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Essays and viewpoints
PURELY COMMENTARY
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In my Oct. 14 column, I bemoaned the fact that our radio and television airwaves have become saturated with nonstop, nailson-a-chalkboard-annoying commercials promoting sportsbook betting. Thank you to the JN readers who reached out to me since then to share their own disdain. I knew I wasn’t alone. I did want to add a little addendum to my diatribe that I didn’t include in my previous column simply because I had reached my word count. So please indulge me for a few extra words on the subject. (I’ll make it up to you with some lighter fare later in the column.)
Sportsbook betting is here, it’s legal and I’m not campaigning to have that form of entertainment “canceled.” But I think it’s worrisome that at the core of most, if not all, of the commercials are the ceaseless bombardment of incentives to entice you into gambling.
Sportsbook commercials woo you with deals like “riskfree” betting, deals that will “match your bet” or the lure of “bonus money,” just to name a few. If you weren’t a gambler before, you just might be seduced into being one or, regrettably, feed an already existing addiction. The promotional messages are always followed by a rapidfire disclaimer at the end that includes an 800 number to call if you’re having a gambling problem.
Admittedly, sportsbook commercials aren’t really doing anything different than, let’s say pizza commercials, that offer two pizzas for the price of one. One is offering you the chance to line your pockets; the other is offering to line your arteries. Both whet your appetite, but the last time I checked, pizza commercials that are “feeding” my deep-dish addiction don’t offer an 800-help number.
At any rate, I just wanted to get that additional issue about sportsbooks off my chest. At the end of the day, whether it’s gambling or eating, it really is all about self-control anyway, right? I mean that’s why I’ve never been asked to lead a Weight Watchers meeting.
OK, I’m going to do an about face and share what are currently my absolute favorite commercials airing right now. Hands down it’s the entertaining television ads produced by Progressive Insurance.
You’re probably most familiar with the commercials that feature “Flo” and her team of Progressive Insurance representatives dressed in their white company aprons bestowing the virtues of Progressive’s coverage in a variety of humorous situations. I love those. But it’s the Progressive spots that feature life coach “Dr. Rick” that leave me laughing out loud.
Dr. Rick is a so-called pioneer in “parentamorphosis” who helps sufferers to “un-become” their parents. He takes his “patients” on group outings to perform exposure therapy to help change their behaviors learned by years of witnessing their own aging parents’ awkward and humiliating habits.
The patients of Dr. Rick I most relate to are those folks who have the uncontrollable urge to communicate with complete strangers in public places. Examples include a woman in an airport who witnesses someone running late for a flight and can’t help but say out loud: “Oh no, someone should’ve left home earlier.” Or the man in a hardware store who offers unsolicited advice to another customer looking at the same display. “If you’re looking for a grout brush this is...,” he says, before Dr. Rick intervenes and stops him from talking up the great virtues of a particular grout brush he’s holding.
I ... am ... that... grout brush guy. What can I say? I’m a kibitzer to a fault and, OK, I’m starved for attention. I’ve passed by folks walking teeny-weenie little dogs and said: “Lookout, killer dog on the loose!” which is usually followed by sympathy chuckles from the dog owners. I’ll turn to a parent holding a baby in line at Starbucks and say: “I’ll bet your baby can’t start their day
Alan without that first cup of coffee,” Muskovitz again followed by a respectful “ha, ha, ha.” Yeah, I know — pathetic. But it was a similar “talking to a complete stranger” incident at a Starbucks just last week that may make me think twice, at least temporarily, from entering these awkward, uninvited exchanges. I had joined a group of people waiting for their coffee orders to be finished. Among them was a mom with her cute son, maybe all of 5 years old, who was nattily dressed in a two-piece suit and shiny black dress shoes. And my impulsive self said: “Looks like your little businessman is getting ready for a long day at work.” The mom smiled and said: “Yes, thank you, he looks sharp, but unfortunately. we’re going to a funeral.” In Starbucks lingo, I felt like a Grande Moron. I have an appointment with Dr. Rick next week. I hope he accepts Medicare.
PROGRESSIVE.COM
Alan Muskovitz is a writer, voiceover/acting talent, speaker, and emcee. Visit his website at laughwithbigal.com,“Like” Al on Facebook and reach him at amuskovitz@thejewishnews.com.
essay Grandmother’s Warning
When can I come on one of your tours at the Holocaust Center?” my then 10-year-old granddaughter Annie asked after she heard me talk to her older brother about what I do as a docent there. “I hope soon,” I said, evading a direct answer because Annie is the girl who cries at movies even when there’s a happy ending. I didn’t think she was emotionally ready to hear the story of the Holocaust.
Annie reminds me of a young visitor, a girl, who once asked me where Anne Frank is buried. I was lost for words then, too. I knew the likely answer, but, as a mother and grandmother, I hesitated. “I’m not quite sure,” I hedged, as I looked at the freckle-faced questioner. Wearing a Girl Scout uniform with double rows of badges, she couldn’t have been older than 11. She looked back and smiled. Should I have spared her from the reality? I am still not sure of the correct answer.
Before COVID-19 put a stop to in-person visits at the Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman Family Campus in Farmington Hills, Michigan, my docent colleagues and I were giving several tours a week to groups of school kids, college students, and adults of all ages and backgrounds.
Becoming a docent was never part of my plan. Yet, I realize now that the seeds were planted early by my grandmother, Esther Civins Wittenberg, who was born in Lithuania. One day, while watching the news on our new black-and-white RCA television, my grandmother, whom I called Nanny, said to me, “Don’t ever think it can’t happen here.” I was 8, too young to fully grasp what she meant, but I had a child’s instinct to understand that her words were something I should remember.
Nanny was born in 1886, just as a fresh wave of pogroms tore through Lithuania’s Jewish communities. As a young woman, she and her husband sought religious freedom in America. While she loved her adopted country, she never forgot where she came from, and she never failed to remind me that the liberties she found in the United States were not to be taken for granted.
In many respects her
America was like my America — imperfect but buoyed by its underlying ideals of freedom, equality and dignity. Esther Civins Wittenberg believed in the promise of those ideals. After all, in the midst of the Great Depression, one son made it through medical school. Another became a successful politician in the Midwest when Linda Laderman Jews were rarely elected to public office. And, in 1935, her youngest, my mother, married an attorney — arguably not an achievement in 2021 when half of all law students are women, but that was 1935. By the time World War I began, Nanny was a young mother with three children under the age of 10. She and her husband had established a successful produce business in Ohio. But with the onset
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of the Depression, they lost everything. Still, they started over. Then came the Second World War and the reality that money they had sent to help get their endangered family out of Eastern Europe either arrived too late, or not at all.
CONFRONTATIONS WITH ANTISEMITISM
While growing up in Toledo, Ohio, and throughout my life, I would recall my grandmother’s words whenever I was confronted with antisemitism. Don’t think it can’t happen here. Sometimes I would feel compelled to act, but other times I would look away.
Toledo was not the county seat of tolerance. Graves were routinely vandalized in the area’s two Jewish cemeteries. I remember how my stomach ached when I was sent home from Hebrew school because swastikas and other Nazi slogans had been spray-painted on our synagogue’s windows. As an 11-year-old, I was confused. What had we done? Was this the antisemitism that had fueled my grandmother’s veiled warning?
When I was 30 years old, shopping for my son, I discovered a costume kiosk at my local mall selling Hitler masks for Halloween. It was 1983. “We have to do something. I am going to call every media outlet in town to see this,” I yelled over the phone to the city’s sole Orthodox rabbi. “If we go to the media, it will only draw more attention to the issue,” he answered. “How had our silence ever served us?” I asked him.
I vehemently objected. They removed them.
My Judaism provoked other incidents of prejudice and reaction. There was the time a college friend told me I wasn’t welcome to join their spring break trip. It wasn’t her choice, she said. One of the mothers of another girl forbade her daughter to go if I went. I didn’t want to spoil it for the rest of the group. I stayed home.
In 1991, on an assignment to interview tennis great Billie Jean King, I mentioned that the club where we were about to attend a sponsor’s lunch had historically barred Jews from joining. I am still ashamed that I backed down when King indicated that if that was the case she would leave. “I don’t think they do that anymore,” I murmured. My moral compass was broken.
But it was when my then-teenage son, the only child of a Jewish mother and Catholic father, was taunted by members of his hockey team for his heritage that I felt most betrayed. Who were these kids I’d adored? Until then I saw them as my son’s talented teammates. Now I saw them as anti-Semites. How could they use the ethnic slur, kike? Did they even know what it meant? I should not have been happy when my son jumped on top of the kid who started the war of words, but I was.
Still, weren’t we lucky? A twoday suspension for fighting on the hockey bus wasn’t a death sentence for my child. Unlike our European Jewish brothers and sisters who lost their lives because they were Jews, we didn’t have to run. We wouldn’t be murdered. We were born here. We were Americans!
My grandmother’s warning tucked away, I told myself that these kids just didn’t understand how much pain their words created.
THE HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL CENTER
When I moved to the Detroit area in the spring of 2011, I was excited to find a robust Jewish community that included Jewish adult education, more than a dozen synagogues and, most importantly to me, the Holocaust Memorial Center.
On my first visit to the Center, I sat alone on the long granite bench in front of the black stone wall inscribed with the names of the Nazi-occupied European countries, and the number of Jews murdered from each of those nations. I walked closer and stood where I could see my reflection in the smooth stone. I set my gaze on Lithuania, my grandmother’s birthplace, where 130,000 Jews were murdered. I fixated on the what ifs. What if, like the 6 million victims of the Shoah, she couldn’t have left?
It was as if Nanny was reminding me to take nothing for granted.
I knew that I wanted to be a part of the Holocaust Memorial Center where I would be able to do more than randomly holler at someone or something. I wanted to learn to tell the story of the Holocaust in the best way I could.
A new docent class was beginning in a few months. Yet, after going on a few public tours, I doubted my ability to share the story of the Holocaust with visitors. I was not a Holocaust scholar or a survivor. I didn’t consider myself a storyteller like the other docents I’d heard. Oh, they were so good. Suddenly I was just that scared Hebrew-school kid whose stomach hurt. But this time I knew why, and that I had to do something about it.
I was accepted into the next docent class and paired with a mentor, Donna Sklar, of blessed memory. She taught me how to tell a story. Halfway through the training I told her that I was sure I could not do this. She smiled and told me that my lack of confidence was “right on time.” Did I want the phone number of her other successful mentees who had also panicked halfway through? she asked, reminding me that her docentsin-training always passed.
It wasn’t an option to ruin Donna’s perfect record.
Over the next few years, I spoke to groups about vigilance, the fragility of democracy, and why, when we talk about the horrors of the Holocaust, we proclaim, “Never again.” More often than not, I felt compelled to explain that “never again” has become an aspirational phrase in a world where genocide based on race, religion and ethnicity continue to exist.
This past winter, as the U.S. Capitol was breached by those who didn’t believe in the veracity of the election results, I again thought of Nanny’s warning. It is happening here with a fueled ferocity that I thought I’d never see. I’m tempted to throw my hands up and say there’s nothing I can do. But when I think of the faces of the people whom I’ve met on my tours, I know that’s not an option. Because if I don’t want it to happen here, I have to do everything I can to try and make a difference.
Linda Laderman is a Detroit-area writer and a volunteer docent at the Holocaust Memorial Center where she leads adult groups on discussion tours. This was originally published in Jewish Historical Society of Michigan’s journal, Michigan Jewish History, Vol. 61 (Summer 2021) and is being reprinted with the permission of JHSM.
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THE JCC BOOK FAIR
I grew up in Northwest Detroit and also have friends who remember the “old neighborhood” whose high school students went to Central High. Because of this, I have always enjoyed reading Mike Smith’s column, as I enjoyed reading about the many good times my friends and I enjoyed growing up in the 1950s in these areas in Detroit.
However, I did have an issue with his last column about the history of the Jewish Book Fair (Nov. 4, page 54). First, let me thank and commend all the many volunteers who helped make the Jewish Book Fair such an important event. It was what was not included in the article that bothered me.
The Jewish Book Fair was a pretty small event for quite a while. However, under the hard work and guidance of Adele Silver, it became the best Jewish Book Fair in the United States. Adele was able to bring many well-known Jewish authors to speak at the book fair without them receiving large payments for doing such. There were also new authors who were brought to our attention. Sometimes, it was difficult to choose which lecture to attend. It was an oversight not to acknowledge her contribution to the book fair.
— Judith Ancell Farmington Hills THANK GOD FOR ISRAEL DAY
On Sunday, Nov. 7, I had the privilege of attending the “Thank God for Israel Day” via Zoom.
This annual event, sponsored by the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, is held to educate and bring the Christian and Jewish communities together in steadfast support for the State of Israel.
Sixty enthusiastic proIsrael supporters attended the event.
We listened with great interest to our speaker, Daniel Pollak, Zionist Organization of America director of government relations and head of its Washington office, discuss the embassy/consulate issue; the political turmoil in Israel; the younger generation’s loss of interest; and the hatred and extremism driving a wedge in the U.S./Israel relationship.
Pollak’s command of the subject and Q&A responses were smart, educational and important.
We came away from this experience encouraged by our Zionist Christian friends who expressed their wholehearted commitment to the survival of the State of Israel and its people.
As Psalm 133:1 states: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.”
Congratulations and thank you to Rev. Tim Munger, the Friends of Israel Great Lakes executive director, for his tireless efforts with this yearly program and his organization’s dedication to Israel, and to ZOA”s Dan Pollack for his clarity and expertise.
— Ed Kohl West Bloomfield
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PURELY COMMENTARY
essay
Encouraging Jews to Connect to Their Judaism
The Pew Research Center study on “Jewish Americans in 2020,” which was released in May this year, shows that Reform and Conservative Judaism is plummeting, while the number of “unaffiliated” is increasing. The same goes for the Orthodox, the vast majority of whom don’t intermarry and have many more children than their non-Orthodox counterparts.
According to the poll, six in 10 Jews intermarried during the last 10 years, as compared with 45 percent in the previous decade. In contrast, only 18 percent of Jews who married before 1980 have a non-Jewish spouse.
These statistics, which reflect a rapidly changing Jewish world, should be cause for pause, contemplation and action.
Outreach efforts to stem assimilation have not made significant inroads, however. Clearly, then, the current strategy to bring Jews back to Judaism needs altering. The key may lie in an ancient text — Chapter 3/12 of Pirkei Avot/“Ethics of the Fathers”— in which Rabbi Chanina Ben Dosa says: “Those whose wisdom exceeds their deeds, their wisdom will not endure; but those whose deeds exceed their wisdom, their wisdom will endure.”
In other words, the focus needs to be on persuading Jews to perform mitzvot, God’s commandments, many of which will have an impact on the person observing even a few of them. Lighting candles before sunset on the eve of Shabbat, for example — even if one is not yet keeping the Sabbath — is a beautiful step
in the right direction.
And it only takes a couple of minutes. Former famed Israeli actor Uri Zohar started with this mitzvah, eventually leading to his switching of careers and becoming a renowned rabbi. Literally and figuratively, the impact of the deed on the actor — the one who acts — cannot be overstated.
Unfortunately, rather than getting Jews excited about mitzvot, some outreach organizations emphasize the wisdom of Judaism. But without the mitzvot, the wisdom learned doesn’t endure.
Others teach young Jews to serve as an example to others. Yet, this was the approach that Noah took during his 120 years of building the ark, and not a single person followed his example.
Instead, it was Abraham and Sarah who became the first Jews, hosting meals for strangers and speaking to them about God. The Torah says that they taught those
with them to act with “charity and justice.” Good behavior inspired by wisdom, in turn, created inspiration among their followers.
Farley Weiss JNS.org
WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THE ORTHODOX
Furthermore, Jews need to be encouraged to experience Judaism, not simply by visiting Israel or learning about the Holocaust. Much can be learned from the Orthodox about what works and what doesn’t.
Orthodox Jews, for instance, take a break from using cell phones and responding to emails one day a week. It’s a great process of rejuvenation. Shabbat meals, too, are uplifting, as they provide uninterrupted time for parents and kids to speak and be together, without everyone staring at a screen. It’s an essential component of family bonding.
In addition, because they don’t drive on Shabbat, Orthodox Jews tend to live within walking distance from one another and form a community.
It’s common to invite guests or receive invitations to others’ homes for Shabbat meals. Many lifelong friendships and even marriages have come about from such gatherings.
When I told a friend who used to drive to our synagogue that though we enjoyed seeing him on Shabbat morning, it would be better to see him all day, and suggested that he move to the neighborhood, I was glad that he took my advice. He later said that it was the best decision he’d ever made. If I hadn’t suggested it, it might not have occurred to him.
A similar thing happened when I witnessed a friend in his 70s laying tefillin (putting on phylacteries) at his grandson’s bar mitzvah for the first time since his own bar mitzvah.
“Abe, laying tefillin takes five minutes,” I said to him. “Could you do this every day?”
He responded with great enthusiasm and engaged in the practice from that day forward. Had I not given him the idea, it’s not likely that he would have done it.
The above two encounters illustrate the way in which Jews can bond.
Another bonding custom among the Orthodox is the shivah, the seven-day mourning period after a funeral. Prayer services are conducted in the home of the bereaved family (except on Shabbat, when even the mourners attend them at synagogue). Meals are regularly provided to the mourners all week as well.
The shivah, when the bereaved stay at home for a full week and receive guests with whom they reminisce about their lost loved one, has been lauded by many as the best way to work through grief.
Happy occasions, too, are enriching. When a baby is born, for example, many Orthodox communities provide one or even two weeks of dinners to the parents. As a father of six, I can attest that these meals were a huge help. Such gestures are a boon to all involved, not just the grateful recipients.
Still, many Orthodox outreach programs stress teaching and learning, without encouraging participants to embrace greater Jewish observance. When I asked teachers of the unaffiliated why they didn’t request of male students that they wear kippot while studying, one answered that he doesn’t know how to push mitzvot the way I do. Somehow, though, he knew how to push for payment from his adult attendees.
Little gestures, such as that which I suggested to the teacher and those I extended to friends, can be magnified. The internet provides access to assimilated Jews who could just as easily get excited about their Judaism.
Birthright and other groups that bring young Jews to see the miracle of Israel can have a big impact, but follow-ups are needed to ensure that the effects are long-lasting. One such idea is that, upon their return, Birthright participants be invited by Orthodox families to Shabbat meals to observe the beauty of Judaism.
The Pew study found that only 26 percent of American Jews believe in God, compared to more than half of all Americans. The complexities of the world and the amazing realization of the prophecies of the Jewish people’s return to Israel — a military, economic and technological power, with a tenfold population increase in 73 years — should be among the concepts employed to change the figures among Diaspora Jews.
I am among those fortunate Jews able to lead a religious Jewish life. Sadly, only a small minority of Jews have had such a benefit, and so many more would want to enjoy it if they could just taste the experience.
We need to be like Abraham and Sarah and bring our fellow Jews into our homes and let them know of the beauty of the religion into which they were born — and, in too many cases, have never ever learned about. Time is running out, and we need to act now.
Farley Weiss, former president of the National Council of Young Israel, is an intellectual property attorney for the law firm of Weiss & Moy. The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily representative of NCYI.
Welcome Home,
Danny Fenster!
Journalist Danny Fenster was released from prison Monday morning. See story on page 23.
The Detroit Jewish News joins the community in joyful relief that Huntington Woods native Danny Fenster is coming back to Metro Detroit after having spent 176 days
in a gruesome prison in Myanmar (Burma).
Follow the news at https://bringdannyhome.com
and
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essay
Schools Are Using Anti-Critical Race Theory Laws to Ban Children’s Literature
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In the battle over the false idea that Critical Race Theory is “infiltrating” our K-12 schools — and the belief that it must be stopped — the new frontier is children’s literature.
Critical race theory (CRT), taught primarily in higher education and law school, is the study of how laws and policies can drive and perpetuate racial disparities and inequities. Even though Critical Race Theory is not taught in K-12 schools, it is being attacked and subsequently banned by many state legislatures to score political points, using misinformation and fear to drive a wedge between people.
The intention of these state measures is to limit and prevent teachers from discussing sexism, racism and other forms of systemic oppression. It is troublesome because teachers should be encouraged to teach about those important concepts — through social studies, literature and other parts of the curriculum.
BOOK CHALLENGES AND BANS
Challenging and banning children’s books is unfortunately nothing new. The American Library Association has a website focused on book banning and there’s an annual Banned Books Week that celebrates the freedom to read. This current banning trend is particularly concerning because it is targeted and specific. Parents, schools and districts are using the new state bans against CRT to justify banning books that help students understand the impact of racism and systemic discrimination and oppression. And there is a ripple effect even in states without these laws.
A group of parents in Tennessee are trying to get dozens of books removed. The list includes a book written by and about Ruby Bridges, the first Black child to attend and desegregate an all-white elementary school in 1960 in New Orleans.
Tennessee’s state law limits how teachers can discuss racism and sexism and these Williamson County parents objected to the teaching of the picture book, Ruby Bridges Goes to School. The parents complained about the book because it mentions a “large crowd of angry white people who didn’t want Black children in a white school” and the book doesn’t offer redemption at the end.
One ripple effect of the CRT debate was exemplified in Plainedge, New York — where there is no anti-CRT law. A group of parents objected to Front Desk being read aloud in their child’s classroom, stating it was a “CRT-recommended novel” and demanded it not be read. Front Desk is an awardwinning middle grade chapter book written by New York Times bestselling author Kelly Yang. Front Desk is about a young girl who staffs the front desk of the motel where her parents live and work.
The book shares immigration narratives, reflecting on the harm of poverty and bias and the triumph of them working together to overcome it. After some pushback, the book was not banned — at least temporarily — but parents were given the option to “opt out” of reading it, and several chose to opt out.
In the Houston suburb of Katy, Texas, an online parent petition led to the cancellation of an appearance by Newbery award-winning author and illustrator Jerry Craft. Parents alleged that Craft’s books promote “critical race theory.” His graphic novels, New Kid and Class Act, tell the story of two Black young people navigating their worlds at home and in their private school where they are among the few students of color. The books explore issues of identity, diversity and belonging. In addition to canceling Craft’s presentation, his books were “temporarily” removed and are currently under review.
In Southlake, Texas, a school district already so embroiled in controversies about race and racism that there is an NBC News podcast series about it, has their own book-banning controversy. The Carroll Independent School District in Southlake recently announced new districtwide rules about books that teachers can use in their classrooms.
The district provides training and instructions for removing books that don’t meet the new standards. As teachers began taking stock of their classroom libraries, one teacher said she would have to remove Separate is Never Equal from her collection. This is a picture book based on the real-life story of Sylvia Mendez and her family, who fought to end school segregation in California in the 1940s.
It is also disturbing to
