Cost, benefits

Editorial

While the community scrambles to find funding for a much-needed demographic study, the issue is not whether we can afford to do it, but whether we can afford not to.

The last survey was conducted 18 years ago, when the Jewish population was far smaller, more cohesive and less geographically dispersed. Today, we number in the neighborhood of 80,000-100,000 Jews, scattered throughout the Phoenix metropolitan area with infinitely greater, and more diverse, interests and needs. How to assess those interests and needs - and how to meet them - is the challenge facing not only the Jewish federation, which is spearheading the project, but every synagogue, communal agency and organization committed to creating meaningful Jewish life.

A $25,000 grant being requested from the Jewish Community Foundation to help defray the projected $100,000-$150,000 cost may motivate others to lend their support. Surely the study readily fulfills the foundation grant criterion that it be a "mechanism for change."

Beginning with the foundation, everyone should support the project. Because everyone will benefit.

Easter surprise
Don't be surprised Easter morning to see a menorah transformed, miraculously, into a cross.

Open the pages of The Arizona Republic or the Tribune Newspapers to the funnies page and take a look at this week's B.C. comic. The strip by Johnny Hart, entitled "The Seven Last 'Words' of Jesus," depicts classic "replacement" theology - its eight squares tracing the gradual decline of Judaism and the ultimate triumph of Christianity.

Editors at both news organizations say comics are preprinted by outside vendors without editorial input, and pulling the offending comic would mean pulling the entire section, a business decision neither paper would make.

Instead, B.C. will run this week, reportedly preceded by news stories and/or editorials dealing with the sensitivity of its contents.

The comics' readers will be left to digest Hart's message on their own.

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