8 | DECEMBER 17 • 2020

Jewfro
Borrowed Time: Brain Surgery
is Not Rocket Science

My brother-in-law Marc
Rosenzweig was diagnosed with
Stage 3 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma
in 2012 and Stage 4 ALK lung
cancer in 2013. Borrowed Time
is a storytelling project about his
journey to the present as told to
me by him.
B

rain surgery is not
rocket science. You’
d
think it would be a
complicated diagnosis and
a difficult decision, but the
picture of the
tumor develop-
ing on my brain
was uncompli-
cated and the
oncologist’s rec-
ommendation
to operate wasn’t
really a recom-
mendation.
Launching a rocket involves
a countdown and then …
something happens.
Everyone in my large
extended family agreed a
Tigers game was as good a
way as any to pass the time
the night before surgery. Some
of them probably would have
said they were confident about
the prognosis, others less opti-
mistic, but the main benefit of
going to the game was not hav-
ing to talk about the brain.
Earlier that day, I went to
Ann Arbor for a functional
MRI. Because I was going to
be awake during the operation
— like the guy in the game
Operation — the MRI would
allow the doctor to assess my
brain while it was still fully
enclosed in my head.
Like the dream where you
show up for a test you didn’t

study for, except instead of
having no pants on, I had no
pants on and had to lie per-
fectly still in a tube for an hour
and a half while taking the test.
“Name adverbs that begin
with the letter ‘R.
’”
“OK.
”
“
Are you humming?”
“Schoolhouse Rock. Is that
cheating?”
The next test was finding a
parking spot downtown before
the baseball game. This was
back when people both could
and did attend Tigers games.
The Tigers had just swept
Boston at Fenway Park and
Houston at home, all for
crowds of more than 30,000.
In the second game against
the Astros, Jose Iglesias had a
walk-off single. The next day,
Miguel Cabrera hit two home
runs.
As I was navigating the
parking structure, a 734
number called. The surgeon
had my MRI in front of him,
having reviewed it rigorously.
The mass on my brain was
shrinking rapidly — yes, really

— and, rightly, the surgery was
canceled.
Lolly Lolly Lolly Get Your
Adverbs Here
I experienced a floating sen-
sation, having little to do with
the high altitude of the parking
spot or seats. Seeing 20 family
members and friends gathered
there was like a cross between
spoiling your own surprise
party and getting to your own
shivah while there’s still lox.
The Tigers beat the White
Sox 11-5. We celebrated at
Lafayette Coney Island.
A month later, the Lions
kicked off their season in
Indianapolis. It was the first for
General Manager Bob Quinn
and the first time the team had
cheerleaders since I was a kid.
I was home watching the
game when I had my own
first — a seizure. EMS came
and took me to Henry Ford
Hospital in West Bloomfield. I
was discharged later that day,
but not in time to see the final
minute — a 50-yard field goal
and Colts safety — that would
usher in the start of the Lions

Ben Falik

letters

The Jews of Ethiopia
Need Our Support
As 2020 draws to a close in the
U.S., we can look forward to
better times with vaccines for
COVID-19 and a president
who will return the country
to normalcy. Unfortunately,
for Jews living in Ethiopia, the
future remains bleak. While
Israel has agreed to allow 2,000
of the 8,000 Jews waiting in
Gondor and Addis Ababa to
immigrate, 6,000 remain, and
their families in Israel have no
idea when or if they will be
allowed to join them.
In addition, 150,000 mem-
bers of the ancestral Jewish
Beta Israel community of
North Shewa, Ethiopia, strug-
gle for their Jewish identity.
Discriminated against by their
Christian neighbors, they suffer
from the calamity of ancient
superstitions of being called
budas, sorcerers who eat the
flesh of living people at night
and turn into hyenas to kill
neighbors’ cattle during the
day. This year brought a locust
infestation to North Shewa
resulting in famine. Israel is
supplying food packages to the
elderly. The COVID pandemic
has not spared this community,
as they make and distribute
facemasks, thermometers and
hand sanitizer to remote parts
of the region. Now a civil war
in neighboring Tigray province
has resulted in 600 people being
murdered in a genocide last
week. The world remains silent,
and the fear that the genocide
could spread to other areas of
the country remains.
You can help by going to our
website, www.beta-israel.org.

— David Goldberg, Suzi Colman,

Rabbi Joshua Bennett

Friends of the Beta Israel

of North Shewa

VIEWS

continued on page 10

Marc Rosenzweig, his fam-

ily and friends among the

30,316 fans in attendance

August 2, 2016, for the

Tigers vs Whitesox.

BEN FALIK