views

publisher’s notebook

letters

New Format
& Size For
Your JN

Girls Have the
Right to Say No

T

he edition of the Detroit Jewish News
currently in your hands may feel a
bit different. It is. It has been re-for-
matted in a way to consume
less newsprint while con-
tinuing to provide you with
the useful, credible informa-
tion you expect from us.
A trade-and-tariff war
initiated by our country’s
Arthur Horwitz president early in 2018
against Canada, whose
mills provide virtually all
the newsprint consumed by
American publishers, resulted in immediate
cost increases of up to 31 percent per metric
ton. Newsprint is one of the major expense
lines in the budgets of publishers, including
the Jewish News.
In early August, our country tweaked the
newsprint tariff downward to about 20 per-
cent while refusing to eliminate it altogether.
About six weeks ago, the five-member U.S.
International Trade Commission voted
unanimously to overturn the tariffs. There
will be no refunds or rebates, and higher
prices passed along to the Jewish News by its
Michigan-based printer are continuing.
Planning for a reformatted Jewish News
was in its final stages when the commission
announced its ruling.
In this era of fake news and alternative
facts, with the media positioned by our
country’s president as the collective ene-
mies of the people, the Jewish News remains
focused on our mission to provide you, our
valued readers, with information — in print
and digitally — that reflects the full range of
diverse viewpoints in our community while
also advocating positions that strengthen
Jewish unity and continuity.
We appreciate your continuing read-
ership and trust, and the opportunity to
share our new format and more convenient
size with you.

Arthur Horwitz
Publisher & Executive Editor

My family and I read with great
sadness the story of Ethan Bean’s too-
short life (Sept. 13, page 10). We are
immeasurably thankful to his family
for sharing his story and his struggle
with the community, and I am certain
that their bravery will help others and
save lives.
We would, however, like to bring
to your attention an important prob-
lem in the article, which comes from
this line, as pointed out by my high
school-aged daughter:
“His experience at North
Farmington High School was dis-
appointing. He had trouble making
friends and felt isolated and excluded.
When he created a ‘promposal’ for a
girl he liked, she rejected him.”
This statement perpetuates a soci-
etal problem of our expectations of
women and girls. This statement,
whether or not it is meant to, under-
lines the assumption that it is a young
woman’s duty to say “yes” to a propos-
al and that to reject it is to somehow
hurt the “proposer.”
This statement is very harmful to
girls and women. It is not their duty
to accept any proposal, innocent or
otherwise, and it is our duty as boys
and men to understand, teach and
live the fact that girls and women
have absolute autonomy. The quote
above both assumes that the girl had
a duty to say yes and a duty to under-
stand that saying “no” might harm
the boy.
A girl or woman should feel no
guilt and have no hesitation to reject
an invitation, proposal or advance
from anyone.

Dr. Peter A. Lipson and family
Bloomfield Hills

Solution to
Conservatism’s Demise

Regarding Rabbi Aaron Starr’s col-
umn on the Conservative Jewish
demise (Sept. 20, page 6), first, an
“yasher koach” to his grandfather and
the rabbi on their Jewish survival.
In addition to Rabbi Starr’s cor-
rect assessment of causes, there are
additional factors to Conservatism’s
demise:
• The increased reluctance of

modern men to get married or even
approach women (risk of financial
ruin/unfavorable family courts/less
flirting due to risk of “me too” accu-
sations)
• Environmental pollution reduc-
ing fertility (well-documented Israeli
research on this)
• The increased polarization of the
Jewish community from both sides
• Conservative shuls becoming like
Reform shuls, redefining laws and tra-
ditions, incorporating microphones
and music. What does Conservative
even mean? How is it different from
Reform?
• Frum shuls becoming ever more
religious and unnecessarily strict in
interpretation
• Increasingly polarizing politics
from both right and left.
The solution: The real answer to
this is to have more inclusive tradi-
tional Orthodox shuls like in Israel.
• Put away the suits and ties if you
want. Wear the knitted kippah if you
want or the cheap satin.
• Be proud of whatever level you
are at.
• Shuls should be welcoming and
less judgmental about each person’s
individual practice.
• Of course, there will always be
disagreements about core questions
and stringencies.
Conservatism is likely to be gone
within two generations regardless,
as it is transitioning to a “Reform+”
slant.
Hopefully, more people will pur-
sue the Israeli-style then abandon
Judaism altogether.

Elliott Gestetner
Berkley, Michigan

Falsehood in
Rabbi Starr’s Column

Rabbi Starr’s otherwise thoughtful
essay on the importance of perpetuat-
ing the non-Orthodox Jewish popu-
lation, which has a low birthrate, con-
tained an error. He wrote, “After all,
we in the non-Orthodox world sup-
port a woman’s right to work full time
outside of the home and — if we are
being frank – when both adults work
in a household, it affects in a variety
of ways a couple’s ability to conceive
and to raise additional children…”
Orthodox women work outside

the home with their husband’s bless-
ing. I know many of them and I am
awestruck by their ability to manage
a Jewish household, raise happy chil-
dren and hold a job. They are doctors,
social workers, lawyers, teachers,
speech therapists and entrepreneurs.
It is true that Orthodox women
tend to marry earlier, giving them
more fertile years. But they also
have a communal infrastructure that
makes it easier to have bigger fam-
ilies and to work — less expensive
home-based day care, jobs that offer
flexibility (if not a high salary) and
extended family nearby to help. Along
with economic necessity, community
values dictate the way Orthodox Jews
live, which is typically humbler than
their non-Orthodox counterparts.
Rabbi Starr wrote as much.
If we are going to encourage our
children to marry and procreate with
other Jews — the point of Rabbi
Starr’s essay — we need to do a better
job of instilling a sense of joy and awe
in the practice of Judaism.
We also need to recognize more
universal factors in the low overall
birthrate in the U.S. — stagnant wages
that require more than one household
member to earn, a legitimate fear of
not being able to break into the work-
force after taking time off to raise
children and a workplace culture that
rewards long hours — and support
labor policies that are family- and sal-
ary-friendlier.

Julie Edgar
Oak Park

‘Truth Squad’ Needs
to Dig for the Truth

Wow! With the title “Truth Squad”
(Sept. 20, page 20), I just had to read
the piece and check into the organi-
zation. I found that it is a project of
Bridge, a magazine of the Michigan
Center, claiming to have a staff of
experienced journalists. While there
are a number of things in the piece
upon which I would wish to com-
ment, because of space restriction
policies, I choose one — the coverage
of Garlin Gilchrist regarding Israel.
Truth Squad casually dismisses
Gilchrist’s scurrilous tweets about
Israel by saying that Gilchrist apolo-
gized and now says he claims to sup-
port Israel and calls Hamas a terrorist

continued on page 10

8

October 4 • 2018

jn

