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Can We Get A Starbucks
To Replace JPM?
I can no longer wait to express my sad-
ness at the loss of our Jimmy Prentis
Morris JCC in Oak Park. My heart
aches each Shabbat as I drive up to
the Federation apartments to pick up
a woman I take to shul and see lots
of Orthodox families walking past an
empty mound of grass.
In 1976, before I had children, my
friend and community leader Janet Levine
asked if I would help get a pool built at the
10 Mile Jewish Community Center. She
said there was no nearby pool for Jewish
kids to learn how to swim. We quickly
learned one of the commandments is to
teach a child how to swim so they don’t
drown. We used that as a tool to get our
voices heard. The alternative for kids was
the YMCA in Royal Oak, which had a cross
over the pool.
Janet and I worked for 16 years
organizing a grassroots group from
Huntington Woods and Oak Park. We
had many meetings with the heads of
the JCC and Federation over the years.
Finally, the Federation decided to offer
loans to young Jews to see if they would
live in Oak Park. The Neighborhood
Project was born and offered $5,000
loans to hundreds of families to see if
this was a viable community and to sta-
bilize it. Again, we waited.
By the time a pool was built, 16 years
had passed and my three children were
the first ones in it.
Over the years, we used our little JCC
for children’s concerts, adult concerts,
nursery school, day care, exercise class-
es, basketball, senior adult activities,
knitting groups, woodworkers, paint-
ing classes and ESL classes. We also
had a health club and swimming pool
that was wheelchair-accessible. Book
Fair finally came to our side of town.
We would take our kids for a kosher
lunch or dinner. I was able to make
friends with women who still lived in
my old Detroit neighborhood as well as
Holocaust survivors.
Where are those familiar faces I used
to see? Everyone is sad at the loss of our
gathering place. We truly feel forgot-
ten while the Federation says they are
concerned about the needs of the entire
community.
My question for Federation: Where
can we gather as a community now
on a daily basis? Consider building a
Starbucks there for us to at least get a
cup of coffee and meet an old friend.
You don’t have to worry that it won’t be
self-sustaining.
Marcy Feldman
Federation volunteer and solicitor since 1975
Huntington Woods
Thank You!
I can’t thank you enough for the uplift-
ing breath of sweet air I felt when read-
ing last week’s cover story by Lynne
Konstantin, “Straight From The Heart”
(Jan. 25, page 52).
Lynne carefully painted such a beauti-
ful and powerful picture of what feels
like our own Jewish Camelot.
I have witnessed the miracle of our new
rabbi meeting his “bashert” and the pure
love and coming together of their families
and their extended Shaarey Zedek family.
I vividly remember the first picture
posted on Facebook of that “Belle Isle
bike ride” and immediately shared with
Meredith’s mom, Linda Cohen, that
“something more than friendship was
blooming.”
During these cold winter days, the
Dahlens are a shining example that pure
love — blended in with a beautiful and
meaningful practice of Judaism — can
Contributing Writers:
Ruthan Brodsky, Rochel Burstyn, Suzanne
Chessler, Annabel Cohen, Don Cohen, Shari
S. Cohen, Shelli Liebman Dorfman, Adam
Finkel, Stacy Gittleman, Stacy Goldberg, Judy
Greenwald, Ronelle Grier, Esther Allweiss
Ingber, Allison Jacobs, Barbara Lewis, Jennifer
Lovy, Rabbi Jason Miller, Alan Muskovitz,
David Sachs, Karen Schwartz, Robin Schwartz,
Steve Stein, Joyce Wiswell
Arthur M. Horwitz
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overcome.
Perhaps this article might inspire
other engaged couples to contact Rabbi
Yoni Dahlen to see how they, too, can
incorporate some of the beautiful, more
egalitarian Jewish rituals into their own
weddings.
Thank you for sharing their beautiful
journey with the rest of the community.
Suzi Terebelo
Southfield
Playing Hardball
With The P.A.
Robert Sklar is absolutely right about
the “blood money” the P.A. gives to ter-
rorists and their families (“Pejorative
Payouts,” Jan. 25, page 6.) The U.S. has
been coddling the P.A., paying them and
letting them do what they want with
the money. This has enabled terrorism
against Israelis (and visitors to Israel)
for decades, incentivizing them to keep
up the killings.
Whatever your opinion of Trump, I
am thankful to see the hard line he and
his administration are taking in dealing
with Abbas and the P.A., including mak-
ing sure that Jerusalem stays the capital
of Israel. “The Palestinians are ‘going
to have to want to make peace, too, or
we’re going to have nothing to do with
it any longer,” he said in Davos on Jan.
25. “Its many years of killing people. Its
many years of killing each other. They
have to be tired and disgusted of it.”
Trump is right; but obviously, the P.A.
is not disgusted with killing but feels
justified in paying for and promoting
violence in Israel because, to them,
they are at war with the Jewish State of
Israel.
If you’re a Jew who believes we can
have peace with the Palestinian leader-
ship, don’t worry. You’ve still got former
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Secretary of State John Kerry, who met
Abbas’ close associate Hussein Agha in
London and told him to tell Abbas to
“hold on and be strong.” (Ben Caspit,
The Jerusalem Post, Jan 24, 2018). Tell
him, he told Agha, “that he should play
for time, that he will not break and will
not yield to President [Donald] Trump’s
demands” because, within a year,
according to the reporting, “there was a
good chance that Trump would not be
in the White House.”
This truly should scare American
Jews because if Kerry gets his wish, the
U.S. will soon be back to paying more
to inflame the violence in Israel, in the
magical dream that Palestinians will
someday stop killing Jews.
Peace can only come if the killing
stops, which is a fantasy we have had for
almost 70 years.
Arnie Goldman
Farmington Hills
Root Causes
The column “Pejorative Payouts” was
OK, as far as it went, but it doesn’t touch
the root cause(s).
1. The Palestinians must stop teach-
ing their children, from earliest school
experience through terrorist acts, to
hate/kill Jews.
2. Mideast nations must stop using
Palestinians as a “cistern of hatred
against Israel” to divert attention of
their respective populations from struc-
tural problems in their homelands.
For at least a millennium, the world
has used Jews as scapegoats for its
problems. Since it seems to work, why
should countries stop now? Look no fur-
ther than the number of U.N. member
nations who sign up for every measure
condemning Israel to see what I mean.
Steve Slater
Waterford
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February 8 • 2018
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