6 | SEPTEMBER 17 • 2020 

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Editor’
s Note

Rosh Hashanah Love
I 

stepped outside the other day, 
after my morning round of 
Zoom meetings and endless 
emails, only to realize — with 
some surprise — that a pleasant 
chill had lifted the air. Fall is here. 
Fall, in Michigan! 
What a blessing!
My primary 
association with 
Rosh Hashanah, 
and my favorite 
thing about it, is 
that it comes in 
the fall. You see, 
I’
m a big fan of Michigan’
s brisk, 
light-jacket weather, the kind that 
invites you to huddle with loved 
ones as you stroll outside in long 
pants and close-toed shoes, per-
haps while on your way to pick 
apples for dipping in honey. 
With all due respect to the 
many JN readers who have made 
states with warmer climates their 
second (or permanent) home, I 
will never pass up an opportunity 
to watch the seasons change. To 

me, it simply isn’
t the New Year 
without a Michigan fall.
Usually, of course, the season-
al shift is much more apparent. 
There’
d be more places to go, 
including, you know, shul. So the 
promise of new journeys ahead 
for the new year would actually 
feel tangible.
One of the challenges this year 
is that, to many, there is no per-
ceptible switch from our spring 
and summer doldrums to now. 
The COVID-19 pandemic is still 
a gigantic presence in our lives, 
preventing us from congregating 
in shul, most schools or anywhere 
else. You know by now all the 
other challenges we are facing 
as a Jewish community and as 
American citizens. So will we 
feel different in 5781? Can we 
still wish each other a “sweet new 
year” if this year doesn’
t feel “new” 
or even particularly “sweet?”
But there are, indeed, still 
changes happening around us — 
even if we can’
t see them. Even 

as we sit isolated, we are growing 
wiser and more aware of the 
challenges ahead (and those now 
behind). It was hard, and often 
painful, but we’
ve learned from all 
of this. We can add basically the 
entirety of last year to the list of 
hardships our people have found a 
way to survive. 
Then, we can use that knowl-
edge to carefully take stock of the 
year ahead, in which our creativity 
and ingenuity, as well as both 
our survival instincts and our 
hard-wired sense of communal 
purpose, will have a chance to 
shine and see us through. Well, 
let’
s focus on the next few months 
first. The period between now and 
Election Day feels like another 
year in and of itself.
Rest assured, the Jewish News 
will be there. Your journeys, your 
challenges, are ours, too. And hey, 
it’
s fall in Michigan. The seasons 
are changing. That’
s a celebration. 
Enjoy it. From all of us, l’
shanah 
tovah! 

Andrew
Lapin
Editor

from coarse double digits that 
“rough up” surfaces (skin is 
a surface) and even the very 
fine (or just fine) triple figures, 
I feel super like Mario going 
from 3000 to 5000 to 7000 grit 
sandpaper, all while retaining 
my finger prints. 
You can also get a tumbler 
(or, if you’
re me, three) and 
work your way up from 80 to 
1200 grit, powder into slurry. 
It’
s gratifying to set and forget 
for a week at a time, but I 
prefer getting stoned the old 
fashioned way: get my damn 
kids to go to sleep, turn off 
my phone and rock out with 
some quartz, ultrafine paper 
and mustachioed reruns of 
Jeopardy.
Resolved: Rock polishing 
is the trivial pursuit for our 
time. Fidget spinners were all 
well and good way back in the 
Before Times (2017), but they 
lack the gravitas this moment 
demands. Rock polishing is 
less obsessive compulsive (and 
more grown up) than adult 
coloring books. Constructive 
like knitting but with less 
carpal tunnel. And stones are 
not slime or unicorns, which 
makes them inherently prefer-
able to slime and unicorns.
We have the power — with 
a keen eye, a decent grip and a 
little bit of patience — to cre-
ate something beautiful. Not 
by glossing over its imperfec-
tions or diminishing its core, 
but by refining rough edges to 
reveal an essential, immutable 
value.
Consider it a metaphor for 
what we carry into the new 
year, for how we carry our-
selves.
And don’
t take it for 
granite. 

community, Israel and Jews 
throughout the world to the 
general community and beyond, 
and to establish collaborative rela-
tionships with other ethnic, racial, 
civic and religious groups.
Our community relations work 
is developed through consensus 
on issues important to many of 
us. JCRC/AJC’
s board is made 
up of Democrats, Republicans, 
Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Jews 
of color. We are young and old, 
and religious and secular, but we 
happen to agree on many things, 
like the safety and well-being 
of Jewish Detroiters and other 
Jews throughout the world. We 
also strongly support the State 
of Israel, its continuing security 
needs, and a fair, secure and last-
ing peace between Israelis and 

Palestinians. We hope the recent 
peace agreement between Israel 
and the UAE — and soon other 
Gulf and African countries — will 
bring peace sooner. No doubt 
Israel is stronger with these new 
alliances.
Likewise, the Detroit Jewish 
community is stronger when 
allied with our brothers and sis-
ters from other faiths and ethnic 
groups. Solely fighting antisem-
itism while ignoring increasing 
levels of racism is antithetical to 
Rabbi Hillel’
s wise admonition, 
“If I am only for myself, what 
am I?” Our organization stands 
in solidarity with our African 
American, Chaldean, Hindu and 
Muslim brothers and sisters. We 
build alliances that protect all 
minority groups — not just the 

Jewish community.
There are those who 
 argue the 
center in this country has col-
lapsed. I strongly disagree. The 
vast majority of us share common 
values and goals. We just need 
to tune out the extremists on the 
left and right, and be more vocal, 
active and effective in our work. 
It’
s no longer enough to simply 
identify injustice. It’
s time to fight 
and eradicate hate in all its forms. 
Please join us.
On behalf of the board of 
JCRC/AJC, we wish you all a 
happy and, most importantly, 
healthy New Year. 

Seth D. Gould, president of JCRC/AJC 
– Detroit, is a partner of the Miller 
Law Firm, PC, specializing in busi-
ness litigation. 

Action from page 5

New Year’
s from page 5

