OUR COMMUNITY
Friends for 75 Years E
ach week, Gerald Freedman, Harold Kulish, David Lippitt and Robert Weitz sit around a table of their chosen dining spot around Metro Detroit to bicker, banter, finish and cut off each other’s sentences. It’s the kind of conversation you can only have with friends you’ve had for more than 75 years. The four men all turn 90 this year. Among the group is a wealth of information and knowledge of history about Detroit’s bygone Jewish and other ethnic neighborhoods. They recently met at the offices of the JN to discuss their friendship and the changes they’ve seen in Detroit in the decades they’ve lived here and why they wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. Each Saturday for the last 10 years or so, the friends pick a restaurant in Metro Detroit for breakfast or lunch. They had to
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APRIL 7 • 2022
Four friends turning 90 still get together weekly. STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER TOP: Robert Weitz, David Lippitt, Harold Kulish (seated) and Gerald Freedman enjoy each other’s company, as they have for over 75 years, at Sahara Restaurant in Oak Park.
take a break over the pandemic and even tried Zoom meetups, which just left them frustrated, they all agreed. Now that cases have eased, they are back on the dining circuit, at first finding places with outdoor seating, now easing their way back into indoor dining. Their tastes run the gamut from diners to delis, and they have a special affection for Middle Eastern food. Their favorite haunts these days are Phoenicia in Birmingham, the Stage Deli in West Bloomfield and Siegel’s Deli in Commerce.
Though they might sometimes go out on Saturday evenings as couples with their wives, Saturday brunch or lunch is a time exclusively set aside for the men to catch up, schmooze and reminisce about their boyhood. “How lucky are we that we are all 90, live in our own homes, are still married, can still drive and get around, and get together with good friends,” mused Lippitt, of Commerce Township, who worked in insurance sales. “(Meeting up for our weekly get together) provides a good feeling that we look forward to
every Saturday,” said Kulish, of Bloomfield Hills, who made a career in real estate and is CEO of property management firm Cormorant Co. “When women get together, they talk more about personal things than men do. Men are more superficial than women are. So as a result, what we talk about by and large, is current events and the past,” he said. But Lippitt disagreed. “We also talk about sports and politics, and what’s going on with our houses and our family, too,” said Lippitt, who has been married to his wife, Elaine, for 46 years. “Not to mention death and divorce,” quipped Weitz, of Huntington Woods, a retired school counselor who spent his career at Fraser High School in Macomb County. “Talking about divorce is kind of humorous when you’re 90, because you don’t
