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