viewpoints » S end letters to: letters@thejewishnews.com Single Parents Can Get Scholarships For Early Childhood Education jewfro Between Two Deaths C enturies of institutionalized rac- ism contributed to the successive shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile by white policemen. It will take decades of work — work, not just the passing of time — for all of us to be judged by the content of our character, rather than the color of our skin. Still, I keep returning to the time between the untimely deaths of these two men. Something about those spaces, hin- dered as they may be by hindsight — the 17 minutes between planes hitting the Twin Towers, the 104 days between the deaths of David Bowie and Prince, the 16 months from White Bronco to Black Not Guilty — crystalize like a pause between seeing the lightning and hearing Ben Falik the thunder. Here are some of the things that hap- pened in the hours between the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile: An unlikely group of young people traveled through time together. Fourteen teens from both coasts spending two weeks in Detroit through the American Jewish Society for Service (staying at the old Temple Beth El building at Woodward and Gladstone) joined Summer in the City’s Junior Volunteers, the middle school students from Northwest and Southwest Detroit they had been serving alongside, at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. In pairs, they explored “And Still We Rise: Our Journey Through African American History and Culture” — start- ing in the cradle of human civilization, T Teen volunteers tour the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. traveling across the Atlantic, through the Underground Railroad and Great Migration to the elections of Coleman Young and Barack Obama. Tess Parr, who graduated from Bloomfield Hills High School and moved to Detroit to attend Wayne State this time last year, prepped a mural for AJSS and the JVs (her former Clark Park camp- ers) to paint together the following day at Hart Plaza, a historic destination on the Underground Railroad and current home to both festivals and homeless people. Michiganders continued to set off all variety of fireworks. NASA’s Juno spacecraft steadied its orbit around Jupiter. After traveling for five years and nearly 2 billion miles, Juno arrived — “looking for clues,” according to the New York Times, “that might tell how the planets came together in the early history of the solar system.” At $1.1 billion, the mission cost about as much as the new Minneapolis Vikings Stadium, two-thirds of which is being shouldered by Minnesota taxpayers. Thousands of auto manufacturing employees and their families, including my wife and kids, left town during the annual shutdown and model-year changeover. Judah and Phoebe went tubing, got ice cream from Milk and Honey in Traverse City and called to express their disappoint- ment that I wasn’t driving back up for another day. Matthew Stafford was spotted at the Bloomfield Township Costco. He was buy- ing toilet paper. Charles Felton got a bike so he could ride from his home in Highland Park to a community center in Hamtramck, where he works to mentor young people through a free summer enrichment program. Two faith groups collided peacefully in Hamtramck’s Veterans Park. Area Muslims gathered for the Eid al-Fitr festival, mark- ing the end of the holy month of Ramadan, where the Negro League’s Detroit Stars once played. Their celebration blended with that of another group in ceremonial garb — 4,500 fans of the Detroit City Football Club there to see their team play in newly renovated Keyworth Stadium. Charles was there, as were many of his campers from the neighborhood. Dyrel Johnson — a black Detroiter, hus- band and father, fresh off the Stagecrafters production of Dreamgirls, who works to empower young people in the city through buildOn, a community service organiza- tion — marked his birthday without cel- ebrating it. Families converged along the Detroit River, their children running through the fountains outside the Renaissance Center, before the sun set behind the Ambassador Bridge at 9:12 and the Riverwalk closed at 10 p.m. * letters Nazi Germany’s Pervasive Blind Eye I read Contributing Editor Robert Sklar’s June 30 essay “Hitler Abettors Must Feel Justice” (page 6). It was very well done. I had just finished preparing a lecture titled “The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution,” which I have been asked to give at the Adult Learning Institute on Sept. 27 at Oakland University, when I read Mr. Sklar describe “guards who turned a blind eye toward genocide.” I could not help but refer to my notes on the Wannsee Conference. There, 15 men in attendance, many of whom were very highly educated (more than half had doctorate degrees), turned a blind eye toward the planned murder of 11 million Jews in Europe. If so many in the higher ranks of Nazi Germany, including Hitler, Goering, Himmler and the rest of the real bad guys, including Heydrich, Goebbels and Eichmann plus so many more (if not all) in the civil service and so many, many more — if they could turn a blind eye or even feel satisfaction — what could we have expected from the SS, including SS guards at concentration camps and death camps and SS Einsatzgruppen (special mobile killing units) and collaborators, all determined to liquidate Jews and inexorably turn a blind eye? Donald M. Borsand Military historian Southfield Letters to the Editor: We prefer letters that relate to articles in the Jewish News. We reserve the right to edit or reject letters. Brevity is encouraged. Letters published will include the name and city of residence of the writer. Letters submitted must contain the name, address, title of the writer (if applicable) and a daytime phone number. We prefer emailed letters. Please email to letters@thejewishnews.com. (Letters sent by U.S. Postal Service must be hand-signed and mailed to the Jewish News, 29200 Northwestern Hwy., Suite 110, Southfield, MI 48034.) he Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit’s Education Department is offering a new scholarship program for children of single parents to receive early childhood education. Made possible through a $20,000 grant from the Jewish Women’s Foundation, the program will fund 10 need-based scholarships of $2,000 to help Jewish single parents defray the cost of Jewish preschool. Jewish early childhood education is an essential community asset that is well known to provide a lasting foundation for Jewish identity. Unfortunately, however, many programs are currently underuti- lized. In fact, less than 30 percent of the preschool-age children in the community are enrolled in Jewish early childhood education classes. One of the major barriers to enrollment is the high cost of such programs, which is particularly burdensome for single parents trying to raise children on one salary. “We are thrilled to be able to offer these scholarships,” says Dona Stillman, Coordinator for Federation’s Single Parent Alliance and Resource Connection (SPARC). “Thanks to the vision of the Jewish Women’s Foundation, we will help ensure that children of single-parent households are able to receive a meaning- ful Jewish education during their forma- tive years. We see this as a way of not only enriching Jewish lives, but also of strengthening the future of our commu- nity, which depends upon the engagement of our youth.” Scholarship applications are available online at www.jewishdetroit.org/ preschoolapp. All applications must be submitted by Aug. 5 at 4 p.m. Direct any questions regarding the scholarships or the application process to Dona Stillman at stillman@JFMD.org or (248) 833-2527. * Contest Winner MAZEL TOV! Kim Coleman McColl-Teweles of Farmington Hills is this week’s win- Kim Coleman ner of a $100 gift McColl-Teweles certificate to Lelli’s Inn on the Green. Thank you to everyone who liked the JN on Facebook. Check back soon for another contest. July 21 • 2016 5