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6 | FEBRUARY 20 • 2020 

editor’
s note

Building the Big Tent

essay

We Do Have Allies, You Know?

I

’
m excited to share this 
week’
s JN cover story 
with you although I can’
t 
take credit for it because 
it was in the works before 
I arrived here. Our pair of 
features on 
Jews of color in 
Metro Detroit 
give us the 
opportunity to 
tell the kinds 
of Jewish sto-
ries we unfor-
tunately tend to overlook 
when we talk about “the 
Jews” as a single identity.
We don’
t want this focus 
to be a one-time thing. My 
hope is that we at the JN 
can make a regular, standing 
commitment to telling the 
stories of Jews from diverse 
backgrounds, including Jews 
of color, Jews from migrant 
communities, Jews in inter-
faith families and Jews from 
the LGBTQ+ community. 
Because, really, all of us 

are part of one community: 
the Metro Detroit Jewish 
community. We should all 
feel comfortable around 
each other. And I want to 
make sure the JN continues 
to be a place where we can 
all gather: a big tent, if you 
will. Of course, one or two 
features aren’
t going to build 
that tent.
With that in mind, I’
d like 
to extend the following invi-
tation. If you would like to 
share your own experiences 
as a member of an under-
represented Jewish identity, 
please reach out and share 
with us. We’
d love to feature 
your story in these pages 
and on our website.
As I am still reacquainting 
myself with Jewish Detroit 
after several years away, I’
m 
thinking about all your sto-
ries the same way I approach 
an Indian buffet: I want to 
have as many different fla-
vors as I can. 

This is also the time for 
me to apologize to anyone 
who tried to email me or the 
editorial staff at our “ren-
media.us” addresses over 
the past couple weeks, only 
to receive 
a bounce-back 
message in return saying the 
address was undeliverable. 
We were dealing with 
some in-house technical dif-
ficulties, and they impacted 
our entire editorial team’
s 
ability to access our regular 
staff emails. I am sure this 
caused frustration for some 
of you — I know it did us. 
Thankfully, the problem 
has been resolved and our 
email addresses are once 
again working properly. If 
you sent an email to our 
editorial staff in the past few 
weeks and didn’
t hear back, 
please resend it. 
Thanks very much for 
your savlanut (patience) and 
understanding. 

Andrew Lapin

through May is tech-inten-
sive — online outreach, photo 
archives, video editing, CRM, 
IMs, alums, emails, Sporcles 
— such that June, July and 
August might, per camp’
s 
Nebagamission, “create a ref-
uge from the real world, giving 
children the space they need to 
discover themselves, to nurture 
a diverse and caring commu-
nity, to challenge boys in ways 
that help them discover how 
capable they are and to engen-
der a love of the outdoors in 
our campers.” 
Like filling in a scorecard 
from the scouts’
 seats, easier 
said than swung.
Also, Louis and Maggie are 
adorable. His knitting, her cro-
cheting. His cooking, her bak-
ing. Their dueling sourdoughs. 
His vacuuming and White 
Sox, her laundry and Cubs. 
Their tandem bike. His softball 
fandom upon learning that U. 
Chicago had sports teams. (Go 
Maroons!) Her MLB All-Star 
breaks spent at a Paul Bunyan-
themed boys camp. 
That tandem bike.
And they don’
t live in 
Detroit out of some sense of 
duty or sacrifice. They live in 
Detroit because it has a density 
and diversity of peers and beers 
(and other culinary, cultural, 
artistic, authentic, social and 
sportsball amenities) unrivaled 
this side of the Wiener’
s Circle.
Louis and Maggie have a 
go-to cheesemonger (Emily) 
at Eastern Market. Dally in the 
Alley i 
s behind their house. 
Thanksgiving may have been 
a caravan back to Chicago, but 
— a departure from decades 
of dodging Detroit — Horace’
s 
house hosted 19 for a West 
Forest Friendsgiving. With two 
sourdoughs. 

jewfro from page 5

 
W

ith the recent 
surge in anti-
Semitic attacks, it’
s 
easy to see why many Jews 
feel increasingly isolated and 
alone. Sadly, 
that’
s an all-too-
familiar feeling 
for us. But if 
our eyes are 
open, we must 
acknowledge 
we’
ve also 
seen genuine, heartwarming 
gestures of solidarity and 

support for Jews in recent 
months. This might be hard 
to accept for those Jews who 
tend to distrust non-Jews, but 
they are closing their eyes to 
an undeniable and beautiful 
fact that we should appreciate 
and nurture: We Jews have 
allies. Plenty of them.
Recent examples are 
everywhere and sometimes in 
the unlikeliest of places.
 • Last month two Russian 
cosmonauts, while on a 
spacewalk outside of the 

International Space Station, 
commemorated International 
Holocaust Remembrance 
Day by displaying a sign 
transcribed in both English 
and Russian, with the words 
“We Remember.”
• Last month in Tehran, 
Iran (of all places), at Shahid 
Behesti University during 
an anti-government protest, 
the students refused to walk 
on a large painting of the 
Israeli flag on the ground and 
instead chose to walk around 

Mark Jacobs

continued on page 10