Detroit Jewish News

April 06, 2017

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Health. A fresh start. A good education. The next great business idea. Hebrew Free Loan gives interest- free loans to members of our community for a variety of personal and small business needs. HFL loans are funded entirely through community donations which continually recycle to others, generating many times the original value to help maintain the lives of local Jews. Become an HFL Donor. Click. Call. Give Now. www.hfldetroit.org 248.723.8184 Hebrew Free Loan Detroit 6735 Telegraph Road, Suite 300 • Bloomfield Hills, MI 48301 @HFLDetroit My Story My Story Years ago, Bashy Cagan moved to Michigan as a recently-married woman. An old Hebrew Free Loan program, Neighborhood Project, helped her and her husband, who were expecting their first child, purchase a home in Southfield. Fast forward several years and five children later, and Bashy returned to HFL for help with attorney fees when going through a divorce. The loan was made through HFL's Building My Tomorrow fund , which lends to women on their own, and was established with grants from the Jewish Women's Foundation. "I'm now a single mom with five kids, and it's fine," Bashy said. "When you go through a life-changing event like a divorce, you have to find a way forward on your own. I'm lucky that my Ex and I remain friendly, and we are partners in raising our kids, which gives them stability. But at that time, I needed s ome stability as well. I had to re-learn how to rely on myself. "The people at HFL were so nice, so compassionate and caring, they did everything in their power to set me at ease, and what they gave me was the knowledge that I could stand on my own two feet and do this. Because it was an interest-free community loan, not a bank, I knew I could repay it in a reasonable way, and it was quite empowering. This group of empathetic people helped me take back my independence, and things started falling into place. Everyone is happy and healthy, and Hebrew Free Loan helped make that happen." T ired of all the crazy news mak- ing headlines today? You haven't seen nothin' yet! Let's jump ahead 1,000 years to see what 3017 has in store for us in a fea- ture I call Tomorrow's News Today. It took centuries of nego- tiating, but Democrats and Republicans have finally agreed to a bipartisan healthcare bill that will pro- vide inexpensive coverage to everyone — except if you're a politician; which under the new law is considered a pre- existing condition. And in an ironic turn of events, on the same day the new healthcare plan was unveiled, the Federal Drug Administration rocked the world of medicine by announcing the immedi- ate availability of a cheap, super drug that researchers say will prevent and cure every known medical malady, thus eliminating the need for health- care. Go figure! Meanwhile, the FDA added that the new super drug could conceivably allow people to live forever. Upon hear- ing that news, lawmakers amended the one-day-old 3017 healthcare pro- gram to allow children to stay on their parent's insurance until they turn 826. In other government news … The Federal Communications Commission has issued a new regulation limit- ing news shows to a maximum of 30 experts talking over each other during a one-hour program. The new rule also prohibits consecutive programs from talking about the same topics ad nauseam. Meanwhile, grocery shoppers have reason to celebrate. The National Grocers Association has announced that by 3018 it will be mandatory for all super- market produce departments to offer plastic bags that take less than two minutes to open. Back to political news … After being cryogenically frozen for the last 900-plus years, Hillary Clinton was thawed out today, where upon she announced she'll run for president in 3020. Her opponents are already mak- ing Hillary's age an issue, claiming the former senator will be 1,069 years old in October. But Clinton's camp maintains that a defrosted Hillary is "technically" the same age as the day she was frozen. Asked if her husband, Bill, will also be thawed, Mrs. Clinton reminded the press that "Bill was not cryogeni- cally frozen but, quite the contrary, is actually residing in a much hotter location." By coincidence, a cryogenically frozen Prince Charles has also been thawed. However, upon awakening, "the man who would be king" had another "meltdown" of sorts when he learned that his mother, Queen Elizabeth, was still alive and well and on the throne; which is a Guinness World Record in two categories. In consumer news … There were celebrations across the country today as people who have lost one shoe on a highway over the past 50 years learned they will be reunited with their miss- ing shoe. Kudos to the world's shoe manufacturers who began implanting identification chips in their footwear over a half century ago, but only today activated the technology. Gym shoe, work boot and flip-flop wearers from coast to coast have been seen hopping up and down on one foot in celebration. Though the big news was little consolation for those millions of Americans who are still missing one sock. Finally, in the biggest space news since the moon landing, NASA has confirmed the arrival of our first visi- tors from outer space. The flying sau- cer, which landed in Roswell, N.M., was greeted by thousands of nerdy UFO researchers screaming "I told you so!" The interplanetary guests announced their primary mission was to bring Donald Trump back to his home planet. (Hey, don't forget I did a Hillary joke earlier.) That's Tomorrow's News Today. And remember, you can't spell "Alien" with- out "Al." • Alan Muskovitz is a writer, voice-over/acting tal- ent, speaker, emcee and a regular guest host on the Mitch Albom Show on WJR AM 760. Visit his website at laughwithbigal.com and "Like" Al on Facebook. April 6 • 2017 5 jn continued on page 8 Alan Muskovitz for openers Tomorrow's News letters Coming Out Of Egypt Amidst the sight of the filled-to-the- rim Elijah's cup, a Passover Seder tra- dition, the sweet sound of the young- est child asking the Four Questions, and the singing of the beautiful and spirited hymns of the Hagaddah, another seder must be remembered, a seder that never had a chance. It was on seder night of 1943 that the Warsaw Ghetto uprising began, to become known as the ultimate in human struggle for freedom and dig- nity. But, unlike the Hebrews, the for- mer slaves under the great leadership of Moses, the heroic fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising could not hope for freedom, not even for mere survival. For them, the redemption of Jewish honor, so outrageously tram- pled by the Nazis, was good enough reason to fight to the bitter end, as they surely did. Among the readings we do during the seder, the festive celebratory meal during the first two nights of the eight days of the Passover celebration, there is a powerful statement we all say in unison: In every generation, a person should regard himself as if he person- ally came out of Egypt. I regard this declaration as the most important among the various Hagaddah readings. It tells us that we do not only celebrate the exodus from slavery to freedom of our ancestors, the Hebrew slaves. It tells us that we should celebrate the redemption from all the other Egypts each one of us has suffered. Indeed, the festival of Passover is not only the Jews the world over cel- ebrating the exodus from Egypt so many years ago. It is a celebration for all us, no matter what our religion or ethnicity. We all have our own Egypts, now more than ever, to celebrate our exodus from. Rachel Kapen West Bloomfield Kudos On Friedman Appointment With the approval by the Senate of David Freidman as ambassador to Israel, the moral stature of Sen. Robert Menendez became clear once more. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a staunch Zionist, said "The ultimate views

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