniors.
Demonstrating our communal con-
cern and resolve, we quickly came
together to extend succor and relief in
the wake of severe flooding following a
torrential rainfall on Aug.11.
The community's potential also is
evidenced in growing Modern Orthodox
numbers, in more Jewish young pro-
fessionals moving here either as
returnees or newcomers, in so many
young Jewish families raising kids
here, and in all the Jewish Detroiters
who winter in warmer climes but flock
back when the chill eases.
As our community's umbrella plan-
ning and fundraising agency, the
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit is in the best position to cap-
ture this golden moment by facilitating
development of an innovative, wide-
ranging, sustainable plan to recruit

new, young Jewish families to our area
over the long haul.
Jewish Detroit certainly boasts the
cache to attract them. As the JN cited
in the Publisher's Notebook "Making
The Case For Jewish Detroit" on June
12 and in the Aug.14 cover article
"Jewish Revival," blogger Matthew
Williams, a doctoral candidate of
some renown at Stanford University,
determined in a nationally reported
assessment that Detroit is the most
affordable place in America to raise a
committed Jewish family. Talk about a
strong selling point unexpectedly para-
chuting in!

A Solid Framework
In the article "Jewish Revival," five
Orthodox families tell their story of
relocating to Jewish Detroit from out
of state, drawn by frum (Orthodox
observant) areas with appealing
homes, top-drawer shuls and schools,
and friendly neighbors.
Many of us know or have heard
about a Jewish young professional
lured to the D or its environs from
elsewhere thanks to an improved
economy, better job prospects, afford-
able housing, an organized Jewish
community with young adult programs,
and plenty of opportunities to raise a
Jewish family.

Chances are we all know at least a
few young families who have discov-
ered all that our Jewish way of life has
to offer. And let's not forget the cul-
tural and spiritual choices available to
all Detroit Jews.
Federation should bank on the suc-
cess of Young Israel of Southfield
and Yeshivat Akiva in helping up our
Modern Orthodox numbers as well as
capitalize on the energy of its own
NEXTGen division in helping solidify
this area's reputation as a hotspot for
Jewish young adults.

A Fresh Course
A Federation-convened planning team
representing all nooks of the Jewish
community could leverage our mul-
titude of positives and turn Detroit
into a high-octane draw for Jews liv-
ing elsewhere but seeking a vibrant,
diverse, relatively inexpensive Jewish
community that's rich in economic and
cultural opportunities in addition to
being a leader in social services and
lifelong Jewish learning.
Ours is a community with a ready
Jewish infrastructure that could grab
even more national headlines and
transplants were it to boldly strategize
and plot where we want to be in three
to five years.
We as a Jewish community have a

history of resiliency no matter how
pressing the issues before us. A lesser
community would have collapsed under
the weight of a 2005 Federation-
sponsored population study revealing
the twin challenges of an aging demo-
graphic and plunging numbers.
Once more, we urge Federation to
take community demographic recruit-
ment to the next level by initiating
the shaping of a practical, dynamic,
resourceful visioning campaign pro-
moting our community's heritage,
strengths and possibilities.
Local philanthropic entities with a
strong link to Detroit Jewry, such as
the William Davidson Foundation, could
assist Federation. In return, these
investors would derive a richer yield
on their already substantial commu-
nal investment, particularly in things
important to Jewish families, such as
Jewish learning, Jewish camping and
Israel experiences.
Such a narrative would command
the stature to nationally convey what
a great destination Jewish Detroit is
for living, working, playing and raising
a Jewish family.
Putting out a bigger welcome mat
would go a long way toward stabilizing
our population and allowing us to even
more progressively imagine our Jewish
community's future. ❑

Commentary

Wrong Ideas About Terrorism

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nalyzing some pseudo-scientific,
pseudo-realistic and outright
fallacious phrases that have
taken root in the Israeli discourse on ter-
rorism:

• No democracy has beaten terrorism.

On the contrary — no terrorist organi-
zation has beaten democracy. Sometimes
the struggle lasts for years, and the terror-
ist organization may manage to survive
by shifting its shape and using terror to
harass, but democracy has always pre-
vailed.
Democracy merely appears to be weak,
only seems to be led by politicians of
compromise. But, ultimately, democracy's
power is in creation of a voluntary consen-
sus, and no dictatorship can produce that,
and certainly not a terrorist organization.
Democracy has always defeated and will
always defeat terrorism.

• A terrorist organization acts very
rationally. It's only that liberal thinking

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September 4 • 2014

does not know how to decipher its codes.
On the contrary — irrationality is in
the genetic code of a terrorist organiza-
tion, even if it functions as a
so-called institution. One would
have to jump through hoops
to rationally explain most of
Al Qaeda's attacks, from 9-11
onwards. There is not one
drop of sense to be found in
an assessment of the costs and
benefits of the attacks from the
perspective of Al Qaeda itself.
Innovative methods used by
terrorist movement create an
illusion of rationality. Satellite
phones and the like only cam-
ouflage the absolute control that passions,
impulses and primarily superstitions have
over terrorist organizations.

• Outcasts, the poor and the destitute
are the first recruits into the ranks of a
terrorist organization.
On the contrary — the leadership and

the command of terrorist organizations
is predominantly made up of educated
people, who came from the middle classes,
including property owners and
those with a higher education
(or part of one). The profile of
a real terrorist is not an image
of a man or a woman who had
nothing to lose; rather, they had
a lot to lose, but they gave it up
for the sake of delusional ter-
rorist ideology.

• Terrorist organizations
cannot exist without the active
support of the local popula-

tion.

On the contrary — most terrorist orga-
nizations begin with campaigns of intimi-
dation and terror among the surrounding
population because they do not rely on it
for anything. Using brutal terrorist mea-
sures against the local population will
occur for as long as the terrorist organiza-
tion operates. Therefore, the afflicted local

population actually longs for its removal,
and over time also works toward that goal.

• Terrorist groups operate as a network
composed of cells; eliminating their com-
manders will not affect them.
On the contrary — recent studies of the
structure and layout of terrorist organiza-
tions yielded a different set of findings:
The terrorist organization is almost com-
pletely dependent on the personalities of
two or three of its leaders. The command
and control system of a terrorist organiza-
tion is closer to a totalitarian dictatorship.
The word of the leader is translated into
orders by the small group surrounding
him, and there is absolutely no question-
ing his word, not even for one moment.
The skeptical are immediately killed by a
kangaroo court.
Strip a terrorist organization of its char-
ismatic leader, and you paralyze the confi-
dence of his acolytes and critically impair
its ability to function for a long period of
time, perhaps even forever.

Terrorism on page 53

