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letters
Oak Park Deserves
JCC Presence
Marcy Feldman got to the heart of the
matter with her recent letter suggest-
ing that Federation put a Starbucks on
the site of the now-demolished Jimmy
Prentis Morris Jewish Community
Center building in Oak Park (Feb. 8,
page 6).
Like her, I totally reject the notion
that any Federation-supported facility
on that spot must “pay for itself ” —
nothing else in the Jewish community
is subjected to such a standard, nor
should it be.
Our Federation lost the trust of many
in our community when it closed, then
bulldozed, the beloved Oak Park JCC.
I hope it is not too late for the powers
that be to perform a heshbon hanefesh (a
sincere and searching self-examination)
and do teshuvah by turning away from
its past indifference and committing
resources to re-establishing a JCC pres-
ence in Oak Park for the benefit of the
many in our community whose lives
would be immeasurably enriched there-
by. Our community as a whole deserves
to have this happen.
Nancy F. Kaplan
West Bloomfield
36 Under 36
Are Inspiring
I read with the greatest of interest the
most inspiring profiles of the 36 under
36 young men and women; all of them
richly deserve that great distinction.
The magic number of 36 has a double
symbolism in Judaism, most probably
the reason for its choosing. One is being
the numerical equivalence of double
Chai. However, the other one, perhaps
less known, is the Hebrew letters equiv-
alence of Lamed Vav who, according to
Jewish lore, are 36 mysterious tzadikim
— righteous men, because of whose
merit our world exists.
I do prefer the second reason and not
the least because these 36 tzadikim are
supposed to be unknown, not unlike all
the other just as wonderful young men
and women in our community who
were not fortunate to be included.
Each one of those honored should
regard himself or herself as these Lamed
Vavniks, as they are called, by the virtue
of whom our community exists and
flourishes.
Rachel Kapen
West Bloomfield
Support Canary Mission
Recently, proponents of BDS (boycotts,
divestment and sanctions of Israel),
on their 11th try, were able to pass an
anti-Israel divestment proposal at the
University of Michigan. There was much
hand-wringing and second-guessing
among Israel supporters who worked
hard against the proposal. There was
also a terrible self-defeating mistake
made in placing part of the blame on the
anonymous group Canary Mission.
According to a December 2017 DJN
article, Canary Mission is engaged in
creating a “McCarthyite blacklist.” It is
accused of being the “far right” mirror
image of Jewish Voice for Peace, instilling
a climate of fear among BDS supporters
who worry that Canary Mission is “hold-
ing them accountable, in perpetuity, for
the ill-advised tweets from their youth …”
Yes, young adults are being held
accountable for their publicly expressed
anti-Semitism. Everything Canary
Mission publishes is gathered from social
media sites. In other words, it is exposing
people who are comfortable in visibly
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Greenwald, Ronelle Grier, Esther Allweiss
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expressing their Jew-hatred.
Last summer, an Arlington, Texas,
preschool teacher was fired when some
of her anti-Semitic tweets were publi-
cized. Would you allow your child into a
preschool class whose teacher tweeted,
“… Kiss the Palestine ground for me and
kill some Jews!” and “How many Jews
died in the Holocaust? Not enough!”?
Would these tweets be considered
merely “ill-advised” if they were made
by a youthful white supremacist or a
young Nazi?
Canary Mission has also exposed
anti-Semitic university professors who
use their position of authority to indoc-
trinate students into Israel/Jew-hatred.
Hatem Bazian, founder of Students for
Justice in Palestine and professor at UC
Berkeley, once organized a press confer-
ence in support of an anti-Semitic cam-
pus mural. Jewish students were refused
admittance. According to Bazian, “our
Congress is an Israeli-occupied terri-
tory.” Meanwhile, some white suprema-
cists claim that our Congress is ZOG —
Zionist Occupied Government. Notice
any similarities?
The BDS proponents’ expressed fear
is ridiculous. It is Jewish students who
are being harassed on campus and
censured by student governments for
Zionist leanings. By accepting these
cowardly claims, Jewish U-M students
are allowing the campus anti-Semites to
dictate the rules. The haters have rede-
fined free speech and academic freedom
to deny Jews a voice while they allow
themselves a free hand to demonize
Israel. While we see it as a debate, they
see it as a long war in which all is fair.
Notice that after every defeat they begin
planning their next round of Israel defa-
mation.
Canary Mission has put campus Jew-
haters on notice that they can no longer
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slander us at will and then whine about
victimhood when their lies and hypoc-
risy are unmasked. They should be
exposed and condemned.
There should be consequences for
anti-Semites as there are for racists.
Canary Mission supplies those conse-
quences. Sympathizing with the haters’
discomfort at being uncovered ensures
that the anti-Semitic lies and accusa-
tions that have followed us for millennia
will continue. The fact that they notice
and fear Canary Mission shows that
Canary Mission is effective.
Harry Onickel
Ferndale
Yiddish Limerick
PURIM
Mir hern Haman’s name and
noisily jeer
Ahasuerus di Kenig, un Esther the
dear.
Do canst trinken, zayn shiker
Please don’t hide the liquor
A fraylikher yontef, Purim is here.
• Mir hern: we hear
• Di kenig: the king
• Do canst trinken: you can drink
• Zayn shiker: be drunk
• A fraylikher yontef: a happy
holiday.
By Rachel Kapen
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February 22 • 2018
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