Essays and viewpoints

PURELY COMMENTARY

JEWISH AGENCY FOR ISRAEL AMERICAN JEWISH JOINT DISTRIBUTION COMMITTEE

update Federation’s Ukraine Crisis Fund

It is in times of crisis that the strength and resilience of our local and international Jewish community is most evident.

This remarkable community has raised over $3 million to provide urgent support to the Jewish population of Ukraine. Roughly half of those funds have been allocated through the Jewish Federation’s Ukraine Emergency Campaign to our international partners on

Matthew B. Lester the ground: American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), The Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) and World ORT. The other half of the funding has been made directly to those relief organizations by a variety of local Jewish foundations and

Dennis S. funders. Once again, we want to

Bernard express our deepest gratitude to everyone who has participated in this effort. Tragically, the crisis continues to deepen. As we watch events unfold in Ukraine, we continue to pray for the safety and

Steven well-being of our Jewish family,

Ingber as well as the entire civilian population.

Your support makes a difference. Below you’ll find information on how our partner agencies have been providing critical humanitarian aid during this crisis.

JEWISH AGENCY FOR ISRAEL (JAFI)

• The Jewish Agency for Israel has received some 6,000 requests to immigrate to Israel in recent days and believes that up to 15,000 Ukrainian immigrants could arrive in Israel in the near future, in what would only be the first wave of refugees headed to the Jewish state. Seven hundred Jews have so far arrived at aliyah (immigration to Israel) processing centers including 100 Jewish orphans. • The Agency is now operating both within Ukraine and within Poland, Moldova, Romania and Hungary — all neighboring countries — at five different crossings and have secured over 5,000 beds in transit facilities. The Agency reports that they are seeing a significant increase in the number of people seeking to reach the border and they are helping families and refugees escape through various and complex rescue/transportation channels. • 150 community organizations across Ukraine identified by the Jewish Agency’s Security Assistance Fund will receive immediate assistance for protection. This budget will be used to implement security measures at Jewish organizations and institutions across the country.

AMERICAN JEWISH JOINT DISTRIBUTION COMMITTEE (JDC)

• In more than 1,000 locations across Ukraine, JDC provides a lifeline for an estimated 40,000 Jewish elderly and 2,500 poor Jewish children and their families through its network of services, Jewish community programs and Jewish leaders. • In total, JDC has helped shelter approximately 1,500 Jewish refugees, and given other support to some 3,000-4,000 Jews, plus thousands more non-Jewish refugees. The assistance includes transit advice, food and more. • JDC has also evacuated more than 3,000 Jews together with Chabad, local Jewish communities in Ukraine, the Jewish Agency, and the Jewish communities of Romania, Poland, Moldova and Hungary.

WORLD ORT

• World ORT supports seven schools in Ukraine: in Chernivtsi, Dnipro, Belaya Tzerkov, Odessa and Zaporozhe, and two in Kyiv. These schools educate more than 3,000 full-time students. • ORT also runs KesherNet centers, which support unemployed women with job training, as well as an education center in Kyiv and a technology center in Dnipro. As a result of the war, all ORT schools in Ukraine are currently closed and mobility is limited. • As a result of 25 years of building schools and training centers in Ukraine, there are today more than 8,000 people who rely on ORT as part of their daily lives. Since the start of the conflict, these lives have, of course, been upended by rockets, sirens and violence. • The ORT School in neighboring Moldova is preparing to eventually accept ORT Ukraine refugees at their school and is helping with accommodations and essentials.

Donate to the Ukraine Emergency Campaign at jewishdetroit.org/ukraine. Thank you for your support, and for all you have done for our local and international Jewish community.

Matthew B. Lester is president of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, Dennis S. Bernard is president of the United Jewish Foundation and Steven Ingber is CEO of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.

update Operation Re-Connect

After two years of COVID-restricted travel to Israel, Michigan Israel Business Accelerator (MIBA) CEO Scott Hiipakka finally arrived in the Start-Up Nation for a five-day whirlwind visit in January. Meeting hosts rolled out the “red carpet” — meeting a real live American in the flesh, without the filter of a computer screen, was both exciting and encouraging as we hopefully turn “the COVID corner.”

The MIBA team in Israel, myself and Liza Yedwab, accompanied Scott throughout the week, meeting with multiple business and government partners on the ground, separated only by masks. While most visits were defense oriented, MIBA’s other strategic areas of focus were addressed, including health, sustainability and mobility. The message at all meetings was clear — do not underestimate the potential of collaborating with Michigan!

We were welcomed warmly at Elbit, Israel’s largest privately traded defense electronics company. They were excited to learn about furthering relationships with Michigan, especially when hearing about the options for defense product experimentation in Michigan’s National All Domain Warfighting Center — Camp Grayling.

Our meeting with the Defense Cooperation of the U.S. Embassy surpassed expectations. We were pleasantly surprised to be welcomed by six embassy representatives, including the defense attaché. Again, they were fascinated to learn about the state of Michigan and its potential in the defense arena.

A day with the leaders of the innovation teams at Ben Gurion University of the Negev and the Municipality of Beer Sheeva showcased the endless creativity and innovation of this southern desert city. Focusing on future collaboration in areas including sustainability, digital health and cyber, they showed deep interest in developing a strong

relationship with the city of Detroit and with the innovation segments of Michigan universities. The encounters with them were inspiring. They proudly fulfill the legNaomi Miller acy of the namesake of their university, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister and advocate of the potential of the desert when he said, “It’s not enough to be up to date, you have to be up to tomorrow.” It is not often that Israelis, who serve in compulsory military service from age 18 and continue in reserve duty into their 40s, meet a U.S. Brigadier General (CEO Scott

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Israel-based staff Naomi Miller and Liza Yedwab with MIBA CEO Scott Hiipakka.

continued on page 9

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PURELY COMMENTARY

from Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs One People, Dispersed Around the Globe

The war raging in Ukraine today has plunged Jews in that country into the most acute crisis that has faced any large Jewish community in decades. We, the global Jewish community, are therefore facing the biggest test in a generation to demonstrate as a people the solidarity and care for our brothers and sisters facing such danger that previous generations showed in similar situations.

Ukraine is home to at least 200,000 Jews and those with Jewish ancestry, comprising one of the biggest Jewish communities in the world outside of Israel and the U.S. That community, along with all other Ukrainian citizens, is now facing the most dire circumstances imaginable, from indiscriminate aerial and artillery bombardment to food shortages, loss of property and possessions, and exposure to the bitterly cold Eastern European winter.

If ever there was a time for the global Jewish community, in Israel and the Diaspora, to take responsibility for its brethren, then that time is now.

I believe that the initial response shown by the government of Israel and world Jewry represents the opening of a new chapter of Jewish solidarity, something which is particularly needed and welcome in Israel.

In the past and even today, the default attitude of many Israelis, including opinion makers and senior government officials, to the concerns of Jews in the Diaspora has often been to tell them simply to make aliyah. Even in the early 2000s, when

Dr. Nachman Shai

Jewish leaders were reviving Jewish life in the former Soviet Union, former prime minister Ariel Sharon reprimanded them for building Jewish life anew in

NATI SHOHAT/FLASH90

Jewish Ukrainian refugees sit at an emergency shelter sponsored by the IFCJ (International Fellowship of Christians and Jews) and the JDC in Chisinau, Moldova, March 5, 2022.

student’s corner

Let Freedom Prevail

“N ever shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never,” wrote Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel in his poem Never Shall I Forget. “We shall never forget” is often repeated on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, to mourn the death of more than 6 million Jewish people. Six million mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and friends. Now, more than ever before, it is the time to unify and push back against world leaders who attempt to revive world powers of the past.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is one of as many as 400,000 Jewish people still living in the European country of Ukraine. Zelensky’s grandfather was the only brother of four who survived the Holocaust. Zelensky has displayed tremendous bravery; the Ukrainian embassy in Britain says Zelensky refused United States’ offers to escort him away from Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city. Zelensky made clear to the U.S., “I need ammunition, not a ride.”

Babyn Yar, the site of the massacre of 33,000 Jews in World War II, is home to a Holocaust memorial site. This area was a recent victim of Russia’s attacks on the 31-year-old independent country of Ukraine. After breaking off from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991, Ukraine is once again under scrutiny.

In modern times, Zionist movements are often obstructed by misinterpretation in the media and across the world. Frankel Jewish Academy (FJA) teaches that a strong connection to Israel is essential to the maintenance of a strong Jewish people.

By maintaining a concrete connection to Israel, we preserve an influential Jewish community. When the Jewish people are banded together, we are able to condemn antisemitism and world leaders attempting to disrupt our self-sufficiency. Now is the time to combat antisemitism. Now is the time to support

Harry Israel. It is our responsibility Shaevsky to respond, and condemn, any and all forms of antisemitism across the world. If enough people hear and read bigoted statements, we will lose our ability to assert our free will. While events like the Russian invasion into

those lands, saying it was stymieing aliyah.

Today, however, the situation in Israel is changing.

The State of Israel has acted swiftly to assist Ukrainian Jewry. We have approved the transfer of NIS 15 million (some $4.5 million) to two large Jewish organizations on the ground for them to purchase food, medicine and other necessities. The money is also being used to provide physical security for Jewish communities in the country, a crucial necessity in such unstable times, and to help transport those seeking to reach the borders.

In addition to this support, the Jewish Agency and Nativ have been working in incredibly difficult circumstances to assist Jews in Ukraine who have requested to make aliyah during this time get that process moving.

And of course, Israel’s foreign ministry has worked tirelessly to extract thousands of Israelis from the country, as is the responsibility of any sovereign country to its citizens.

At the same time, the world Jewish community has mobilized in full force to take care of our Jewish brothers and sisters facing the awful and perilous realities of modern warfare. Whether it is the incredible work of the Jewish Federations of North America, Keren Hayesod, the JDC, Chabad and numerous other groups, Jews around the world have come together at this moment in solidarity with their brethren in Ukraine.

What we are witnessing in Israel, in particular, is the beginning of the emergence of a true sense of Jewish solidarity, in which the Jewish state seeks to assist all Jews, wherever they might be and where they are at the time of their distress.

If Ukrainian Jews or any other Jewish community need Israel as a place of refuge, then we will of course welcome them with open arms. But we in Israel must be also be ready and willing to assist Jews even if they do not wish to move to this country. The assistance that we have provided to Ukrainian Jewry is a crucial next step in solidifying Israeli solidarity with Diaspora Jews. And the provision of this aid is testament to the readiness of the Israeli government to look out for the wellbeing of the global Jewish people and our desire to take the lead on this front as well.

The decision to extend this assistance received broad and positive coverage in the Israeli media and has helped to demonstrate to the Israeli public at large what Jewish peoplehood actually means. Israelis are now seeing in real time what peoplehood means, and what taking care of Jews abroad actually looks like.

Ukraine may seem rather irrelevant to the tasks presented in our everyday lives, we must understand its similarities to Adolf Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland. Hitler’s invasion was a sign of his intention to not only obtain more land, but also more influence. This invasion of a bordering country, like the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian conflict, would be the first act of Hitler’s regime, and the beginning of the genocide of 6 million Jewish people. Citizens of the world must not let Russia’s attack on its western neighbor lead to invasions on North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) territory or any other independent nations.

Many politicians refer to the Russian invasion as an “unprovoked attack,” similar to Hitler’s assault on Poland. It is our obligation to educate ourselves on the reality of the current situation and support Jewish people in Ukraine by donating resources and supporting organizations for those attempting to flee to a neighboring country.

Additionally, we should support Zionist organizations because with the current trajectory of world annexation, it is impossible to predict how our right to freedom of religion, or our Israeli homeland, may be targeted in the future.

Harry Shaevsky is a sophomore at Frankel Jewish Academy. This is the first in a series of essays from students at Metro Detroit day schools.

JEWISH PEOPLEHOOD

For me, Jewish peoplehood, the idea that we are indeed one people despite being dispersed around the globe, is a critical concept for the global Jewish people today.

If Israel and its citizens cannot understand how important its relationship with Diaspora Jewry is, the Jewish state is likely to become alienated from large parts of the Jewish people, a trend which has already begun within certain demographics.

Equally, world Jewry must also work to ensure that it does not lose its sense of belonging to the Jewish state, a key anchor for Jewish identity, culture and indeed security for the global Jewish people.

The Jewish nation is small

continued on page 11

OPERATION RE-CONNECT continued from page 6

Hiipakka) who understands and speaks their military language. This was most evident in the numerous meetings MIBA held with the Israel Ministry of Defense and the IAI Israel Aerospace Industries, the country’s major aerospace and aviation manufacture.

No visit to Israel is complete without exploring the country’s fascinating history. We were hosted by the dynamic Father Kelly at Magdala, a crossroads of Jewish and Christian history. An active dig and archaeological park on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, the site commemorates the public life and ministry of Jesus. Its modern church boasts magnificent mosaic floors and installations, all inspired by the recent discoveries from the ancient synagogues and public structures in the town.

This successful week of visits lay the groundwork for the upcoming MIBA defense delegation of 15 Michigan companies this month. They will meet with Israeli corporate counterparts, government representatives and participate in ISDEF, an annual Israeli defense conference that hosts more than 100 Israeli international exhibitors. We are looking forward to turning our delegations back on and hosting our friends from Michigan to Israel.

Naomi Miller is Director of Israel Partnerships at the MIBA and Director of Missions and Israel Representative at the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.

PURELY COMMENTARY

essay Playing the Hand You’re Dealt

Iand a lot of other folks recently have learned how important our regular poker/canasta/bridge/mahj games were, when COVID showed up and made it much harder for us to meet in person. And while many of us found ways to play online or on Zoom, we soon learned that the intimate experience of guys or gals getting together around a card table was not the same online.

There’s something special about getting together in person for a regular game. There’s the commitment, evident when you say, “See you next week” as you’re leaving. There’s the feeling of camaraderie, similar to being on a softball or bowling team or in a tennis or golf league. Although in a card game you are not all on the same team against other teams, you still feel like you belong to something. There are shared memories of “Do you remember the time when …?”

My Thursday night poker game includes seven or eight guys who have met almost every week for 40-plus years, with each guy, in turn, hosting the group. While most of us don’t socialize often outside of the “Game,” we enjoy each other’s simchahs and are there for each other’s losses. However, the mild-mannered guys in our cohort suddenly morph around a card table into vehement poker mavens, with nicknames like the Bad Seed, the Eggman, the Sandman or Last Card London.

Most of the guys are now retired or semi-retired. For a long time, when we all were working, Thursday-night poker served a vital function to get us through our work weeks. I recall a voice in my head which called to me, starting on each Monday morning: “Thursday night, if you can only get to Thursday night, you’ll have the Game to help you get to Friday and the weekend.”

The anticipation of our weekly game felt like an oasis in the desert: A place apart from the rest of the world and the demands of work, parental and spousal duties. We could almost be guaranteed at least one or two belly laughs each week.

However, scheduling the game has recently been more and more difficult, due first to some of the guys spending more time in Florida in winter months and then to COVID.

The game took a major hit 15 years ago when my best friend from childhood, Wally (called Walt by the poker guys) moved to Arizona. Wally was the cause of more raucous laughter than all the other guys combined. As an example, one of the guys, before COVID, who commuted to our game almost every Thursday from Windsor, was immortalized by Walt’s famous comment: “There are 50 words for snow, but apparently no Canadian words for ‘I fold!’”

An even more serious blow was the loss of our good friend Marty to lung cancer three years ago. Marty (the Kid) was a guy who knew how to tease me and others, but always in a loving way. Since his passing, we play his favorite game our first hand every week in his honor, and we are always aware of his absence from the table. He was a wonderful friend who taught us all the meaning of healthy competition and overall menschiness.

Our good buddy Eliot (Bubba) also had the nerve to move to Florida last year with his significant other. Some folks just have no sense of priorities. The rest of us are still trying to keep the game alive, but some weeks are tougher than others.

I am reminded of a memory from my childhood of my dad’s weekly Monday bridge games with his friends. I liked it when they came to our house after dinner, for their two-table game, about once every two months. My siblings and I got first dibs on the snacks, and my dad let

me deal out the cards, until one week where I sneakily Jeff London gave one player 13 spades. The guys were ready to call Ripley’s Believe It or Not until I fessed up. But my memory shifts to a later time, recalling how my dad’s weekly game was forced to change as his guys got older. First, they moved to playing during the day, since driving at night wasn’t so easy. Then, they started having more difficulty finding enough guys for a game, due to deaths and illnesses. Eventually the game just stopped. At the time, I saw how disappointed my dad was, but, of course, I didn’t foresee anything similar ever happening to me. So now, of course, what goes around has come around. When I look around the poker table, I see an older version of our younger selves. We have more difficulty seeing the cards as they are flipped up on the table. And we all make a few more mistakes in playing the hands we are dealt, which we laugh about with a shared sense of the inevitable. On a recent plane trip to visit family in St. Louis, I was talking to the fellow next to