Month: November 2010

Donor Recognition Gone Wild

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date November 9, 2010

There is usually some form of recognition when donors give a significant amount to an organization. The plaques that decorate the hallways of hospitals, symphony halls, universities, and museums is nothing new. In the Jewish community, there seems to be a longstanding joke about the large amount of plaques dotting the walls to recognize donors.

Locals in the Detroit Jewish community often quip that they wouldn’t be surprised if a certain large synagogue in town put donor plaques above the urinals in the Men’s room. And in rabbinical school, I recall a discussion about the irony that in a faith tradition that recognizes the Maimonidean philosophy that the ultimate form of charity is to give anonymously, there are so many ways we recognize donors by name. Of course, the names on synagogue sanctuaries, on Jewish Community Center gyms, on Torah covers and in the inside cover of prayer books, and on the walls of day schools are all lasting legacies to the donors or tributes to the memory of their loved ones. I’ve long believed that donors, both those who create large endowment funds and those who give on a smaller scale, deserve recognition for their generosity and benevolence.

But as this satirical video demonstrates, sometimes donor recognition does go too far. This funny video from Israel was sent by Dan Brown of eJewishPhilanthropy, who is currently in New Orleans at the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly amidst thousands of Jewish donors and those working to secure their charitable gifts. Even if you don’t speak Hebrew, you will understand the premise of the video.

Detroit Football Jewish Michigan Sports

Is Football for Jewish Kids?

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date November 8, 2010

I often joke that the point of a bar mitzvah is to celebrate the Jewish boy’s realization that he’ll have a much better chance of owning the professional team than playing on it. It’s tongue-in-cheek humor, but the fact remains that there are many more Jewish professional sports team owners than Jewish players.

In Detroit, it might be more accurate to say that Jewish boys who want to play pro sports grow up to be sports reporters on the evening news. Growing up in Detroit, the sports directors of all three major local networks were Jewish men. Eli Zaret on CBS-2, Bernie Smilovitz on NBC-4 and Don Shane on ABC-7.

Eli Zaret is now a reporter for the Detroit Pistons. Bernie left Detroit for New York in the mid-90s only to return two years later. And Don Shane came to Channel 7 in 1989 and never left. I was thinking about the stereotype that Jewish boys don’t play football last night as I watched the late-night news broadcast on Detroit’s ABC affiliate as they replayed Don getting tackled on the sidelines by University of Michigan quarterback Tate Forcier in yesterday’s U-M win.

I got to know Don pretty well in the early 90’s when I was a babysitter for his two children. Don lives across the street from my uncle and aunt, and in high school I would play basketball with the guys in that neighborhood at my Uncle’s house, including Don, on Saturday afternoons. Later that night, I would babysit for my cousins or Don’s kids. I loved talking sports with Don because he not only knew everything there was to know about local Detroit sports, he was often the first to know.

In all fairness to Don, the hard hit he took on the sidelines yesterday as he prepared his post-game report had nothing to do with whether Jewish boys play football or not. He was standing innocently on the sidelines when Forcier was forced out of bounds and was pushed directly into him. He suffered a split lip that required four stitches and a pretty nasty headache (reports confirmed it wasn’t a concussion). Impressively, Don managed to conduct his post-game interviews and even shared some laughs with Forcier.

So, even for those Jewish boys who make the conscious decision to become a sportscaster instead of a football player, remember that sometimes reporting from the sidelines can be a full-contact sport too.

And while I never played high school football (although as a 6-foot-3, 220 pound guy I was desperately recruited each year by the coach), I am impressed by this all-Jewish San Diego high school football team making headlines. The JTA article about this Jewish day school’s football team includes this great question: “Was the stereotype of the Jewish mom or dad, too fearful of their child getting hurt to let them go out for football, turning end over end on its way out of bounds?”

Maybe a few of these Jewish kids will forgo a career as the team owner or sports broadcaster and actually wear a uniform for a pro team some day.

Detroit Education Jewish JTS

The Adin Steinsaltz Talmud and the Global Day of Learning

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date November 4, 2010

In 1994, following the death of my maternal grandfather, David Gudes, I received his entire library of Jewish books. In his collection were all of the volumes of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz’s translation of the Talmud into English that had been published thus far. These beautiful light-yellow volumes prompted me to start learning Talmud as a college freshman. At first, I would sit in my dorm room by myself and try to make sense of the Aramaic with the assistance of Steinsaltz’s translation. Then I began learning with my friend and first chavruta (study partner) PJ Cherrin in the library of the campus Hillel. Those Steinsaltz volumes proved helpful as I began to navigate my way through the “Sea of Talmud.”

In rabbinical school, at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Steinsaltz English edition was banned from use because it was considered to be a crutch for those who were too challenged by the puzzling Aramaic of the text. In other, more traditional, circles Steinsaltz was shunned because he altered some of the long-standing conventions when he placed his commentary in the space traditionally reserved for the commentator Rashi and changed the traditional layout and pagination in his translation.

While I wasn’t allowed to use my grandfather’s Talmud set with Steinsaltz’s English translation, I often referred to the Steinsaltz translation of the Talmud into understandable Hebrew. The addition of vowels, punctuation and a contemporary commentary made Talmud study much more accessible for me and for many thousands of other students.

Steinsaltz’s undertaking is coming to an end with his publication of the final remaining Tractate (Chulin) into the more manageable Hebrew (his English translation ended after only a dozen or so volumes were complete). In celebration of this milestone, Rabbi Steinsaltz has declared this Sunday to be a “Global Day of Jewish Learning” to raise awareness about the joys and spiritual reward of Jewish study. Through Rabbi Steinsaltz’s organization, The Aleph Society, and with the leadership of Detroit native Rachel Weiss Berger, a website has been set up for individuals to locate resources for self learning.

I am excited to be one of the local teachers who will lead a session on the “Global Day of Jewish Learning.” My session will explore the theme of water as it runs through Jewish texts and tradition. Water is an appropriate subject for a day when the world celebrates the work of a man who helped the Jewish people navigate through the Sea of Talmud.

Baseball Obituary

Sparky Anderson

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date November 4, 2010

Growing up as a Tigers fan in Detroit, Sparky Anderson was the quintessential baseball manager. With his shocking white hair and humble leadership, Sparky was a Moses-like figure to me. While I’m not the most superstitious person, I have always taken a little hop over the white chalked foul lines on baseball diamonds because that’s what I saw Sparky do back when I was in grade school.

Being at the fifth and final game of the 1984 World Series at Tiger Stadium when I was in third grade is etched in my memory and I have Sparky to thank for leading his team there. May the memory of George “Sparky” Anderson forever be a blessing for his family, for Major League Baseball, and for the people of Detroit.

‎“People who live in the past generally are afraid to compete in the present. I’ve got my faults, but living in the past is not one of them. There’s no future in it.”

– Detroit Tigers Manager Sparky Anderson