DJN May 26, 2022

THE DETROIT

JEWISH NEWS

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200 May 26-June 1, 2022 / 25 Iyar - 2 Sivan 5782

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A happy ending as an “only child,” 62, meets her unknown siblings for the first time.

See page 12

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contents May 26-June 1, 2022 / 25 Iyar – 2 Sivan 5782 | VOLUME CLXXI, ISSUE 15

PURELY COMMENTARY 4-11

Essays and Viewpoints

OUR COMMUNITY 12

Mystery Solved!

18

A “Home for Everyone”

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Beth Shalom’s Mastermind of Events

A happy ending as an “only child,” 62, meets her unknown siblings for the first time.

Bais Chabad in final stages of opening a new mikvah and new playground.

Beth Rodgers brings the community together through events.

22 24

‘Charging Up’ Their Faith

Kalamazoo’s B’nai Israel puts faith into action with EV charging station.

Yachad Students Give from the Heart Religious school students donate $800 to local charities.

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37

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The Motown Seder: Building Community

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40

Hillel Day School’s Annual Gala

EVENTS

41

Cancer Thrivers Network Enjoys In-Person Outing

DINING SECTION

A Voice for Israel

Israeli envoy Noa Tishby shared her story with Temple Israel.

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44

Diamond Dandies

26-year-old coach leads West Bloomfield baseball team to its 3rd league title in 25 years.

Reinventing Himself

Rabbi Herbert Yoskowitz enjoys a second career teaching medical students about bioethics.

ERETZ 46

Bernie’s Mom & Dad

Meet the Olim

Sean Littman: “Move to Israel Now.”

WDIV sportscaster Bernie Smilovitz shares the story of his parents who survived the Holocaust.

MAZEL TOV

Israeli Consulate to Give out Social Impact Grants

SPIRIT

A Burial for Books

Beth Shalom buries books containing the name of God.

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Torah Portion

52

Synagogue Directory

54

A Sense of Direction

ARTS & LIFE 56

60

NEXTWork’s Successful Vision Creating a vision of greatness with ZingTrain.

Moments

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Community Hub

Moishe Pod Detroit creates events for young Jewish adults.

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HEALTH

Alumni Honored

Farber Hebrew Day School’s 58th Annual Dinner honors esteemed alumni.

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SPORTS

Men’s Woodworking Club at JSL’s Meer Apartments tackles problems.

NEXT DOR 36

FACES AND PLACES

‘Building” Character

Applications are open to anyone and must be submitted by the end of May.

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61

Get Your Art On

You’ll find plenty of Jewish artists at this summer’s fairs.

A Connoisseur’s Eye

Sotheby’s Michigan art consultant helps collectors when it’s time to sell.

Celebrity News

68

Community Calendar It’s ‘The Bomb’

Showstopper gourmet ice cream bars have one goal: to make people smile.

A Place to Connect

The Porch at the West Bloomfield JCC is a great place to meet up with friends and chill.

Dining Guide Listings

ETC.

The Exchange 70 Obituaries 72 Looking Back 78

Shabbat Lights

Shabbat starts: Friday, May 27, 8:41 p.m.

Shabbat ends: Saturday, May 28, 9:52 p.m. * Times according to Yeshiva Beth Yehudah calendar.

ON THE COVER: Cover photo/credit: Susie sits on her cousin Tracey’s lap at the first inter-family get-together.

Provided by family.

Cover design: Michelle Sheridan

thejewishnews.com Follow Us on Social Media: Facebook @DetroitJewishNews Twitter @JewishNewsDet Instagram @detroitjewishnews MAY 26 • 2022

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3

PURELY COMMENTARY for openers

Our Last Class with Mr. Leuchtenberg

A

nticipating a high school reunion can evoke varied reactions. Most folks look forward to seeing old friends.

Some dread the return of high school angst. For some, it’s the push to really start following that diet. Everyone who attends tries to look Jeff London their best. And, of course, some skip the whole darn thing.

Every 10 years since my graduation, I’ve gone to my Mumford High School (class of 1966) reunions. In 2016, before any of us had heard of COVID, I decided to attend our 50th to catch up with some old friends.

My childhood friend Eddie (now Ed) emailed me in the summer of 2016 to say that he had managed to contact our favorite teacher from Post Junior High, Mr. Dennis Leuchtenberg. It turns out that Mr. L. was only in his late 20s when he taught us English and journalism. That meant that Mr. L. was now in his mid-80s. Ed suggested we set up a meeting for lunch with Mr. L. and our junior high classmates who were coming to the Mumford reunion that fall. That sounded like a good idea. Mr. L readily agreed to meet with us for lunch.

We weren’t sure how many folks would show up for lunch with Mr. L. at Ginopolis. I got there

know I did!) during puberty, an awkward time of life.

We clung to our smartness as a buffer against feeling uncertain about ourselves in so many other ways.

Mr. Leuchtenberg

early and found my old pal Steve waiting in a private room with a big table. We reassured each other how great we both looked (wink, wink). Steve had towered over me and our friends in his teens, but his 5’9’’ stature looked different at 13 than at 68! We hugged and caught up with each other as we waited for other classmates to trickle in. As folks arrived, we mostly recognized each other’s younger selves hidden by 50 years of living. And, of course, we all lit up when Mr. Leuchtenberg walked in, looking every bit his age (though not that much older than we all must have looked to him).

About 12 of us took seats around the table. Ed agreed to emcee the event and suggested we all order lunch and then go around the table telling each other what we were up to and sharing any memories we had of Post Junior High and our teacher, who looked pleased but perhaps slightly shellshocked.

Post Junior High, in northwest Detroit, included kids from various elementary schools in the area. Classes were set up at that time based on test scores. We were often told that our group, which stayed together from seventh through ninth grades was composed of the kids with the highest scores. In addition to teaching English, many of us also worked with Mr. L. intensively on our school paper, the Post Script, and our yearbook. His teaching style was serious, caring and supportive, encouraging us to work hard and follow the rules (which most of us were prone to do). He especially focused on helping us to learn to become better writers. His youthfulness and enthusiasm were wonderful assets for our cohort. We tried to please him and felt that he expected us to do our best.

Most of us felt proud of our intellect, but we were also aware that we were perceived by others as fairly nerdy. We all felt socially awkward (I

THANKING ‘MR. L.’ Twelve people having lunch around a table in a room with their former teacher … it sounds so ordinary.

But, ask anyone who was there, something wonderful happened that afternoon.

All of these professionals, including teachers, professors, doctors, lawyers and writers, now nearing the end of their careers, were able to tell their teacher how much he had meant to us in our formative years.

Each of us thanked Mr. L. for the special way he had taught us to better express ourselves in our writing. The teachers and professors in the group were particularly elegant, letting their teacher know how much they had borrowed from him and continued to use in educating their own students.

We laughed about Mr. L.’s strong encouragement for the use of the semi-colon.

Many gave specific examples of how often they used what they had learned from him in their daily work. And we also talked about how his caring and concern for us at this important time in our lives had helped us to believe in ourselves.

I sang a song I had written for the occasion to the tune of “Yesterday” (which I continued on page 7

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5

PURELY COMMENTARY opinion

The War in Ukraine Is Changing the World

T

he war in Ukraine is unlike any war that’s been. Although it seems local, this war is changing the world. In the end, after all the pain, the parties will establish new relationships, and new relationships will be established around the world. This war is the beginning of a formation of a new world order, where all parties unite against the one common enemy of all of humanity: Michael egoism.

Laitman It will take time, but everyone involved will realize, and the whole world with them, that they are not fighting against each other, but against an enemy within them. If we let the idea sink in, even a bit, it will make it happen even sooner.

The casualties, the injured and the lost property are a terrible price to pay.

Nevertheless, global processes always come at a cost. We should not blame others for the cost, and we should not think that there is nothing each of us can do to change the world. It is in the hands of every person to change the world for the better, and to make the atrocities of war, and all atrocities that humans are inflicting on each other, disappear.

Publisher The Detroit Jewish News Foundation

| Board of Directors: Chair: Gary Torgow Vice President: David Kramer Secretary: Robin Axelrod Treasurer: Max Berlin Board members: Larry Jackier, Jeffrey Schlussel, Mark Zausmer

Senior Advisor to the Board: Mark Davidoff Alene and Graham Landau Archivist Chair: Mike Smith Founding President & Publisher Emeritus: Arthur Horwitz Founding Publisher Philip Slomovitz, of blessed memory

All we need is to realize that the only enemy lies within us — our self-centered attitude. It incites us against each other, demonizes and vilifies anyone who disagrees with us, tells us that we are the only ones entitled in this world and thereby sets us off against each other. We are all like that, infected with a pandemic of narcissism.

Nevertheless, there is a lot we can do to change the world. First, we must accept that there is a good reason we are so different from each other. Each of us makes a unique contribution to the world that no one else can. If we were all the same, the contributions we receive from others, and on which our lives depend, would be absent, and we would not survive, in the most physical sense of the word.

We will realize that our ego is the enemy only when we realize that singularity is the wrong key word for happiness. Today, the key word for happiness is complementarity — mutual satisfaction of each other’s material, social, emotional and spiritual needs.

We are living in a world where we are all dependent on each other. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, and the appliances and gadgets that we use are all made by people

| Editorial DIrector of Editorial: Jackie Headapohl jheadapohl@thejewishnews.com Associate Editor: Rachel Sweet rsweet@thejewishnews.com Associate Editor: David Sachs dsachs@thejewishnews.com Social Media and Digital Producer: Nathan Vicar nvicar@thejewishnews.com Staff Reporter: Danny Schwartz dschwartz@thejewishnews.com Editorial Assistant: Sy Manello smanello@thejewishnews.com Contributing Writers: Nate Bloom, Rochel Burstyn, Suzanne Chessler, Annabel Cohen, Keri Guten Cohen, Shari S. Cohen, Shelli Liebman Dorfman, Louis Finkelman, Stacy Gittleman, Esther Allweiss Ingber, Barbara Lewis, Jennifer Lovy, Rabbi Jason Miller, Alan Muskovitz, Robin

we do not know, in places we do not know, and reach us in ways we do not know. But were it not for this chain of myriad unknown individuals, we would not survive, since we cannot provide for our needs by ourselves.

The same goes for social ties. All our connections, communications and interactions with other people are made possible with the help of countless people who serve us without our awareness. But were it not for them, we would not be able to work or socialize.

Despite this obvious fact, we behave toward others with as little consideration as possible, and when we are nice or considerate, it is because we have an ulterior, selfish motive. We do not have the prerogative to keep up this behavior. We are destroying the world and destroying ourselves.

Now, too, we are headed for a catastrophe unless we pay attention and begin to act like one entity, one global society that works like a single, united family. The war will change the world, but I hope we can change ourselves before the war changes us.

Michael Laitman is founder and president of Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute. This essay first appeared in the Times of Israel.

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1942 - 2022 Covering and Connecting Jewish Detroit Every Week

DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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Our STORY

continued from page 4

brilliantly noted has the same three syllables as Leuchtenberg). I included a dubious line about how he had helped us to learn to fly like “Leuchtenbirds.”

We watched our beloved teacher take it all in, and we just knew we had done something good. It was our chance to try to pay Mr. L. back for all he had given us many years ago.

And something else happened as we went around the room that day. We were able to tell each other how much our friendships and support had meant way back when we really needed it. And we now communicated as adults, in words and feelings that we could never have shared in those early teen years. We laughed about past mistakes and listened and responded to each other. And by the time we had finished our circle of sharing, there was not a dry eye in the place.

Mr. L. then had his chance to talk about his teaching career and to let us know how much our class, in the early part of his career, had meant to him.

He was clearly touched by our words. We lingered a bit, not wanting it to end, but then we all went our separate ways.

When we saw each other that night at the Mumford reunion, we looked at each other with different eyes.

We all did our usual reunion shtick, interacting with our

high school friends, but something had changed between the boys and girls who had been in the room with Mr. L. that day. And for the last six years, we have been texting and emailing each other in a different way, communicating about life events with a greater sense of connection.

About two years ago, we learned that Mr. L. was quite ill. A few people from our group made contact with him. And then we learned that our beloved teacher had died. A few of us went to the viewing and funeral and talked with his family.

Mr. L.’s sisters had heard from him about our reunion luncheon and shared how much it had meant to him.

It’s not often that you get a chance to go back and tell people what they have meant to you. Like Emily in Our Town or Peggy Sue in Peggy Sue Got Married, we learned that life is filled with everyday moments; at the time, we miss the significance of most of them. How about my use of the semicolon in that last sentence, Mr. L.?

Our reunion with Mr. Leuchtenberg had helped our teacher realize how many lives (like ours) he had touched in an enduring way.

And somehow, in the process, he had helped us to get in touch with our younger selves and encouraged us to feel closer to each other today.

For years, Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County has partnered with Hebrew Free Loan as part of a constellation of services that assist JFS clients. At the end of 2019, agency Executive Director Anya Abramzon says the organization, which rented part of a building, purchased it outright and took over the entirety of the space. They approached HFL for help to renovate and get the full space up and running.

“We went from assisting about 7,000 people in our food pantry to serving approximately 18,000 at the height of the 2020 shutdown, and this space was sorely needed, just to do it properly,” Anya said.

“On top of our increased needs came the pandemic.

We wanted flexibility and appropriate distancing, on a pretty short timeline. Hebrew Free Loan and its Jewish Organization Loan Fund, in partnership with The Ravitz Foundation, helped us pay for the construction needed to get ready for our clients. Interest-free money from HFL was combined with our existing funds to rebuild the space.”

The new facility, Anya said, allowed JFS to devote the entire ground level to their food pantry, quadrupling their area.

“We are very excited about what the new space does for us, and will allow us to do in the future,” Anya said. “We hope to expand the pantry into new offerings, and we also house programs beyond the pantry, such as resettlement offices, English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, and more. Hebrew Free Loan was the kind of amazing resource for us that they’ve always been for our clients, and we are grateful they’re here.”

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MAY 26 • 2022

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PURELY COMMENTARY student’s corner

The Bible’s Portrayal of Jewish Trauma

U

pon reading the books of Ruth and Esther, it may appear as though the only similarity between them is their resilient titular characters.

However, when put parallel to one another, their boundless contrasts — from tone to demographic — serve to the Torah’s intent of revealing Esti Klein the difference outlooks on life bring to trauma.

With its caricatured characters, satire and retribution, Esther could easily be adapted for movie screens. A precedence of satirical tone is implemented with Memucan’s theatricalized monologue to the King Ahasuerus: “Not only on the king alone did Vashti go astray, but against all the princes, and against all the nations that are in all of the provinces of the King Ahasuerus. Because this matter of the queen [will] go out for all the women to despise their husbands in their eyes, saying, ‘The King Ahasuerus said that Queen Vashti be brought before him, and she did not come’” (Esther 1:16-17, author’s translation).

The overdramatization provided by generalizations and ridiculous assumptions provides the basis for the pronounced liberties that will be taken throughout Esther, as well as establishing a motif

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of concealment; one thing is being said, and the reader is supposed to be aware that another thing is implied.

Perhaps the best example of this idea is the character of Esther. To the reader, as well as other characters, Esther is reserved, concealing all parts of her identity. As readers of Esther know, this is a pivotal part of the story — it exhibits the most expanded upon hardship the Jewish people face in Esther: assimilation.

This is illustrated, as well, in the overpowering ratio of named gentile characters to named Jewish characters, the spotlight on the gentile characters rather than the bucolic Jews.

So, the story of Esther becomes about finding pride in one’s identity. Mordecai clarifies this best in his rebuke to Esther: “For surely if you are silent [about your Jewish identity] at this time, relief and deliverance will stand for the Jews from another place, but you, and the house of your father, will crumble. And who knows if, at a time like this coming, [when the massacre will be brought about] you will be touched [with this favor] in your queenhood” (Esther 4:14, author’s translation).

In a contemporary context: those who yearn to conform, to obscure, to efface their Jewish identity in the face of oppression have the full ability to, but it is to their own detriment.

To both the story’s own

injury and benefit, it utilizes the tools provided by outside cultures to appeal to the assimilated Jew. And while this narrative is necessary, it begs the question: To what extent must Jewish people make fools of themselves to allow for a genuine narrative about their trauma?

Thus enters Ruth. A tale simultaneously solemn and lively, it does not allow for the irreverence in its portrayed trauma of Orpah, Ruth and Naomi’s loss and economic wording as Esther does.

The two characters act very much as a foil to the other; Esther’s arc of independence contrasting Ruth’s arc of learning dependence; Ruth’s open embrace of Judaism juxtaposing Esther’s concealment; the opposing journeys from aristocracy to a rural society against a rural society to nobility.

The story of Ruth becomes very much an example of brazen healing, using Jewish folk storytelling methods and embracing the idea that the Jewish people were once a nation of transients and converts and many of them remain so today, as a pivotal role in the culture.

May the implication that this book is read on Shavuot, the holiday in which we celebrate becoming a nation, not pass as sand through your hands over the upcoming holiday.

Esti Klein is a sophomore at Frankel Jewish Academy.

letters

An Open Letter to the Detroit Community: As leaders in the Muslim and Jewish communities of Metro Detroit, we unambiguously condemn the tragic killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, an innocent and well-respected reporter for Al-Jazeerah. We call for a thorough and transparent investigation to determine who is responsible for her death and call for those responsible to bear the full weight of justice.

While we disagree on many aspects of the situation in the Middle East, we are united in the imperative that all reporters should be off-limits and should be afforded full protection so that they may provide the world with honest and truthful stories.

— Dr. Mahmoud Al-Hadidi, President, Michigan Muslim Community Council Seth Gould, President, Jewish Community Relations Council/AJC Phil Neuman, President Elect, Jewish Community Relations Council/AJC Patrick Cates, Member, Interfaith Committee of the Muslim Unity Center of Bloomfield Hills Bryant Frank, Co-Chair, JCRC/AJC Muslim-Jewish Subcommittee Ariana Mentzel, Co-Chair, JCRC/ AJC Muslim-Jewish Subcommittee Rabbi Asher Lopatin, Executive Director, JCRC/AJC

MAY 26 • 2022

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9

PURELY COMMENTARY guest column

Detroit Project Understanding

T

he Jewish Community Relations Council/ American Jewish Committee of Detroit (JCRC/ AJC) kicked off the month of May with the inaugural 2022 Detroit Project Understanding fellowship summit. The summit was designed to Ashira Solomon bring together emerging young leaders in the Black and/or Jewish communities of the Metropolitan Detroit area.

It was co-sponsored by the Coalition for Black and Jewish Unity and co-chaired by two of its members: Jacob Evan Smith, a well-known Detroit community organizer, and Pastor Aramis Hinds, executive director of Bethel Community Transformation Center. The two were joined as co-chairs by Detroit’s beloved young professionals, Shane Sperling, a board member of the JCRC/AJC, and Chinonye Akunne, the founder and executive director of ILERA Apothecary.

Detroit Project Understanding appears to be the first known fellowship of its kind in the Metropolitan

Detroit area. We knew we wanted to create an intentional local program where young Black-Jewish professionals could learn together, grow together and build together in a safe space thriving on deeper historical and cultural understanding. We’ve seen success with similar local programs, modeled by our friends at the American Jewish Committee in Atlanta. We hope to continue this program for years to come.

Introducing narratives in Black American history and Jewish American history was a necessary starting point for the Detroit Project Understanding team, specifically due to the unfortunate educational gap that fails to elaborate on the histories of the diverse communities that have made valuable contributions to the United States of America.

The fellows began their day with a Detroit Black-Jewish historical tour, discovering the city’s grit and the moments of camaraderie and tension between the Black community and the Jewish community.

The tour was led by Jamon Jordan of Black Scroll Network and President Elect Jeannie Weiner of the Jewish Historical

BACK ROW: Shane Sperling (JCRC/AJC board), Pastor Aramis Hinds (Coalition for Black and Jewish Unity), Jacob Smith (JCRC/AJC board and Coalition). FRONT ROW: Ashira Solomon and Chinonye Akunne.

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Detroit Project Understanding participants.

Society of Michigan, both of whom were eager to participate in the program. Jamon Jordan became the City of Detroit’s Official Historian this past fall.

The group did not stop there.

Fellows thoughtfully discussed what they learned, what it means to be an advocate and the power of building meaningful relationships.

Other keynote speakers of the fellowship summit included The Detroitist, Marsha Music and Rabbi Ariana Silverman of the Downtown Synagogue.

A professional networking social hour concluded the event, so that fellows could connect and continue to support one another outside of the summit.

Pastor Aramis Hinds eloquently concluded, “I am constantly amazed by the notable and measurable growth and transformation that organically takes place as different cultures of people come together for the sake of learning about individuals, cultures and experiences outside of their own. These dynamic encounters allow individuals to receive added, and often, much needed cultural context. Learning is opti-

mized, as literal meets literary and perception meets proximity. A more wholesome view of others is formed, and countless lives are forever transformed!”

Pastor Hinds is the pastor of Breakers Covenant Church, former home to Temple Beth El, the first standing Jewish congregation in Michigan’s history.

Rabbi Asher Lopatin, executive director of JCRC/ AJC, added, “Bringing young leaders of the African American community and the Jewish community together in honest conversation and in an exploration of their shared histories is an important step in enabling the communities to work together in partnership and friendship.”

This program was made possible thanks to the Ravitz Foundation, whose support has included general funding for interfaith and inter-community programs between the Jewish community and various other communities in Detroit.

Ashira Solomon is the community associate at JCRC/AJC, who led the Detroit Project Understanding initiative.

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An Israeli Mom, A Palestinian Mom — and the Village That Could Be

I

have a friend who just gave birth in Jerusalem.

Her baby girl was struggling to latch, and awash in a flood of hormones and debilitating exhaustion, the two of them spent a long two hours sobbing together in the Sarah nursing room Tuttle-Singer at Hadassah Hospital.

My friend is Israeli. She wears a Star of David.

There was another mother in the room — a Palestinian woman from East Jerusalem … she wore a purple hijab, and her bloodshot, hooded eyes were somehow rimmed with perfectly applied kohl.

My friend sat there weeping while her newborn baby girl shrieked at her breast. It wasn’t my friend’s first baby — and she had never struggled like this… but all babies are different, and just as we have our own personalities, so do they.

“This baby is acting like kind of a jerk,” my friend told me.

The other mother tried to help. “Lift her on a pillow… express a little on her lip….

Let her smell it, let her taste it.”

Finally, the baby latched on one side.

“Maybe I should express the rest of the milk on the other side,” my friend said. “I can save it in a syringe.”

(These were early days after birth when there was only colostrum.)

“Here, you keep nursing, and I’ll do it for you,” the other mother said. “Is that ok?”

My friend shrugged.

It seemed like the only reasonable thing to do at 3 a.m. on her baby’s first day of life. She nursed on the left breast, and the other mother milked her on the right.

Outside the hospital, tensions were high between Israelis and Palestinians, but inside that nursing room, there was only compassion, gentleness and peace.

“Once,” my friend later told me, “we lived in a village and we took care of each other. When one mother couldn’t nurse, another mother nursed for her. Our children were like her children and her children were like our children. This is still in our nature. Maybe it’s time to let women run things around here in Jerusalem. We might just figure it out together.”

Sarah Tuttle-Singer is author of Jerusalem Drawn and Quartered and the new media editor at Times of Israel, where this essay was first published.

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MAY 26 • 2022

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PHOTO BY YEVGENIYA GAZMAN

ON THE COVER

R MYStE At age 62, an “only child” meets her unknown siblings for the first time.

ESTHER ALLWEISS INGBER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

ABOVE: Susie Simons Liebman (center) and her newly found siblings, Maureen Lefteroff and Marvin Katz.

RIGHT: A collage of love between the two “new” sisters, Susie and Maureen.

OPPOSITE PAGE, RIGHT: Susie with her son Benji Tarockoff and daughters Halli Tarockoff and Abbi Emerson (daughter Mallory Tarockoff is not pictured).

OPPOSITE PAGE, FAR RIGHT: Susie is flanked by cousins Tracey Morrison and Marcy Schulman who were instrumental in solving the mystery of her birth.

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he pretty, outgoing little girl always knew she was adopted and therefore felt very special. Her late parents, Rachel and Jack Pludwinski of Southfield, did not believe in keeping the adoption a secret from the child they named Susan Beth Pludwinski.

Susie, 62, now known as Susan Simons Liebman of Coral Springs, Fla., left Michigan in 2010 when her now deceased husband, Steven Simons, accepted a job in Florida. She married Zach Liebman in 2020.

But neither Susie nor the parents who lovingly raised her knew the identity of her birth parents. To Susie’s ultimate surprise, her history included a heart-wrenching drama coupled with acts of kindness.

An only child, Susie was doted upon by her parents and her mother Rachel’s relatives. Her father, Jack, employed as a furniture upholsterer, was a Holocaust survivor from Poland who had lost everyone. Susie’s Hebrew name, Chana Freidel, was given in memory of Jack’s parents.

The Pludwinskis lived on Selkirk Street in Southfield. Susie graduated from Southfield-Lathrup High School, studied early childhood education for two years in college, married her first husband, Ronnie Tarockoff, and gave birth to four children.

Their three daughters live in Metro Detroit. Abbi (Chef Pete) Tarockoff Emerson, 39, teaches Sunday school at Adat Shalom Synagogue in Farmington Hills.

Halli Tarockoff, 37, is a paralegal at Yeshiva Beth Yehudah Boys Division in Southfield.

Their sister is Mallory Tarockoff, 32. Susie’s son Benji (Dr. Meri) Tarockoff, 35, of Miami is a business executive.

Rachel and Jack were always attentive parents and grandparents who picked up the grandkids from school and hosted fun sleepovers.

“I had a very special childhood,” Susie said. Even so, she often thought about finding her biological family.

In 1982, when she and Ronnie were married, they visited the Oakland County

courthouse in search of her adoption record. They were denied access because hers had been a closed, private adoption, but did receive a letter containing “unidentified information.”

Susie learned she was born into a family, not named, with three other children. The parents were older, Jewish and gave her up for adoption because they couldn’t afford another child. They stipulated that their baby should go to another Jewish family.

Though excited by these details, Susie postponed searching further for her identity while her adoptive parents were alive. “I would never want to devastate them,” she said. “I was totally all they had besides my own kids.”

DNA BREAKTHROUGH When Susie first took 23andMe’s DNA testing kit, she was underwhelmed with the results, matching with only very distant third to fifth cousins. “I’m done,” she

PHOTO BY YEVGENIY A GAZMAN

PHOTO BY YEVGENIYA GAZMAN

D O V S LE continued on page 14

MAY 26 • 2022

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ON THE COVER continued from page 13

decided, and went about her life.

That includes working as a substitute teacher at Lubavitch Hebrew Academy in Margate, Fla. Susie became frum (Orthodox Jewish) 12 years ago and brought along second husband, Steven Simons, when Rabbi Yankie Denburg introduced her to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a form of Chasidic Judaism. Susie had met the rabbi when she had his daughter in her class at the Hebrew Academy.

Now Susie and Zach, whom she married three years after Steven died, attend Chabad of Coral Springs, whose spiritual leader, Rabbi Yossie Denburg, is Rabbi Yankie’s father.

On the morning of Sunday, March 6, 2022, Susie opened her computer to find a message that changed her life. A biological first cousin, Marcy (formerly Katz) Schulman, had contacted her through 23andMe, wondering how they were related.

“That was so exciting,” Susie recalled.

Marcy, of West Bloomfield, had recently taken the DNA test and Susie’s earlier results were in the company’s database.

After finding Marcy’s message, the women began messaging back and forth. By 3 p.m. that day, Susie was talking with several of her first cousins on a video call that Marcy had arranged.

The cousins knew of 10 Katz siblings in the generation above theirs. Susie clearly was the child of one of the seven Katz brothers. The cousins narrowed it down to three men who possibly could have been Susie’s birth father. Going beyond that point would prove more challenging, as DNA would be difficult or impossible to obtain.

Allowed access to Susie’s 23andMe account, Marcy found a close relation on Susie’s mother’s side of the family. Tracey (formerly Pearl) Morrison of Folsom, Calif., matched as a first cousin once removed.

Marcy encouraged Susie to contact her.

Perhaps Tracey might know something about Susie’s origins.

“I wrote to Tracey through the 23andMe website,” Susie said. Tracey wrote back and

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ABOVE: Years apart, Susie and her adoptive parents, Rachel and Jack Pludwinski.

RIGHT: Birth mother Ethel Katz with children Maureen and Phil.

said that her maternal Aunt Ethel (formerly Jackson) and Uncle Harry Katz probably were Susie’s biological parents and, if so, then Susie had an older sister and brother.

“I called Tracey and she told me the story that her mother, Janet (formerly Jackson) Pearl, had told her, about a baby girl being adopted,” Susie said. “Tracey said that she actually had wanted to find ‘the baby’ in an attempt to connect the siblings but had no idea of how to go about that.”

Susie learned that Ethel and Harry Katz originally had two sons and a daughter (one son, Phil, is now deceased). Harry worked sometimes as a taxi driver and Ethel went to work, too. Susie decided they sounded like the family described in her letter from 1982.

DOCTOR’S INTERVENTION It happened that Susie’s birth mother, Ethel, and adoptive mother, Rachel, shared the same obstetrician, Dr. Harry Weisberg, and were scheduled to have him deliver their babies around the same time at Sinai Hospital in Detroit. Dr. Weisberg had a sterling reputation as an OB/GYN. In his

Detroit Free Press obituary from July 1994, Dr. Weisberg’s daughter said he delivered 10,000 babies during his 40-year career.

With their baby’s birth imminent, Rachel and Jack Pludwinski were hopeful that after Rachel’s three previous miscarriages, she would carry this child to term. Meanwhile, Ethel and Harry Katz, overwhelmed by their financial struggles, thought it would be best to give their newborn up for adoption at the hospital.

Coincidentally, the women went into labor and gave birth on the same day, Oct. 29, 1959. When the Pludwinski baby arrived stillborn, Dr. Weisberg immediately saw the remedy. He arranged for Rachel and Jack to privately adopt Ethel and Harry’s baby girl.

Harry and Ethel told their children, and the other family members, that the baby had died at birth.

“But I’m the missing link,” Susie said. “I’m the little sister they didn’t know was alive.”

Susie was showered with love. Having no children of their own, Rachel Pludwinski’s sister, Judy Jassenoff and husband, Sam, of Farmington Hills were overjoyed about Susie’s adoption. The families saw each other frequently and vacationed together.

Susie has now seen the document finalizing her adoption on Dec. 30, 1959, under the jurisdiction of Oakland County Probate Court Judge Arthur A. Moore. At top, fees totaling $391.75 for hospital and physician are listed, followed by the signatures of attending physician Dr. Weisberg and the county agent of the State Welfare Commission. continued on page 16

DNA Revolution Since the genetic genealogy revolution began in the late 1990s, DNA testing has provided valuable information to anyone interested in learning about their genetic ancestry.

Researchers find the commercial DNA testing kits invaluable for untangling genealogical riddles on their family trees. The kits reveal how the customer’s DNA is similar to others from certain geographic regions.

Results are shown by percentage, and sometimes on a pie chart. A specific DNA test can also indicate a customer’s genetic health risk and carrier status.

Perhaps most interesting — and even life-changing — are the testing kits’ ability to provide a list of family matches, such as happened with first cousins Susie Simons Liebman and Marcy Schulman.

The process starts with a sample of the customer’s

DNA, obtained through spitting or inner-cheek swabbing into the provided small container. Sent to each company’s laboratory, scientists isolate the cells and analyze their genes.

Variants in the customer’s genes, called alleles, are compared with alleles already in the company’s databases to determine similarities. Then a report is generated on the person’s heritage and genetic relatives.

Note that different results

Q

are possible because companies have access to different databases.

For more information, the four best-known DNA test kits to consider are: AncestryDNA: www.ancestry.com 23andMe: www.23andme.com FamilyTreeDNA: www.familytreedna.com My Heritage: www.myheritage.com — Esther Allweiss Ingber

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MAY 26 • 2022

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ON THE COVER continued from page 14

After the portion stating, “In the Matter of,” the line below reads “Baby Girl,” followed by a redacted last name now known to be “Katz,” and then “Pludwinski.” Jack, Rachel and their attorney signed the document.

FINDING OUT How did cousin Tracey’s mother, Janet, now deceased, learn about the adopted Katz baby? Tracey said the most likely source was Frances Jackson, her grandmother and Janet’s mother. Ethel and her sister-in-law Frances were close friends and perhaps Ethel confided in her.

Frances also told the story to her other daughter, Sharon (formerly Jackson) Tapper, now of West Bloomfield, and much later to Sharon’s daughter and Frances’ granddaughter, Leslie Tapper of Southfield.

It turned out that Leslie and her sisters, and Susie, all lived on Selkirk Street and were biological first cousins once removed.

The girls went through Southfield schools together, but none of them knew of their close relationship growing up.

There’s an alternative theory about how Frances learned the family secret. Sharon said her parents, Frances and Newtie Jackson, were living on the same block of Mansfield in Detroit as Rachel’s Aunt Ida Diem. Ida told Frances (Ethel’s sister-inlaw) that her niece Rachel had adopted a baby girl. Because of the timing, Frances might have realized it was too much of a coincidence and surmised that Ethel and Harry’s baby hadn’t died but was put up for adoption.

Sharon said she never broke her promise to mother, Frances, to stay quiet about Susie, but still felt a curiosity to see the baby, possibly her own first cousin. Sharon walked over to the Pludwinski home on another block of Selkirk “just once. But I never did go again,” she said, “because I thought something might spill out.”

SIBLINGS SURPRISED Only a few of Susie’s birth family members knew of her existence. The siblings who weren’t told are her sister Maureen Lefteroff, 75, of Royal Oak; she was 12 when Susie was born, and brother Marvin “Marv” Katz, 69, of Redford; he was 7.

Their deceased brother, Phil, had been 13

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MAY 26 • 2022

band, Jeff, hosted or 14 at the time. a home-based Marv and Maureen told gathering in West Susie they never quite Bloomfield on May believed it when told 9. Out-of-towners the baby had died in the Tracey, and Susie’s hospital. son Benji, flew in “When they had for the occasion. In Marvin, they had a crib the meantime, Marv set up for him — we got his DNA tested didn’t see anything and it confirmed that for the new baby,” said Maureen. She Susie was indeed his Susie and her loving adoptive mother, has a daughter, Rebecca the late Rachel Pludwinski. and Maureen’s full Militzer, adopted from sibling.

Bogota, Colombia, and grandsons Jackson Susie’s daughter Halli said she was going and Owen. Her late husband was Ronald to the reunion “to fully support my mom Lefteroff. during this time. I really can’t say what the “We didn’t see any baby equipment waitfuture holds, but I’m excited to meet the ing at home,” agreed Marv. His immediate new relatives and see how it goes.” family is his wife, Cherry, and their son, Prior to the evening, Susie said she “cheatJason, married to Erika. ed” by taking her birth sister to a Starbucks Maureen is bothered that some cousins in the morning. “It was amazing,” Maureen knew the secret about Susie long before she said, “Like I had known her my whole life.” and Marv did. “Why could they be told and After seeing her, Marv decided Susie “has not us?” she asked. “I was 40 and Mom was more of [our father’s family] Katz features, 65 when she passed away. There was plenty but I can see [our mother’s family] Jackson of time for her to tell us.” resemblances, too.”

After Susie and her cousin Tracey spoke The new family members talked easily on the phone, Susie asked the best way to at the gathering and seemed to relish the approach her siblings. Unsure of Marv’s opportunity to speak with and hug Susie reaction, Tracey decided to contact Marv’s and her children. It was a good time to be wife first with the news. Then it went like together. this: “Cherry told me to turn TV off while I A ‘SELFLESS GIFT’ was watching a hot rod show,” Marv said. “‘I Susie’s daughter Abbi said, “We were have something to tell you,’ she said. ‘What raised by my parents to be advocates for do you want?’ I replied. ‘Your sister Susie adoption. called Tracey — your baby sister is alive.’

“My mom always told us it was the It was like I always thought. My insides most selfless gift someone could give to flipped a bit because she’s alive. Then I got another family and the child. excited. ‘Give me her number, give her my “I believe that my mom’s biological number,’ I said.” parents likely had an incredibly difficult There was no reason to doubt Marvin’s time making their decision. I am thankful enthusiasm. “I was so looking forward to that they gave my grandma and papa the that baby coming home” in 1959. “I think opportunity to be parents and blessed us in if she had, my life would have been a little return with our big, loving, crazy family!” different.” His older brother and sister had Susie said, “This is a story of two families each other but with Susie, “I would have enjoying each other. One family that gave had someone to look out for.” up a baby and another that wanted one.

“Now all the parents are gone so nobody FIRST MEETING is getting hurt on either side. And now With everyone now informed, the next cousins and siblings can be whole, and one step was for Susie to meet her siblings and family did another a mitzvah. cousins in person. Marcy and her hus“It’s a beautiful, happy ending.”

Unlocking Closed Adoptions DNA testing has lifted the veil of secrecy on closed adoptions, also called “confidential” or “secret” adoptions. Once a common practice in the United States, they make up only 5% of adoptions today.

Closed adoption is a process by which an infant is adopted by another family, and the record of the biological parent(s) is kept sealed — protected from inquiries.

Closed adoption was

often a societal solution intended to hide the “shame” of children born to unwed mothers. In the 1950s, social workers felt no pressure to include information about the father in the records.

Closed adoption had the benefits of protecting the privacy of birth parent(s) while preserving the rights of adoptive parents to raise their child without the distraction or interference of birth parents. Such adop-

tions allow for the most privacy and may provide a sense of closure for some birth mothers.

At that time, a husband and wife wanting to adopt a child were generally required to prove a diagnosis of the woman’s infertility, confirmed by a doctor.

Adoptive parents were not allowed to obtain their child’s medical history.

The closed adoption system also denied infor-

mation to adults adopted as babies in the 1950s. These individuals, now generally in their 60s, were left frustrated in their quest to find their biological families.

Adults adopted in Michigan are now able to obtain their closed adoption record. Google the “howto” question and find a link giving instructions on the Michigan.gov website.

— Esther Allweiss Ingber

MAY 26 • 2022

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PHOTOS BY NATHAN VICAR

SYNAGOGUE SPOTLIGHT

Bais Chabad’s sanctuary

A ‘Home for Everyone’

Bais Chabad in final stages of opening a new mikvah and new playground.

DANNY SCHWARTZ STAFF WRITER

R

abbi Elimelech and Chaya Sarah Silberberg came to West Bloomfield with two small children in November 1975 as shluchim (emissaries) of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. They embraced the quiet, suburban community, encouraging people from all levels of observance to learn and increase their participation in Jewish life.

The Sara & Morris Tugman Bais Chabad Torah Center’s founding fathers were a group of Holocaust survivors, a group Silberberg connected to and with whom he formed the congregation. Bais Chabad initially ran out of a room in a day school, but, in 1982, they felt they had grown enough

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MAY 26 • 2022

and built the current building on Maple Road, east of Orchard Lake.

From humble beginnings, the congregation slowly grew, one family at a time. At some point, it became necessary for a younger rabbi to draw in younger people. That’s when their son, Rabbi Shneur Silberberg, and his wife, Zeesy, joined the team.

Rabbi Shneur Silberberg says Bais Chabad is technically an Orthodox synagogue, but it offers a home for everyone.

“Nobody is asked their level of observance or what their background is or how much they know or don’t know,” he said. “And that’s the goal, to be a place where everyone feels at home, and everyone has

the opportunity to grow in their Torah studying and their commitment to Judaism.”

He says Elya Silfen, a congregant who is also a rabbi (but not part of the synagogue clergy), has launched an online Torah-study class based

out of the congregation that broadcasts throughout the world, with students checking in from Israel, Europe, Mexico and South America. The website is chabadacademy.org.

“What COVID really taught us is you can sit in one place and broadcast to the world,” Silberberg said. “You don’t want to lose that in-person connection, but we’re trying to take advantage of that.”

Other Bais Chabad clergy include Rabbi Avrohom Weinberg, who serves as a teacher as well as a building administrator.

The Silberbergs and Bais Chabad are well known for helping the community celebrate the holidays with the Shofar Factory, Chanukah Wonderland and the Passover Matzah Factory.

Silberberg says about 120 families or so belong to the congregation, but many people who participate in different Bais Chabad programs belong to other synagogues.

“And that’s great, whether they enjoy the classes or my wife’s Jewish Women’s Circle or the holiday programs, it reaches hundreds of other families.”

Silberberg says Bais Chabad’s congregant base has gotten younger. “We do have older

Rabbi Shneur Silberberg in front of Marc’s Playground

Watch an episode of “Ask the Rabbi” with Rabbi Shneur Silberberg.

members who are the pillars of our community, but many of their children and grandchildren have now moved back,” he said. “Bais Chabad has a very youthful energy, and I’m very happy to say I’m always looking to add to that.”

Bais Chabad has two major projects currently in the works. The Mallor Walder Community Mikvah Center, an approximately 2,500-square-foot facility, is about triple the space of the current mikvah and is expected to open this month or next.

The congregation is also

building a new playground adjacent to its building to serve children at Shabbat youth groups, Sunday religious school classes and summer day camps. It is named Marc’s Playground, dedicated by Bruce and Mindy Ruben in memory of Bruce’s brother, Marc Ruben.

Shneur Silberberg has heard from people all over the world that Bais Chabad has been incredibly influential in their lives. He credits his parents in that process.

“There are so many families that attribute their connection to their faith in Judaism to Bais Chabad in some form or another,” Silberberg said.

“I’ve bumped into people — whether it’s in Israel or New York or Chicago, and certainly here in town — and when they think about their journey in life and their (Jewish journey), Bais Chabad and their experience here plays a major role. And that’s perhaps the nicest feeling to have.”

For more information about Bais Chabad Torah Center, visit baischabad.org.

MAY 26 • 2022

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OUR COMMUNITY VOLUNTEER OF THE WEEK

Community members and congregants spend time at Chanu-Con, a community-wide Chanukah festival at Congregation Beth Shalom.

Beth Shalom’s Mastermind of Events

Beth Rodgers makes announcements at a Beth Shalom Got Talent event.

Beth Rodgers brings the community together through events.

RACHEL SWEET ASSOCIATE EDITOR

B

eth Rodgers wears many hats at Congregation Beth Shalom in Oak Park as its vice president and chair of the programming committee. Rabbi Robert Gamer nominated her as Volunteer of the Week because he wanted to shed light on what Rodgers brings to the congregation.

“She continues to bring exceptional programs to Beth Shalom as well as the larger community,” Gamer said. “Café Shalom brings musical talents on an annual basis. Chanu-Con has attracted thousands of visitors over the few years it’s been running.

Beth is also integral in planning other major and minor events for the congregation.”

Rodgers and her husband, David, joined Beth Shalom in 2013 after attending a few events, such as cooking classes and the shul’s annual Café Shalom event. The first time they attended Shabbos services, Rodgers says they immediately felt the feeling of family and community.

Shortly after joining Beth Shalom, Rodgers became active in the shul as a board member and later took on the volunteer position as chair of the programming committee.

“I wanted to continue to bring awesome and cool events to the congregation,” the Oak Park resident said. “I started to think of things that would be worthwhile and exciting for more than just the people who belonged

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to the shul.”

The mother of three boys said inspiration struck in 2016 when her eldest son, Evan, who was 3 years old at the time, struggled to pronounce the word Chanukah and said “Happy Chanu-Con” instead.

“My husband said we should have ChanuCon at the shul, which sounds like Comic Con but for Chanukah,” Rodgers added.

The ideas started flowing for the festival and Rodgers quickly began gathering vendors, raffle prizes from local businesses, food and children’s activities in a short three months, which she said almost seemed unreachable at the time.

“I started calling every place I could think of,” Rodgers said. “That first year, we got 400 people who came out, and we had a full room of vendors, children’s activities and everything worked out really great!”

Beth Shalom is now going into its seventh annual Chanu-Con festival where Rodgers says everyone is welcome.

“I do it because I want the shul to succeed. I want Beth Shalom to thrive,” she said. For the last two years, the festival has been virtual, and Rodgers hopes they can be back in person this year. “Even though it’s based at Beth Shalom, it’s a nice way to bring the community together.”

Rodgers turned her passion for the event into a children’s book. “I write young adult

Beth and David Rodgers with their sons Jared, 6, Evan, 8, and Noah, 3, celebrate Purim in March.

novels, and I’ve always wanted to write a children’s picture book,” she said.

Rodgers is a freelance editor and worked together on the book with fellow board member Howard Fridson. “He illustrated it, and I wrote all the rhymes for the pages for the book titled Welcome to Chanu-Con.” Rodgers says it is important to be proud and to not hide from your Jewish heritage.

“No matter how old or young or in between you are, it’s important to take on a role in your community. Because the more we can do that, the more we show our pride, resilience and our strength.”

For information about Beth Shalom or to get involved, email BethShalomProgramming@gmail.com. If you would like to nominate someone to be the next Volunteer of the Week, send a nomination with a short paragraph telling us why to socialmedia@thejewishnews.com.

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PRESENTING SPONSOR Barbara and Michael Kratchman VIRTUOSO SPONSOR Bluma Schechter

CONDUCTOR SPONSORS Judy and Jeff Aisen | Janet Aronoff | Frances and Kenneth Eisenberg Judy and Irwin Elson | Nancy and James Grosfeld Gail Katz – Hava Leichtman Creative Expressions Fund Katie and Evan Leibhan | Joy and Allan Nachman

ARTIST SPONSORS Nora Lee and Guy Barron | Faye and Paul Blatt | Rhonda and Dr. Morris Brown Detroit Jewish News | Barbara and Gary Eisenberg | Barbara Heller Dr. Ann Katz | Aileen and Harvey Kleiman | Kroll Construction Andrew Kukes Foundation for Social Anxiety | Dr. Gary and Lynn Kukes Lisa and Brian Meer | Shirley Robinson | Mindy and Bruce Ruben Sandy and Alan Schwartz | Tamarack Camps | Andi and Larry Wolfe

MAY 26 • 2022

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B’NAI ISRAEL

OUR COMMUNITY

‘Charging Up’ Their Faith

Jennifer Odza charges her vehicle at Temple B’nai Israel.

Kalamazoo’s B’nai Israel puts faith into action with electric vehicle charging station.

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

I

f you’re driving an electric or hybrid vehicle around Kalamazoo and need some charging power, you could head to the parking lot at Temple B’nai Israel. The congregation maintains two power lines available to anyone.

The charging station, installed last June, might impress onlookers as strictly an expression of environmental concerns, but the congregation also is expressing a modernized approach to spirituality. Its introduction happened in what has been designated a shmitah year, according to Torah teachings — 2021-22 in line with the Hebrew calendar year of 5782.

Although shmitah years historically have been observed as times to give the ground a rest by leaving it fallow, Temple B’nai Israel has extended the concept to address current concerns in nature by promoting relief from carbon emissions.

National recognition of the dual objective has brought the temple $1,500 as one of six national winners of the Interfaith Power and Light Cool Congregations

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Annual Award for Leadership and Sustainability.

“The charging station became part of the conversation when we started discussing the shmitah year and our role as stewards of the Earth,” said Rabbi Simone Schicker.

“We questioned what that means outside of the land because there’s argument that shmitah is not only about the biblical land itself.

“We have a Green Team that took on actions we could take right now to make an impact, and a piece of it was that we have a number of congregants with electric cars and hybrid cars who felt it was something that would both benefit the immediate car nation and be a statement of our values.

“It became a statement that we have responsibility to our planet and to our neighbors as well.”

THE GREEN TEAM Steering the project — and all temple environmental projects — is Green Team leader Steven Bertman, professor of environment

and sustainability at Western Michigan University and former volunteer building manager for the temple. He is an environmental chemist who also implements his principles at home and advocates for conservation throughout the community.

Part of the impetus for developing the charging station came from learning about financial incentives offered by a local power company.

“I’m constitutionally disposed to conserving energy, and ever since I was in high school, I wanted solar panels,” said Bertman, who has them installed on his own home. “Renewable energy seemed like it was a no-brainer and, 40 years later, when we’re still burning fossil fuels, I finally bit the bullet and bought an electric car.

“I think for a lot of people, the barrier to getting an electric car is that it’s different. We have to learn a new thing. That certainly was part of it for me. I got the car and learned all the things I needed to do, including the use of charging options — how fast vehicles charge and the differences between wiring. That’s how I learned about the rebate program.”

The program covered 90 percent of the temple installation.

“There’s a fee structure that covers the cost of the electricity so the temple isn’t making a profit, but it’s not taking a loss in terms of the electricity,” Bertman said. “Any driver can pull into our parking lot, scan payment information with a cell phone, using either an established account or credit card identification, and plug in.

“A big part of my motivation was to raise awareness and make it less scary to try something new.”

Members of the congregation can charge their cars while attending services or meetings, thereby taking care of religious interests while vehicles are powering up.

On average, a two-hour charge would cost the user about $3.64 for some 60 miles in range. For a comparable range using gasoline, the current cost in Michigan would be about $8.78.

Jennifer Odza is a temple member who regularly powers up her vehicle at times she is pursuing congregational commitments.

“I really appreciate that our congregation is making meaningful efforts to be environ-

YISS Shavuot Bake Sale Steven Bertman charges his car as Rabbi Simone Schicker learns about the process.

B’NAI ISRAEL

mentally conscious and to be part of an effort of like-minded faith organizations,” Odza said. “Having EV chargers at Temple B’nai Israel makes it easy and convenient for me to recharge my car.

“I hope that someday soon we will all take for granted that chargers are nearly everywhere we travel. For now, I’m happy to know that our congregation is out front in encouraging sustainable practices.”

Bertman likes to pass along temple experiences to other groups and presents a slide show he has developed.

“I’m a founding member of a group in Kalamazoo that we call Hope for Creation, an affiliation of faith communities in the region trying to get people to act on climate change,” Bertman said.

“We organize actions and activities so, during the pandemic, we created a monthly series for congregational green teams, bringing in teams from faith communities to share what they’re doing and how they’re doing it to learn from each other.

“I thought it was time for us to bring it up a notch in terms of what we’re doing to live our Jewish values in terms of our responsibilities for stewarding the natural world.”

Since Bertman has begun

speaking about the Temple B’nai Israel charging station before neighboring faith centers and welcoming opportunities to speak before any groups near and far, two other congregations have installed their own.

Kalamazoo’s Congregation of Moses, another Jewish worship center, has one in the works.

Carolyn Kennedy, a Congregation of Moses board member, explained the project will take a while.

“We learned about the processes through Steve’s presentation,” said Kennedy, who is not ready to give a completion date. “It’s a slow process because of the infrastructure involved.”

Rabbi Schicker, who has solar panels on her home and anticipates buying an electric vehicle, reports that the award money will help shine additional light on environmental practices.

“At least some of the money is going directly toward replacing light fixtures to more energy-efficient options,” the rabbi said.

“It’s another expression of our values and the way that we interpret Torah to be cognizant of our impact on our planet. It excites me and makes me very proud that my community wants to be invested in this way.”

Bringing the community together through baked goods.

Floral arrangement from Silverbelle Bouquet

RACHEL SWEET ASSOCIATE EDITOR

T

he Young Israel of Southfield Sisterhood (YISS) is hosting its first Shavuot bake sale next week.

The holiday begins Saturday, June 4, to commemorate the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Shirli Gotlib, co-president of YISS, says the goal is to bring everyone back together in person and lift their spirits while enjoying traditional baked goods.

“During COVID, everyone was experimenting in the kitchen with new recipes,” Gotlib said. “We thought it would be a good way to share delicious creations with everyone and create new connections in the community.”

Throughout the beginning of the pandemic, Gotlib says the shul did most things virtually and now that things are slowly going back to normal, the sisterhood hopes to have more in-person events like the Shavuot Bake Sale. Before the

pandemic, Gotlib says they used to do events like Mystery Shabbos to help connect families.

“On Shabbos, families would come to shul, and we would give them a map of where they’re going for Shabbos dinner,” Gotlib explained. “Members would be able to connect with other families who maybe don’t know each other so well and would have a Shabbos meal together.”

Those interested in baking for the sale can sign up online to bake multiple desserts. The bake sale begins Thursday, June 2, at 7 p.m. at 22455 Chatsford Circuit St. in Southfield. Flowers will also be available for sale from fellow shul member Naomi Gardin of SilverBelle Bouquet.

All proceeds from the event will benefit the YISS. For more about the Shavuot Bake Sale and to sign up, go tofacebook. com/youngisrael.southfield.

This photo is from last year during a YISS virtual event where Naomi Elberg showed how to make cheesecake.

Expect goodies like these at the YISS Shavuot Bake Sale.

MAY 26 • 2022

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OUR COMMUNITY

Fifth-grade students research charities.

Yachad Students Give from the Heart

Religious school students donate $800 to local charities.

COURTESY OF YACHAD

Yachad Education Director Gail Greenberg with seventhgraders leading Havdallah just before collecting tzedakah.

Fifth-grade students after they shared information about the charities with the entire school.

GAIL GREENBERG, RJE SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

T

here’s a mitzvah I like to do; it’s so easy you can do it, too!

Just a few coins is all it takes, for you to do the Tzedakah Shake!”

Among the many mitzvot students learned about this year, tzedakah was one we focused on each week. Every Sunday morning, the students at Yachad, the combined religious school of Temple Emanu-El and Congregation Beth Shalom, both in Oak

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Park, came together to sing, dance and give tzedakah.

From our little ones in the sibling babysitting room to our seventh-graders, everyone shared excitement in doing something good for the world.

Yachad fifth-graders took on the role of researchers, finding charities that shared their passions, including sports, animals, camp and more. They learned about their chosen organizations’

missions and created a slate of places where the collected tzedakah money could go. After a passionate presentation, all Yachad students were given “tzedakah bucks” that they used to vote for where the collected funds would be allocated.

The $800 collected went to the Detroit Dog Rescue, Tamarack Camps, the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit Ukraine Relief Fund, Mosaic Youth Theater,

Forgotten Harvest, Arts and Scraps, Detroit Police Athletic League, Ronald McDonald House, Kids Kicking Cancer, Gift of Life and Yachad (because tzedakah begins at home!)

We are certainly proud of the Yachad students and their passion for learning, growing and giving!

Gail Greenberg, RJE (Reform Jewish Educator), is the Yachad education director.

OUR COMMUNITY

“Building” Character Men’s Woodworking Club at JSL’s Meer Apartments tackles problems big and small.

DANNY SCHWARTZ STAFF WRITER

T

ake a peek inside JSL’s Meer Apartments in West Bloomfield and you’ll see residents participating in usual independent living activities, such as a book club, playing cards and shmoozing.

But one you might not expect — a men’s woodworking club — was started about four years ago by Meer’s Environmental Services Supervisor Rick Napper.

“At previous buildings I’ve worked at, I’ve always had a men’s club and we always did woodworking,” Napper said.

Creation of the club was as simple as that — Napper approached Meer Administrator Marcia Mittelman and asked if he could start a weekly woodworking group.

Mittelman gave the thumbs up, and they began making stuff around the building.

Since then, the club has built a Torah ark, benches, tables, flower boxes and outdoor furniture, including Adirondack chairs. The club is currently in the process of building a sofa table.

The club has also planted a vegetable garden every year in the flower boxes they built. They plant tomatoes, herbs, pep-

Rick Napper poses with the Torah ark built by club members.

per plants, eggplant, some zucchinis and squashes.

The club meets for one hour on Tuesdays at 1 p.m.

In addition to the satisfaction of completing projects, it also gives the men the opportunity to socialize, build friendships and enhance their quality of life.

Napper believes the club’s members take pride when their family visits, being able to show them stuff they’ve built all over the building.

“The real reason I started the men’s club here is because I love to do woodworking,” Napper said. “I learned a lot from my father, and being able to pass that (knowledge) on to someone who doesn’t know anything about it and watch them get a lot of fun out of it, that’s what counts for me.

To give the guys here something to do that they like.”

The Torah ark was the club’s biggest project to date, taking at least 10 weeks.

The ark is a favorite creation among members, including 92-year-old Meer resident Manny Kalef.

The plaque on the ark

“It’s not like work; it’s fun,” Kalef said of the club. “I like working with the tools.

There are some tools I never saw before and Rick taught me how to use them. The end result is really the enjoyment, when we finish it and we stand back and look at it, it’s a sense of accomplishment.

“The guys interested in the woodworking show up, do the work, have fun and we kibbitz. We all get along good,” Kalef said. “It takes time, and we do a good job.

We use good wood and finishes and paint, nothing schlock about it.”

Kalef says the club even gets requests from management from time to time.

“We just built a couple of shelves for the front reception desk,” he said. “Whatever they want, we’ll give them.”

The club was mostly put on pause during the pandemic lockdown, but they’re happy to be back together and are looking for more men to join them.

“We have a couple new guys that moved in, so hopefully we can get them involved,” Kalef said.

Hale Garmel, Manny Kalef, and Rick Napper are hard at work.

MAY 26 • 2022

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Cantor Michael Smolash, Rabbi Marla Hornsten and Noa Tishby

A Voice for Israel

Israeli envoy Noa Tishby shared her story of defending her homeland with Temple Israel.

DORON LEVIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

F

ew experiences are more disheartening for a newly minted Jewish college student or young professional than an encounter with anti-Jewish bigotry, which is spreading and becoming more vicious and prominent on campuses and in media, especially social media.

As part of a year-long effort to confront antisemitism — often masquerading as anti-Zionism or opposition to Israel or social activism on behalf of the Palestinian cause — the leadership of Temple Israel of West Bloomfield concluded the issue had become so urgent it deserved a bold response.

An initial salvo was unleashed on May 16 at an outdoor presentation by Noa Tishby, a strident and engaging Israeliborn actor, producer, writer and passionate defender of her homeland.

Tishby, author of A Simple Guide To The Most Misunderstood Country On Earth, urged Temple Israel members and American Jews to “wake up and learn history and facts about Israel and use them to counter the way Israel is being distorted and por-

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trayed and lied about around the world.”

The synagogue has purchased nearly 200 of Tishby’s books for religious school and college students.

Without understanding who we are and where we came from, Tishby has written, the Jewish people have no hope of one day resolving the Middle East’s troubles.

All the while, Israel’s existence and Jewish identity are being delegitimized and undermined in the court of public opinion.

Jewish college students are particularly vulnerable to anti-Zionist propaganda because many see themselves as sympathetic to causes that benefit the forgotten and mistreated. To hear from pro-Palestinian groups that Israel, a country Jewish youngsters are taught to love and revere, supposedly oppresses Palestinians is demoralizing.

For the moment, she asserts, American Jews — especially the young — aren’t aware how Israel is being successfully demonized by opponents who inaccurately (not to mention, scurrilously) accuse

the country of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, human rights violations, war crimes and other egregious misbehavior. Her book, she says, is an effort to awaken Jews and supporters of Israel and to inspire them to fight against hatred and lies with facts, knowledge and insight.

“Why aren’t we pointing out that Israeli Arabs enjoy all the same rights as Jews, that they have a political party which is part of the government, that two Supreme Court justices are Arabs?” she asks rhetorically. “Are we telling people that most of the Palestinians of the West Bank rule themselves, that 89% of Israel’s Arabs say they don’t want to live in a Palestinian state?”

Tishby, 44, harbors special contempt for the “Boycott, Divestment, Sanction” (BDS) movement, a global effort to penalize and cripple Israel’s business and economy toward the seemingly virtuous goal of “justice” for the Palestinian people.

BDS has been promoted and approved by numerous individuals and groups in the U.S., including the Harvard Crimson newspaper and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-13th District), who is up for re-election this fall.

“BDS represents itself only as a movement for justice,” she says. “It never talks about radical Islam, terrorism or the UN-granted right of the Jews to inhabit their land. Mentioning this would turn off the young liberal Americans the move-

PHOTOS BY ALEC COHEN

OUR COMMUNITY

Randi Sakwa, Joe Bigelman and Noa Tishby

ment is trying to recruit.”

Tishby’s book, written in the popular argot of the millennial (and even younger generation) — filled with “F-bombs,” by her own description — offers a skeletal history of Zionism, including the complex politics, militarism, immigration, ethnic displacement and upheaval that reshaped the modern Middle East.

Growing up in Israel, she had her existence shaped by the reality of war and survival, her understanding and identity derived from schooling, daily life and the first-person stories she heard from relatives. She knew very little of her country’s grotesque depiction by its detractors in Western countries.

After serving in an Israel Defense Forces entertainment troupe, she landed a role in a popular Israeli soap opera, Ramat Aviv Gimel. Moving to Los Angeles, she found her top professional achievement was executive producer of HBO’s In Treatment, a version of B’tipul, the first Israeli show to be adapted for an American audience. Life on the West Coast introduced her to what she calls “pro-

gressive” opinions about Israel and Zionism, wildly at odds with her firsthand knowledge and experience.

“I came here to work in the entertainment field.

Increasingly, I found myself drawn to advocacy,” Tishby explained.

Her book, published in 2001, plus her celebrity in the entertainment field, drew the attention of the Israeli government. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid in April appointed her Israel’s first special envoy for fighting antisemitism and delegitimization. She will attend global forums representing Israel’s foreign ministry and continue engagement with Jewish communities such as Detroit’s.

“If we, as a Jewish people, can get educated on the history of our people, the State of Israel and conflicts in the region, we can have an educated conversation with those who don’t understand,” said Joe Bigelman, president of the congregation. “We can stand up to those who try to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist. We have a chance to change the narrative with one strong voice together as a congregation and community.”

ad Check out our is in the back of th nt JN for a new clie special offer!

Mazal Tov

Morah O!!!

You are so deserving of this award and we are lucky to have you in our ECC. −Your Farber Family

Mazal Tov also to Steve McClure on receiving an Honorable Mention!

MAY 26 • 2022

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OUR COMMUNITY

Alumni Honored

Farber Hebrew Day School’s 58th Annual Dinner honors esteemed alumni.

DANNY SCHWARTZ STAFF WRITER

F

arber Hebrew Day School-Yeshivat Akiva’s 58th Annual Dinner takes place on June 8, and this year’s alumni honorees, Chaya and Joey Selesny and Shaindle Braunstein-Cohen, are as representative as ever of Farber’s consistency in producing communal leaders.

The Selesnys’ time at Farber shaped them as people and professionals, and Joey Selesny fondly recalls there always being a desire for excellence in education.

“And along with that, the Jewish values that were instilled upon us as students,” he said. “We’re taught from the time we’re in kindergarten about the importance of Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Bazeh (“All Jews are responsible for one another”), tikkun olam and all the other attributes that make a well-rounded person.”

Chaya (Akiva 1992) went on to work for many years at Jewish Family Service, including the pilot year spent through JFS/Federation at Farber providing counseling to Jewish day schools.

Joey (Akiva 1990) started working in the Jewish nonprofit field in 2000. He enjoyed working for JNF/KKL (Jewish National Fund/Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael), the Jewish

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Federation of Metropolitan Detroit and Birthright Israel Foundation. He is now the senior regional director of development at the American Technion Society.

Chaya volunteers at Farber, served on community committees and does community chessed work. Joey sits on the executive board of Farber and is currently vice president at Chessed Shel Emes/Hebrew Benevolent Society. Chaya and Joey have five children, all of whom have attended Farber, with three currently attending.

As well as a love for their own community, Farber also brought to the Selesnys a tremendous love of Israel.

“We’re taught to take care of Israel, to love Israel and be a part of Israel,” Joey Selesny said. “And when you’re a part of something greater than yourself, it opens up your eyes and heart to the world and its issues and makes you more empathetic to what’s going on in the plight of humankind and our planet at the same time.”

The Selesnys were humbled when informed they would be honored.

“If this helps the school in any way, if even one additional dollar is raised for

the school that would not have been raised otherwise, we will do it,” Joey Selesny said. “We feel this school is a very important institution in the Detroit Jewish community and we’ll do whatever it takes to help them.”

Shaindle BraunsteinCohen (Akiva 1991) is the CEO of JARC. She has 20 years of experience in high-level roles at social service agencies Shaindle in the Jewish Braunsteincommunity, Cohen including seven years at Jewish Family Service and nine years as director of the David B. Hermelin ORT Resource Center.

She says one of the most important things that shaped her at Farber was being encouraged to be curious, to ask questions, to try new things and the idea there’s nothing off-limits.

“I think that gave me the tools at JARC and even at the beginning of my career, which was in publishing, to really feel comfortable and feel like I have strong footing in the world in my observance, in who I am as a Jew, in my education, what I feel my capabilities are and in my

Joey and Chaya Selesny

confidence.”

As far as what Farber does well to create so many communal leaders, she thinks a Farber education crafts strong Jewish identity.

“I think graduates come out knowing who they are and fully confident in who they are, knowing what’s important to them, and I think that’s what creates people who want to put meaningful contributions into the community.”

The dinner’s faculty honoree is Nachshon Wyma.

Wyma joined Farber in 2016 and has taught not only history in middle and high school but also physics, computer science, engineering and robotics. Wyma Nachshon accepted the Wyma responsibility as the chair of the ISACS (Independent Schools of the Central States) accreditation steering committee at Farber in 2019. His leadership of the process and of his peers culminated in Farber’s receipt of ISACS accreditation for the first time this past January.

Go to farberhds.org/giving/ annual-event/ for more details and to buy tickets.

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Bernie’s Mom & Dad

ESTHER ALLWEISS INGBER

OUR COMMUNITY

WDIV sportscaster Bernie Smilovitz shares the story of his parents who survived the Holocaust.

Bernie Smilovitz, WDIV-TV sports director

ESTHER ALLWEISS INGBER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

W

DIV-TV Sports Director Bernie Smilovitz is a go-to source for news about Detroit’s franchise sports teams and other professional sports. A winner of six local Emmys and six Best Sportscaster Awards, he’s known for the humor that informs his reporting and in his trademark “Bernie’s Bloopers” and “Weekend at Bernie’s” sports segments.

Smilovitz was born in Brooklyn and raised in southeast Washington, D.C. With 36 years under his belt at WDIV, Bernie has become a Metro Detroit celebrity. Not many viewers are aware of his backstory, however, as a 2G — the child of Holocaust survivors.

CHAIM (Children of Holocaust Survivors Association in Michigan) is a caring community for the second generation, “concerned with Holocaust education and remembrance, and combating prejudice and bigoty in all of its forms,” said CHAIM founder Dr. Charles Silow, the group’s co-president with Sandra Silver.

When Bernie’s family connection to the Holocaust came to her attention, Silver asked him to share his mother’s and father’s stories. He agreed, then invited anchor Devin Scillian, his longtime friend and colleague, to interview him at the CHAIM program.

“A Conversation with Bernie Smilovitz” attracted 95 par-

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ticipants on May 12 at the Zekelman Holocaust Center (HC) in Farmington Hills.

BERNIE’S MOM’S STORY “For forever, our entire lives, my mother never wanted to talk to her sons about her Holocaust experiences,” Smilovitz said, echoing the experience in other 2G households. ‘“You don’t need to hear’” is what Rita (Mermelstein) Smilovitz typically told Bernie and his younger brother, Harvey.

She and their father, Izidor “Izzy” Smilovitz, spoke Yiddish in the family’s one-bedroom apartment, and the brothers themselves became fluent. They were always hoping to overhear some detail from their tightlipped parents about what had happened to them during World War II. Everything changed when Zach Smilovitz, a son of Bernie and his clinical therapist wife, Dr. Donna Rockwell (Jake is their other son), joined his high school’s film club. Just 16 at the time, Zach decided his class project at Detroit Country Day School in Beverly Hills would be making a documentary about Rita and Izzy. To Bernie’s amazement, his parents were now eager to speak. They “opened the vault and told him everything,” Bernie said.

Zach’s mature and heartfelt documentary, A is for Auschwitz: A Weekend with My Grandparents, is available for

viewing at the HC, on YouTube and in many schools around the country.

Bernie’s mother, Rita, was born in 1925 in Czechoslovakia.

She came from a large farm family of 11, also supported by her father’s general store. Rita was 15 when her mother died from typhus. At close to 18, Rita and other family members were put on what she called in the film: “an animal train to Auschwitz.”

Young and healthy, Rita worked the next two years in the killing center’s crematorium, or as she described it: “the place where they put bodies in the chimney.”

In the documentary, Rita shares many of the horrific moments she experienced, where “every morning, we were sleeping on dead people.” She knew the Nazi German officer and physician Josef Mengele, notorious for performing experiments on Auschwitz prisoners.

One time while opening packages from a cargo train, she heard a baby’s cry. A guard holding a rifle to her head then made Rita throw the baby into the fiery oven.

“She had to live with that,” Bernie said. Now he understood why “there were nights you heard her crying.”

BERNIE’S DAD’S STORY Bernie’s father, Izzy, was born in 1915 in Hungary. Izzy’s father wanted him to be a rabbi. Izzy’s mother died a year after his bar mitzvah. When the Nazis invad-

Devin Scillian, WDIV anchor

CHAIM co-presidents Dr. Charles Silow and Sandra Silver

WDIV colleagues and friends Devin Scillian and Bernie Smilovitz before the program

ed Poland in September 1939, “we had to go to the borders to fight back,” Izzy said.

Held four years in a slave labor camp, he recalled in the film being forced to cut trees that 30 or 40 people would then carry up the hill.

After escaping with others, the group lived in the woods and did whatever was needed to survive as part of the Resistance. Years later, Izzy received a letter from the Hungarian government saying that it was granting him about $3,000 (the U.S. equivalent) “for the death of your family members during World War II.” The documentary has gaps in the couple’s wartime history but includes what happened later. Rita and Izzy each reached New York City in the late 1940s and took factory jobs. They met at Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. Izzy’s brother told Rita, “He’s the nicest person. You should marry him.” And they were, until Izzy passed away 11 years ago.

When Rita died in December 2021, author and Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom, a family friend, wrote about the warmth, strength and humor of the 96-year-old woman. After introducing Rita to Mitch in 1997, Bernie explained to her that Albom was the writer of the bestselling book Tuesdays with Morrie about his visits with a cherished professor.

Bernie agreed with Devin Scillian that his humorous ways could have come from his mother, who enlivened every gathering. Bernie said Rita “had no filter,” speaking English with some Yiddish mixed in, and “most of the time it was so funny.” An example from the Albom column: “If a restaurant served

something she didn’t like, she’d crack: ‘The food was better in Auschwitz.’”

By contrast, Izzy was the family disciplinarian.

Education came first with him. When Bernie’s fourthgrade report card included a “D” in typing, Izzy made him practice for hours.

From Bernie’s descriptions, the Smilovitzes seem to have adjusted pretty well to their new lives in America. Still, he remains convinced that “Holocaust survivors have a different vibe to them,” such as panicking when a family member comes late.

Rita once became frantic noticing her grandson Jake playing basketball outside.

“She said that Germans might be in the bushes,” Bernie recalled. “She’d have little outbursts like this.”

Mostly, Rita was content to feed people her delicious cooking and lavish love on her family. It now includes a new grandchild for Bernie and Donna, who have three. Zach’s first child is named Isabel or Izzy, for Bernie’s father.

“There was hell,” Rita said about Auschwitz in the documentary, before pivoting abruptly to tell Zach and Bernie, “but now I have to make you French toast.”

At the conclusion of the program, CHAIM gave Scillian a copy of Invisible Ink, a book by Dr. Guy Stern, director of the HC’s Zekelman International Institute of the Righteous. Silver announced a donation to the museum to honor the memory of Bernie’s mother, Rita.

She said, “As our survivors age and pass, it is more important than ever to keep sharing a parent’s story, in hopes that the Holocaust doesn’t happen again.”

Sponsored by the Irving and Beverly Laker Concert Series:

Shul Sisters Concert Thursday, June 9, 2022 7:00 p.m.

The Shul Sisters is the brainchild of these acclaimed Cantors Laurie Akers

(Congregation Or Shalom, Chicago)

Rachel Brook

(Anshe Emet Synagogue, Chicago)

Rachel Goldman

(Congregation Ner Tamid, Los Angeles)

They are the first female cantorial trio in the U.S. and their collaboration has been connecting communities across the world through harmony since 2019.

Concert tickets are FREE, but registration is required.

Patron Seating with Dessert Reception $100.

For more information, contact the synagogue office at (248)357-5544. part of the

Soundstage Shaarey Zedek

series

MAY 26 • 2022

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OUR COMMUNITY

Israeli Consulate to Target Detroit with Its Social Impact Grants Applications are open to anyone and must be submitted by the end of May. JACKIE HEADAPOHL DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL

D

aniel Aschheim, Deputy Consul General at the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest, was in Metro Detroit last week to get the word out about Social Impact Grants from the Israeli Consulate.

Three grants of up to $5,000 will Daniel be offered to Aschheim applicants who are committed to creating social impact in new ways or through maintaining existing social programs.

Aschheim, based in Chicago, said part of his job is to “showcase the diverse Israeli society. What Israel does is embrace diversity, whether it’s in the Jewish community, the non-Jewish community, minority communities or any others.”

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As part of the Israeli Consulate’s work in the Midwest, Aschheim does outreach outside the Jewish community, to the African American and Hispanic communities, for example, to show that, “yes, you can be liberal, progressive and proIsrael.”

According to Aschheim, it’s a part of Israel’s DNA to empower other communities.

Eight months ago, the Consulate provided its first Social Impact Grants in the Minneapolis community.

“We said we are looking to invest in groups and organizations that deal with pressing matters of their community, whether it’s connected to sustainability, health, equity, education, accessibility, LGBTQ rights, women, empowerment, youth empowerment, dealing with

discrimination, hate crimes,” he said. “We want to invest in those who deal with these issues in their communities.”

Aschheim said they received 104 applications and chose three winners: an organization called A Mother’s Love, a group whose members were victims of or who had family who were victims of gun violence in the African American community; Minnesota STEM Partnership, which provides people of color with opportunities in math and science; and Her Time to Play, a WNBA-affiliated group empowering young women to develop life skills through basketball.

“Now we want to do the same thing in Metro Detroit,” he said. Organizations that deal with pressing issues in the community are

encouraged to apply.

Applicants must be residents of Michigan and committed to improving social change. Certified 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization status is preferred, but not required.

You do not need to be Jewish to apply; the grants are open to anyone.

Grant winners must utilize funding provided by the Consulate during the upcoming calendar year.

Applicants have until the end of May to apply at https:// tinyurl.com/mwzhrhvt. The process is very user-friendly.

Applicants will be judged beginning in June and the grants will be awarded in mid-June at a local ceremony in Detroit.

“There’s nothing to lose from applying,” Aschheim said.

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OUR COMMUNITY

A Proper Burial for Holy Books Beth Shalom buries old books containing the name of God. BARBARA LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

I

t looked like any other funeral procession, except there was no hearse and no corpse.

Volunteers in a small convoy of cars from Congregation Beth Shalom in Oak Park to Hebrew Memorial Park in Clinton Township were carrying old prayerbooks and other printed materials containing the name of God. According to Jewish tradition, these need to be stored or buried, not trashed or burned.

Such items, which can include everything from old, irreparable Torah scrolls and worn-out prayer shawls to primers introducing children to prayer, are known collectively as shaimos, or “names.” The practice of burying them stems from Deuteronomy

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Chapter 2, where the Israelites are ordered to blot out and destroy the names of the gods of the nations they conquer, but not to treat God in the same way.

“Sacred texts should not be discarded in the garbage,” said Beth Shalom’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Robert Gamer.

For thousands of years, Jews have been storing or burying such materials in spaces that became known as genizas, from the Hebrew verb l’g’noze, to stash or store away.

The renowned Cairo geniza, discovered in 1896, was a shaft in an ancient synagogue wall where all kinds of materials written in Hebrew were stored. Because of the dry environment, the items,

ABOVE: Aryeh Gamer, 15, of Huntington Woods lowers a carton of books into the prepared grave with help from a cemetary staffer.

LEFT: The Beth Shalom book burial team included (from left) Rabbi Robert Gamer, Yefim Milter, Aryeh Gamer, Cantor Sam Greenbaum, Marie Slotnick, Sarah Reisig, Aaron Pickover and Glen Pickover.

dating back to the 1100s, did not decompose; they proved to be a historical treasure trove.

Beth Shalom had 103 cartons of old printed materials, including full sets of prayerbooks last used in the 1980s, benschers used for the grace after meals, old library books and texts from the religious school. Much of the material had been in the synagogue’s basement and had been damaged in the 2014 flood, but there was also a complete Talmud in good condition.

Other materials came from congregants and others who lived in the neighborhood and had heard about the geniza project.

“We looked at more than 3,000 books to decide what we could recycle and what had to be buried,” Gamer said. “We tried to give things away, but not much was taken.” One reason is that many Hebrew texts, including the Talmud, are now available free online. People don’t need the physical books as much any-

more, he said.

Some congregations bury shaimos in a plot on their own grounds. In Detroit, most such materials are interred at Hebrew Memorial Park in Clinton Township, under the auspices of the Hebrew Benevolent Society.

Beth Shalom’s executive director, Shira Shapiro, worked with cemetery officials; once they knew the number of cartons and their dimensions; cemetery workers were able to prepare a long, narrow plot just large enough to handle the materials.

A dozen synagogue members joined Gamer and Cantor Sam Greenbaum in a brief ceremony in the synagogue’s lobby before loading the cartons into cars and unloading the cartons into the prepared plot.

Burying books is ecologically responsible, Gamer said. The books will return to the earth to enrich the soil, which will be used to grow trees, which will be used to make more books.

It literally turned my life around.

How a short-term training program from Oakland Community College gave Shawn McWilliams opportunity and a lucrative career.

OAKLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE STAFF

L

ike so many teenagers, Shawn McWilliams graduated high school without knowing what he wanted to do with his life.

“I was told to go to a fouryear college and get a degree to find a job,” says Shawn, who graduated from Avondale High School in 2019. “But I never really had a plan for what that meant.”

After attending a local college for a few semesters, Shawn felt like he wasn’t finding the direction he needed. And that was when his mother showed him what would become a life-changing resource.

“She told me about

Michigan’s Economic Workforce Development Program and how you could train for the latest jobs at OCC. When she mentioned that I could learn about robotics in just a few months and possibly have a job waiting for me, I was hooked,” remembers Shawn.

Hooked indeed, and for good reason. Shawn immediately applied for a 14-week shortterm training course at Oakland Community College in robotics and PLC programming. Not only was he accepted, but he qualified for free tuition based on eligibility requirements through Michigan Works! And that was just the beginning.

Shawn recalls, “There were so many things I loved about the program right away. For starters, the instructors all had real-world experience. Also, everything was completely hands on with very little book work. And I really loved how comprehensive everything was.

I definitely felt prepared to get a job.”

Beyond taking robots apart and putting them back together, Shawn learned about the various business opportunities available for someone in this cutting-edge field. This included programming robots in countless industries around the world such as aerospace and big pharma.

Of course, for lifelong Michigan natives like Shawn, the ability to work in the Detroit metro area - the world’s epicenter of automotive automation - was just as appealing.

“It was clear to me early on that I could use my new knowledge to work in any number of automotive jobs,” says Shawn.

“So, you can imagine how excited I was to discover that I had some high-paying prospects right around the corner that were waiting for me when I finished.”

That’s right. After only one 14-week course - and with no previous experience - Shawn went from classroom to employment. He now works for GLOBAL Automation Technologies, LLC in Auburn Hills as an automation engineer where he programs computers for automating automotive assembly line processes. And he loves it.

“This technology is so fascinating and there are so many interesting things going on,” Shawn says.

And the best part? Shawn loves the fact he’s making more money than he thought possible. While most of his friends are taking student loans, Shawn hopes to make a six-figure salary within a few years.

Shawn is also grateful to OCC for helping him to find a huge opportunity in a short amount of time.

“The program quite literally turned my life around,” Shawn recalls. “If not for it, I have no idea what I would be doing today.”

OAKLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE oaklandcc.edu/admissions

SPONSORED BY OAKLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE MAY 26 • 2022

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NEXT DOR VOICE OF THE NEW JEWISH GENERATION Chella Bluth and Jeremy Rosenberg at a Chanukah party

A New Jewish Hub in Detroit Moishe Pod Detroit creates events for young Jewish adults.

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

W

hen Moishe Pod Detroit opened in December 2021, there was one goal: to build upon Detroit’s already vibrant Jewish community. Geared for young adults and organized by couple Jeremy Rosenberg, 23, and Menuchah Bluth, 24, who goes by Chella, Moishe Pod Detroit puts on events, social gatherings and more to create a hub for Jewish Detroit.

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Rosenberg and Bluth live in-house at Moishe Pod Detroit (or MoPo), located in Woodbridge. It slightly differs from a Moishe House, which operates as co-op housing with several young Jewish adults. Instead, a pod is run by two.

“The previous Detroit Moishe House was closing, and they weren’t going to refill it,” Rosenberg recalls.

“Instead of trying to open a

new house, they wanted to start a pod.”

For the Modern Orthodox couple, who recently got married, the opportunity felt like a great fit as a next step in their journey. When asked to be the pod’s residents, they were all in for the experience.

“We welcome everyone [to the pod],” says Bluth, who explains that the pod can feel like a home to Jews of all levels of observance and interests.

NAVIGATING THE PANDEMIC The December opening started off strong. “We had a great kickoff party,” Rosenberg recalls.

However, COVID-19 was surging at the same time, particularly with the highly contagious Omicron wave, so the ongoing pandemic slowed the pod’s plans down.

“It was harder to get people to come to events,” Rosenberg continues.

After three months, however, things began to look up. COVID-19 case numbers once again dropped and, by February and March of 2022, Moishe Pod Detroit was back in action.

Frequently partnering with a wide variety of Jewish organizations in the area, such as Chabad Detroit, Hebrew Free Loan and more, Moishe Pod Detroit is steadily becoming a promising figure in the local young adult community. Now, as summer rolls in and the weather turns warmer, they plan to up the ante on events, especially outdoor ones.

“We’re more looking forward than we are looking

into the past,” Rosenberg says. “We’ve strengthened our partnerships with other organizations here because in the summer, everyone’s coming out of the woodwork, and everyone’s experienced the same challenges when it comes to COVID-19 and lack of engagement.”

Both Rosenberg and Bluth are in awe of the combined work being done across Detroit to boost engagement and continue to build upon the Downtown Jewish community.

“There are so many great organizations doing great things in the city,” Bluth says, “and only so big of an audience. As opposed to contributing to that overlap, we’re trying to create that overlap at the organizational level, to get people familiar with different offerings or industries.”

EVENTS FOR ALL INTERESTS They’re also working on creating programming through Moishe Pod Detroit that caters to a variety of individuals. “We want to create programs that complement people’s interests,” Bluth continues.

“People want to volunteer and also go to brunch.”

Rosenberg says Moishe Pod Detroit events have drawn a variety of ages, anywhere 18-year-olds to those in their mid- to late-30s. They’re not structured, but rather provide an opportunity for young adults to simply hang out and make new friends.

“There’s no one answer,” Rosenberg says of age requirements. “Whenever

term plan for Moishe Pod Detroit just yet, Rosenberg and Bluth say they’re taking the experience day-byday and are excited about its possibilities. Over the next few weeks, they plan a lunch-and-learn, sports and snack morning, and a brunch and volunteer event.

There are more events to come in the summer.

“We’re intentional about our events showing Detroit as a place to live and not just to work or go to Tigers games,” Bluth says.

“Let’s build friendships and let’s build a community — hopefully, that’s inspiring enough for people to stick around.”

A Purim event in the Moishe Pod

NEXTWORK

we come across someone new who’s Jewish and hasn’t found that sweet spot of how they want to be engaged [with the community], we try to make ourselves available to them.”

For Rosenberg and Bluth, who were hosting Shabbat dinners and other Jewish events long before becoming Moishe Pod Detroit residents, the pod was an excellent way to continue their mission with the support of the larger Jewish community. It also helps them share the beauty of greater Downtown Detroit and benefits of living in the city.

While there isn’t a long-

NEXTWork’s Successful Vision Creating a personal vision of greatness with ZingTrain.

RACHEL SWEET ASSOCIATE EDITOR

O

n Sunday, May 1, NEXTWork hosted a professional workshop event with ZingTrain.

The event, titled “Creating a Personal Vision of Greatness with ZingTrain,” was a professional development program from Zingerman’s, which is well known for its food.

During the workshop, a group of 30 people were able to have brunch, network and learn about how visioning has been an important part

of Zingerman’s success and how to use these powerful tools to fuel their own personal and professional successes.

NEXTWork Co-Chair Roman Golshteyn says he was blown away with the impactful information he learned during the workshop. “The tools that were shared with us were easy to apply and implement in various areas of my life.

It was a phenomenal event,” he said.

The NEXTWork

“The ZingTrain was a fun and informative event, giving us food for thought on finding new ways to create and achieve our goals,” said Emily Slabotsky, NEXTWork co-chair.

community was founded in 2013, and is a collaborative initiative between JVS Human Services and Jewish Federation’s NEXTGen Detroit.

The goal of NEXTWork is to provide young Jewish professionals with meaningful resources, expertise and networking

opportunities to help build careers in the Detroit area.

NEXTWork is made possible through the Hadas and Dennis Bernard NEXTWork Endowment Fund.

To learn how you can join the NEXTWork community or find out when their next event, visit https://jlive.app.

MAY 26 • 2022

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faces&places

The Motown Seder: Building Community and Sharing Cultures Hosted by Motown Museum and the Jewish Community Relations Council/AJC, the May 15 Motown Seder brought together Detroit’s Jewish and Black leaders using the model of a traditional seder dinner.

After a warm welcome from Motown Museum Chairwoman and CEO Robin Terry and JCRC/AJC Executive Director Rabbi Asher Lopatin, guests enjoyed and sang along during performances from the museum’s 2022 Amplify Artist of the Year, Travis James, and Motown Museum board member, musician and philanthropist Ethan Davidson.

They also heard from Wayne

State History Professor Saeed Khan and Detroit Pastor Kenneth Flowers, followed by table discussions surrounding topics of slavery and freedom as they relate to Jewish and/or Black history and present-day life.

“The Motown Seder demonstrates that the Black and Jewish communities can come together for serious discussions and joyous celebration to enhance each other and make us both stronger and more vibrant,” said Rabbi Asher Lopatin. “Our unity and support for one another will make Detroit and our world a better place for everyone.”

Wayne State Professor Dr. Saeed Khan, center, reads over a topic of discussion as singer Travis James, left, and philanthropist Ethan Davidson, right, look on.

ABOVE LEFT: Guests and organizers of the Motown Seder pose for a photo before the event.

ABOVE RIGHT: More guests get their photo taken.

LEFT: Rabbi Asher Lopatin checks in on the Motown Seder guests during dinner.

JCRC/AJC Executive Director Rabbi Asher Lopatin welcomes guests to the Motown Seder.

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faces&places

Hillel Day School’s Annual Gala Approximately 500 people gathered at Hillel Day School in West Bloomfield May 2 to celebrate Nancy and Robert “Bobby” Schostak as they received the 2022 Dream Maker and Rabbi Jacob E. Segal (z’’l) Awards at the school’s Annual Gala.

Annie Slabotsky, a 2011 Hillel graduate, also received the Distinguished Alumni Award.

Guests enjoyed an evening filled with exciting live and silent auctions, live entertainment and a strolling dinner, all within the beautifully transformed campus.

Nancy and Bobby were recognized for their more than 50-year commitment to the school, starting when Bobby began sixth grade in 1965.

They join their father, Jerry Schostak, who received both honors in 1997 and their mother, Arlene Tilchin, who received the Rabbi Jacob E. Segal (z’’l) Award in 2004.

A highlight of the evening was when the Schostaks’ 10 grandchildren sang the Israeli and U.S. anthems, representing a generational commitment to Hillel that continues to this day.

Slabotsky, co-founder and CEO of GoNanas, a women-owned, vegan, gluten-free and top allergen-free banana bread company, thanked Hillel for instilling in her the resilience to pivot during challenging times and inspiring her to follow her passions.

Eighth-grade speaker Tziporah Cohen shared remarks about the impact Hillel has made on her during her tenure at the school, highlighting the school’s emphasis on derekh eretz (treating each other with respect), community, self-confidence and friendship.

Hillel congratulates its honorees and thanks its attendees and supporters, including the 50 organizations and individuals who sponsored the Gala and directly allow the school to fulfill its mission of helping families provide a Hillel education, regardless of their ability to pay.

Bobby Schostak and Catherine and Nate Forbes

Steve Goodman, Gary Shiffman, Dan Greenberg, Rob Orley and George Glassman

If you would like to honor the Schostaks, Slabotsky or support Hillel, go to hillelday.org/ giving/annual-fund.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF HILLEL Bobby and Nancy Schostak with their children and grandchildren

Larry Slabotsky, Susan Slabotsky, Brandon Nasatir, Annie Slabotsky, Emily Slabotsky and Zachary Slabotsky

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Julie and Aaron Feinberg, Josh Levine and Lou Goldhaber

faces&places

Cancer Thrivers Network Enjoys In-Person Program At a programming committee meeting back in March, members of the Cancer Thrivers Network decided it was ready to have an in-person activity and chose to do a program at Goldner Walsh Nursery in Pontiac, where participants could build their own terrariums.

“We have a lot of members interested in plants and both indoor and outdoor gardening,” said Trisha Mindel, Cancer Thrivers Network program manager, “so the setting was perfect as we were surrounded by stunning potted begonias and every other type of greenery one could imagine. It was a beautiful and mentally soothing venue complete with a little wildlife in the form of their in-house tortoise, Nelson.”

Participants were guided through the layered composition of the charcoal and soil and decorative elements as well as the selection of the miniature plants to complete their

tiny ecosystems, and members were delighted by their efforts.

“No less delightful was the joy we took in spending time together after long separation,” Mindel added.

The Cancer Thrivers Network’s vision and purpose is to join together in community to create new bonds, strengthen old bonds and to share life-affirming joyful experiences with one another. The pandemic has been as hard on this group as it has been on any.

“We enjoyed our time building terrariums and our time enjoying some gluten- and dairy-free kosher snacks from Plum Market and delicious kosher coffee from Soul Café,” Mindel said.

The Cancer Thrivers Network is open to women who’ve experienced cancer. For information, contact Trisha Mindel at 248-592-2267 or tmindel@jfsdetroit.org.

PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY CANCER THRIVERS NETWORK

Susie Yesenko and Francie Cook build their terrariums.

Pam Goldberg shows off her terrarium.

Janet Moses, left, and Judie Blumeno, right, with Goldner Walsh terrarium instructor.

MAY 26 • 2022

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JOSH BIRNBERG

OUR COMMUNITY

Diamond Dandies

26-year-old coach leads West Bloomfield baseball team to its 3rd league title in 25 years.

STEVE STEIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

I

championship last year. We got a taste of what we could do. We knew we weren’t that far off.”

The league championship is particularly meaningful for Weiss.

“To win it as a senior, well, that means a lot,” he said.

West Bloomfield was 9-2 in the OAA White last week with one league game to play, at home against Groves.

North Farmington (8-4) was in second place, followed by Groves (6-5), Birmingham Seaholm (4-7) and Farmington (1-10).

The Lakers won all of their three-game series in the league. They were the only league team to achieve that feat.

Seaholm did West Bloomfield a huge favor two weeks ago by taking two of three from North Farmington.

Farmington went 12-3 in the league last season and won the title. West Bloomfield finished in a three-way tie for second place with North Farmington and Groves, all at 9-6.

This is Birnberg’s third year as the West Bloomfield baseball coach, although his first season (2020) was wiped out by the

West Bloomfield baseball coach Josh Birnberg.

TERANCE BOWERS

t happened in 1998, then not again until 2015. Now it’s happened again.

What’s happened? The West Bloomfield High School baseball team has won a league championship.

The Lakers — guided by 26-year-old Coach Josh Birnberg — won the Oakland Activities Association White Division title this spring, only their third league championship in 25 years.

“A day I will never forgot” is how Birnberg describes May 16, when the Lakers swept a doubleheader on the road at Birmingham Groves to lock up the OAA White championship.

West Bloomfield beat Groves 6-2 and 11-2.

Senior Josh Weiss was the winning pitcher in the opener, allowing two runs in 4⅓ innings, and he went 3-for-6 at the plate with two RBIs during the twin bill.

“Our league is so competitive and on top of that, every team in the league is a rival for us,” Birnberg said. “Winning the league has been a huge emphasis for us this season. To see all our hard work come to fruition is awesome.

“We were in the hunt for the league

Josh Weiss smacks an RBI single for West Bloomfield during the second game of a May 16 doubleheader at Birmingham Groves.

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COVID-19 pandemic.

He’s a former West Bloomfield baseball star.

He was the starting shortstop for the Lakers for four years, including the 2014 team that shocked perennial power Birmingham Brother Rice in the districts and went on to advance to the regional finals.

He never won a league title as a West Bloomfield baseball player.

“We were the league champion in 2015 ... one year after I graduated,” he said.

The Lakers were 25-15 overall last season. They were 24-6 overall this season going into last week’s game vs. Groves.

Their biggest non-league win this season was a 3-0 shutout of defending Division 1 state champion Grand Blanc on the road April 20. Weiss earned a two-inning save in that game.

Next on West Bloomfield’s plate is a Division 1 district tournament the Lakers are hosting June 4.

If the Lakers beat Troy in a 12:30 p.m. semifinal game, they’ll likely get a shot at Orchard Lake St. Mary’s (31-0), one of the country’s top high school baseball teams, immediately afterward in the district championship game.

“We’ve known all season that we could play St. Mary’s in the state tournament, but we haven’t thought about it,” Birnberg said. “We’ve been focusing on the task at hand.”

Now the task at hand is the state tournament.

“It was great to win the league, but we’re

DANIEL WEISS

Josh Weiss waits at third base during a West Bloomfield game early this season.

Mazel Tov!

Cami Jordan Brode Krugel Dearest Cami,

not done. We’re moving on to our next goal,” said Weiss, who hit two home runs in a game against Farmington earlier this month and will continue his baseball career next season at Schoolcraft College in Livonia.

His brother Andrew Weiss, a former West Bloomfield baseball player, is finishing his Schoolcraft baseball career this spring before moving to play at MichiganDearborn. He’s an outfielder.

Schoolcraft plays its 1/8

3.6041 x 2.324

home games at The Corner Ballpark, the former site of Tiger Stadium.

In addition to Birnberg and Weiss, a third baseman or designated hitter when he isn’t pitching, other Jewish members of the West Bloomfield baseball team are senior first baseman Nolan Vasser, junior pitcher/infielder Justin Edelheit and junior catcher Jacob Mills.

Please send sports news to stevestein502004@yahoo.com.

Border #3

Congratulations!

JN Cap & Gown

Our memories of you growing up have been filled with warm, loving, musical moments.

You are unfailingly kind, empathetic and welcoming. We marvel at your brilliance, strength and creativity. We look forward to your future and enjoying more bonding “adventures.” We wish you a lifetime of health, happiness and laughter.

243 Grammy & Papa

Congratulations!

Noah and Brandon Yaker We are SO incredibly proud of both of you! “Cousins by chance, friends by choice,” you have a unique bond and are so close, but you are each undeniably your own person. We know you will both thrive at U of M, and we can’t wait to see you on football Saturdays! Go Blue!! We love you!

XOXO, Your adoring Parents, Siblings and Pups

Alexa Shepherd

Congratulations on your acceptance to Lyman Briggs College, Michigan State University.

You are our pride and joy!

Wishing you all the best as you begin this new chapter of your life.

Your loving grandparents, Helene & Edward Kaplan Susan & David Shepherd MAY 26 • 2022

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43

HEALTH Rabbi Herbert Yoskowitz

Reinventing Himself Rabbi Herbert Yoskowitz enjoys a second career teaching medical students about bioethics.

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

R

abbi Herbert Yoskowitz stepped away from being the full-time spiritual leader of Adat Shalom Synagogue in 2018, but he has not stepped away from professional leadership in the ethical imperative of the rabbinate.

The rabbi’s central commitment has moved from synagogue to academia as he regularly conducts two seven-session seminars at the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine. Both are part of the for-credit elective curriculum.

Jewish Bioethics, which began in 2012 with the

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opening of the medical school, regularly changes as it covers current health issues, such as treatment allotments during COVID. Nazi Medicine and Its Impact on the Founding of Bioethics, which began in 2017, has an historic orientation as it delves into the influence of German anatomists on politics, medical experiments without informed consent and attitudes toward eugenics.

“My goal as a rabbi and educator is to try to teach the students that they should not be passive,” said Yoskowitz, who has been surprised that most of the students

enrolling in his seminars have not been Jewish.

“Medical students should learn to be active in defending the ethics that we try to teach them to make a difference in the places they occupy as medical students and throughout the time they serve as physicians.

“Since becoming a rabbi in the 1970s, I have believed that the most important aspect of Judaism is the respect for human life regardless of race or religion, and so issues of bioethics remain central to what I want to communicate.”

Yoskowitz, whose next Jewish Bioethics series starts in late summer and whose next Nazi Medicine series returns in the fall, also speaks on specific bioethical topics before medical students at other schools. He points out that after World War II, the issues were addressed through The Nuremberg Code as a consequence of courtroom trials revealing the extent of Nazi medical cruelty.

Some 120 students have attended Yoskowitz’s seminars, reading the assigned articles and preparing required papers based on their own research interests.

SOMETHING NEW This year, two major changes are occurring in what will be offered through the second seminar. The most far-reaching is the planning of a trip to Poland so students can experience the

Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and observe the structures where devastating experiments occurred.

The second is a salute to personnel staffing the Israeli field hospital established in Ukraine.

“The Jewish doctors who have set up a field hospital are consistent with what Jewish physicians have done through the centuries,” Yoskowitz said. “We Jews, within our ethical system, believe that all people are created in the image of God. Therefore, when we are helping to heal people, we are partners with God and what God intended us to do.”

A continuing seminar speaker is Guy Stern, retired Wayne State University professor and Holocaust survivor who served with a United States World War II military intelligence interrogation team. Students also visit the Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills.

“History has proven that we must learn from the lessons of the past in order to increase the chances of avoiding the repetition of the same errors,” Yoskowitz said about his immersion into this topic after graduate education in history at Rice University in Texas and participation in a bioethics fellowship sponsored by the Bush Foundation Leadership Program with study at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

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“Just as I am passionate about transmitting the tragic lessons of history to the next generation of physicians, I want them to know about Jewish physicians and nurses who rose to great heights and remained true to high ethical standards in caring for people in ghettos and concentration camps even at the risk of their lives.”

In planning seminar content, Yoskowitz consulted with Professor Dan Michman, head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem in Israel.

“He and I met after he learned about my interest in bioethics and the Holocaust,” the rabbi said.

“He suggested that while it was important to learn about the terrible things that Nazi physicians did, it’s also important to teach the students about the models of health care. He would show me articles written about Jewish doctors that came from students he

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MEET THE OLIM

Sean Littman: “Move to Israel Now.” AVIVA ZACKS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

S

ean (or Zeesha) Littman, 31, made aliyah from Oak Park in 2011, about two months after he married Ilana. He credits the decision to his wife’s wisdom. They live with their children, Tamar, 9, Emuna, 8, Tzofia, 6, and Ahuva Roza, 17 months, in Ramat Beit Shemesh.

JN: Where did you move to?

Sean: At first, we lived in Tel Zion, which is a Yishuv outside of Jerusalem, where we knew one person who lived there. We ended up becoming close with the rabbi and rebbetzin of the shul. Eventually, we moved to Ramat Beit Shemesh, where we have been living for eight years.

JN: Where did you grow up?

Sean: I grew up in Oak Park and went to Avery Elementary, Norup Middle School and Berkeley High. I went to YBY Day Camp for many summers and became friends with many Orthodox kids my age.

Around the time of my bar mitzvah, I realized that my friends wouldn’t come to Beth Shalom because of the microphone, so we had my bar mitzvah at Young Israel. My

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father became very close with Rabbi Reuven Spolter.

JN: Did you come to Israel for the year after high school?

Sean: I wanted to go to Yeshiva after high school, so I went to Derech Etz Chaim in Har Nof. I knew how to learn, but my (Hebrew) reading was not that great. The Yeshiva suggested that I go to Machon Bernstein in Meah Shearim to help improve my reading skills. It worked like a charm, and now I can read Hebrew and Yiddish flawlessly. I learned at DEC for two years, and with some very powerful advice from a very wise friend, I learned in another Yeshiva for about six months, and then Ilana and I got engaged. Eventually, we got married and moved to Israel about two months later.

JN: Tell me about Ilana’s idea to move to Israel.

Where did that idea come from?

Sean: It was brilliant. She said we haven’t laid any roots here in Michigan yet and that it made the most sense to be in Israel. It won’t be easy, but it will be where we need to be. I was hesitant at first, but once

Sean Littman

we did it, I never looked back.

She always says, “If you don’t want to be here than you’ll never make it.”

JN: What are you doing professionally?

Sean: I’ve worked for a lot of companies and have done a lot of different things. At the moment, I am running three different companies: a property management company, a marketing agency that deals with nonprofits and a cybersecurity company that recently launched.

JN: Tell me about your kids.

Sean: My kids go to an amazing school called Talmud Torah Moriah, which has the educational approach of Harav Kook. My kids speak English and Hebrew, and they want to learn Russian because my wife speaks Russian. They love living here every single day.

We were in America for five weeks this past summer, and we see how much better our

life is here.

JN: What are their extracurriculars?

Sean: My children were very active in ballet for a while and now have switched to gymnastics and love every minute of it. The baby even joins in with them!

JN: Is there anything that you miss about Michigan?

Sean: Detroit is a wonderful community filled with amazing people, but I really only miss Jerusalem Pizza and a good Sara’s Deli sandwich!

JN: Do you have a message for anyone who’s considering making aliyah from Detroit?

Sean: If you want to make aliyah, move to Israel now. It’s an amazing place to be because there are so many different types of people here. I’ll give you my phone number, and if you have questions, are looking for advice or are looking to start a business, call me.

MAZAL TOV

TO ELEMENTARY EDUCATOR OF THE YEAR, JODI TEPPER AND Michelle Bortnick, Jackie Eaton, Pam Farber, Anna Gartman, Adina Levin, Nick Porterfield, and Lauren Sterling ON RECEIVING HONORABLE MENTIONS Hillel celebrates ALL of its incredible teachers who inspire a passion for learning each and every day. Hillel students are lucky to have an amazing faculty dedicated to making a Hillel education an experience filled with joy, knowledge, and inspiration.

MICHELLE BORTNICK

JACKIE EATON

Math Curriculum Coordinator Middle School Math Educator Grades 5-8

Early Childhood Educator ECC Twees

JODI TEPPER Elementary Educator Grades 1-2

PAM FARBER

ANNA GARTMAN

Learning Specialist Grades 5-6

Early Childhood Educator ECC 4's

ADINA LEVIN

NICK PORTERFIELD

LAUREN STERLING

Elementary Judaic Studies Educator Kindergarten

Middle School Educator Language Arts & Social Studies Grades 5-6

Middle School Educator Language Arts Grade 8

MAY 26 • 2022

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MAZEL TOV! APRIL 12, 2022 Chad and Whitney Techner are delighted to announce the birth of their daughter, Nora Jane Techner. Thrilled big siblings are Eli, Miriam and Bonnie. Grandparents are David and Ilene Techner of Birmingham, and Cindy Brown of Corvallis, Ore. Great-grandparents are the late Babs and the late Herb Kaufman.

Brooks Kogan Barron, son of Lori Kaftan and Marc Barron, will be called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield on Friday, May 27, 2022. He will be joined in celebration by his brother Quinn. Brooks is the loving grandchild of Carole Kaftan Rubin and Barry Rubin, Geraldine and Melvin Kaftan, and Nora and Guy Barron.

Brooks is a student at Birmingham Covington School in Bloomfield Hills. His most meaningful mitzvah project was packing backpacks and donating school supplies for elementary students in Detroit.

Preston Cole Blum, son of Dr. Adina Blum, will be called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah at Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Township on Saturday, May 28, 2022. He will be joined in celebration by his brother Bentley.

Preston’s late grandparents are Phylis and Calvin Blum, and Constance and John Haimbaugh.

He is a student at Birmingham Covington School. One of his most

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meaningful mitzvah projects was making Spread Kindness bags during COVID with handmade masks, sanitizer, water, snacks and words of hope and encouragement, then personally handing them out to the homeless.

Sam Miles Daitch, son of Heather and Andy Daitch, was called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah at Adat Shalom Synagogue in Farmington Hills on Saturday, May 21, 2022. He was joined in celebration by his sisters Emily and Jillian. Sam is the loving grandchild of Dr. Mark and Lauren Rosenberg, and Dr. Jay and Sharon Daitch.

Sam is a student at Bloomfield Hills Middle School. For his mitzvah project, he has been collecting new and used sports equipment to donate to Detroit PAL. David Patrick Devaney, son of Caryn and Dennis Devaney, will be called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield on Friday, May 27, 2022. He

will be joined in celebration by his brother Matthew and sister Lauren. David is the loving grandson of Marshall and the late Karen Weingarden, the late Helen and William Bush III, and the late Dorothy and Peter Devaney.

David’s most meaningful mitzvah project was working with Brilliant Detroit, collecting books to support reading and literacy for elementary-aged school children.

Lauren Elizabeth Devaney, daughter of Caryn and Dennis Devaney, will be called to the Torah as a bat mitzvah at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield on Friday, May 27, 2022. She will be joined in celebration by her brothers Matthew and David. Lauren is the loving granddaughter of Marshall and the late Karen Weingarden, the late Helen and William Bush III, and the late Dorothy and Peter

Devaney.

Lauren’s most meaningful mitzvah project was working with Brilliant Detroit, collecting books to support reading and literacy for elementary-aged school children.

Eliana Lillian Weiss, daughter of Amy and Kevin Weiss, will be called to the Torah as a bat mitzvah at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield on Saturday, May 28, 2022.

She will be joined in celebration by her siblings Samuel and Gwendolyn.

Eliana is the loving grandchild of Andria and Mark Weiss, and Janice and Barry Kelman. She is the great-grandchild of Rose and Mark Hechler.

Eliana is a student at Norup International School in Oak Park. In addition to many mitzvah projects, her most meaningful was raising money by organizing donation drives for the Detroit Dog Rescue.

Goldsmith 60th

B

arbara and Herman Goldsmith celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in April with a party at their home on SylvanOtter Lake in Waterford.

Joining in the celebration were their children, grandchildren and six great-grandchildren as well as other family members and a host of friends. Barbara was a former teacher at Oak Park High School and just completed 35 years as a volunteer docent at the DIA. Herman, a retailer, was the original owner of Joe’s Army Navy Stores.

Marx-Grossman

S

ally and Leonard Grossman of Berkley and Lynette and Eric Marx of Cape Town, South Africa, are thrilled to announce the engagement of their children Michelle Malka Grossman and Jason Yaakov Marx.

Michelle graduated from Michigan State University with a B.A. in journalism.

She is senior marketing manager for a large digital marketing company, and her career has included serving in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit and reporting for The Jerusalem Post. She is the proud granddaughter of Hilda Grossman, the late Jack Grossman, the late Esther Kosova and the late Raymond Kosova.

Jason served in the IDF’s COGAT unit before attending Reichman University and graduating with a B.A. in communications. He is a sales development representative. He is the grandson of the late Esme and Jeffrey Marx, and the late Faye and Oliver Bark.

They are planning a June wedding in Herzliya, Israel.

Feinberg 75th

S

hirley and Paul Feinberg are celebrating their 75th wedding anniversary on May 29, 2022. Celebrating with them will be their children, Henry and Lynn Feinberg, Susie and Theo Goodwin, Barbara and Steve Kronick, Debby and Mark Rosner, and Marcy and Barnet Leland. Also celebrating will be their grandchildren, Nicole and William Feinberg, Sarah (Goodwin) and Julian Weintraub, Sam Goodwin, Katie Kronick and Michael Wilson, Aly Kronick and Mallory Moser, Alex Rosner, Matthew Rosner, Lauren (Leland) and Josh Brand, and Jason Leland, as well as five and a half greatgrandchildren, other relatives and friends.

CAP & GOWN HIGH SCHOOL GRADS LAUREN BROWN Groves High School National Honor Society, National Math Honor Society, Varsity Volleyball, Varsity Tennis, Big Brother Big Sister.

University of Michigan RJ CARREL Groves High School Captain and All-State Singles Varsity Tennis, Assistant Captain Varsity Hockey.

University of Wisconsin BREVIN CHERNETT Bloomfield Hills High School Summa cum laude, National Honor Society, Advanced Placement Scholar, University of Michigan Regent Scholarship, President’s Award for Education, Varsity Tennis, President Investment Club, Teen Board JARC and Jewish Federation.

University of Michigan EMMA CUTLER North Farmington High School JCRC/AJC LFT Program, NCJW volunteer, Raiders of the Performing Arts, Academic Letter Awardee.

Michigan State University ZOE GOLDMAN Bloomfield Hills High School Summa cum laude, National Honor Society, Youth Federation of Temple Israel Executive Board, Varsity Tennis.

Indiana University JOSH HALPRIN Bloomfield Hills High School Head of Recruiting B’nai B’rith Youth Organization Michigan Region, Past President Evan Shapiro AZA, Bloomfield Chorale, Varsity Track & Field, National Competitor American Ninja Warrior World Championship Competition.

Michigan State University EMILY RITS Detroit Country Day University of Michigan

MAY 26 • 2022

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MAZEL TOV! CAP & GOWN HIGH SCHOOL GRADS BENJAMIN STERN Bloomfield Hills High School National Honor Society, International Thespian Society, BBYO Regional President, Nu?Detroit Teen Editor, Hawkeye Managing Editor, Jewish Fund Teen Board, Temple Israel Madrich, Roots, Youth Federation of Temple Israel, Teen Engagement Fellowship, Theater, Superior rating in acting, Student Leadership, Class VP, United and Varsity Soccer.

Elon University HUNTER ZORN-BANOONI Bowers Academy Eastern Michigan University

Yiddish Limerick Memorial Day Mir vel gedaynkn di tayere neshomes fun alle, fun alle milchomes.

Far undz they hobn gegebn gegebn tayere laybn, a laybn fun hope un chaloymes.

Mir vel gedaynkn - we will remember di tayere neshomes - the precious souls fun alle milchomes - from all the wars Far undz they hobn gegebn - for us they gave their tayere laybn - precious life a laybn fun - a life of un chaloymes - and dreams

By Rachel Kapen

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SPIRIT

TORAH PORTION

How Best to Serve

O

this idea to the general perver the course of formance and fulfillment of thousands of years, God’s will as expressed in His the Jewish people Torah. The idea of limiting have toiled endlessly to uncov- our Jewish involvement and er and appreciate the depth interests exclusively to that which is palatable to our and significance of sensibilities is, albeit on a the Torah and its minor level, one form of commandments. idolatry in that one is “creUltimately, many ating God in man’s image.” of its teachings and The opportunity to condirectives have been nect and submit ourselves Rabbi explained in a manner to a truly “Higher power” Mendel which is pleasing to lies specifically in that Polter the palate of the modwhich may not sit well Parshat ern-day Jew. with our emotional and Bechukotai: However, there is a intellectual capacities. The Leviticus category of commandimportance and signifi26:3-27:34; ments nicknamed cance in the specific act, Jeremiah chukim in Hebrew, speech, etc., does not lie 16:19-17:14. literally translated in our personal palatable as “statutes,” which judgment which we assign include all those teachings and to it, but rather to the fact that directives which are incomthe Supreme Being considers prehensible to one’s sensibiliit important. ties. (The name of this week’s Rabbi Israel Ba’al Shem Torah portion, Bechukotai, is Tov, founder of the Chassidic rooted in the word chukim). movement, was a revolutionThe question is, how can ary in many ways. One of his we come to a sense of appreprimary accomplishments was ciation for that which seems the recognition and respect unappreciable and perhaps which he accorded to the sinantithetical to our modcere Jew. It did not matter to ern-day sensibilities? him if the person was intellecPerhaps it would help to tually or emotionally gifted. look at the original founding In fact, he would emphaof the Jewish belief system size much care and concern by our forefather Abraham. toward the illiterate Jews of The primary revolution of his time. He saw in them the Abraham can be defined by soulful connection to God the following question: Is God which was defined by their created by man or man is crepure and sincere dedication ated by God? and commitment to God and In other words, idol worHis Torah. Their relationship ship (which was prevalent with God was entirely unadulin Abraham’s times) was a terated by human definition, manifestation of the belief that as mentioned above. man is the one who chooses Suggestion: Next time you and assigns divinity to that are struggling with a Jewish which feels important and teaching, directive or value, divine. Versus Abraham who ponder the idea above and recognized the profundity of appreciate the opportunity to the fact that if we are discusstruly serve God in Abrahamic ing the Creator, He must be fashion. beyond human choice and definition.

Rabbi Mendel Polter is a rabbi at the Woodward Avenue Shul.

Similarly, one can apply

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SPIRIT

Synagogue Directory METRO DETROIT CONSERVATIVE Adat Shalom Synagogue Farmington Hills (248) 851-5100 adatshalom.org Congregation Beth Ahm West Bloomfield (248) 851-6880 cbahm.org Congregation Beth Shalom Oak Park (248) 547-7970 congbethshalom.org Beth Tephilath Moses Mt. Clemens (586) 996-3138 bethtephilathmoses.com B’nai Israel Synagogue West Bloomfield (248) 432-2729 bnaiisraelwb.org Congregation B’nai Moshe West Bloomfield (248) 788-0600 bnaimoshe.org Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue Detroit (313) 962-4047 downtownsynagogue.org Congregation Shaarey Zedek Southfield (248) 357-5544 shaareyzedek.org

ORTHODOX Agudas Israel Mogen Abraham Southfield (248) 552-5711 aymadetroit.org Ahavas Olam Southfield (248) 569-1821 Ahavasolam.com Ahavas Yisroel Oak Park (248) 298-2896 Learntorah.info Aish Hatorah in the Woods Oak Park (248) 327-3579 Aishdetroit.com Bais Chabad of Farmington Hills (248) 855-2910 chabad.org Bais Chabad of North Oak Park (248) 872-8878 chabad.org Bais Haknesses Hagrah Oak Park (248) 542-8737 Balfour Shul – K’Hal Rina U’Tefila Oak Park (732) 693-8457 Beth Tefilo Emanuel Tikvah Southfield (248) 559-5022

INDEPENDENT

Birmingham-Bloomfield Shul Birmingham (248) 996-5818 bbchai.org

Grosse Pointe Jewish Council Grosse Pointe Woods (313) 882-6700 thegpjc.com

B’nai Israel-Beth Yehudah Oak Park (248) 967-3969 bi-by.org

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B’nai Zion Oak Park (248) 968-2414 Chabad Jewish Center of Commerce-Walled Lake Commerce Township (248) 363-3644 jewishcommerce.org Chabad Jewish Center of Novi-Northville (248) 790-6075 novijewishcenter.com Chabad Jewish Center of Troy Troy/Rochester Hills (248) 873-5851 jewishtroy.com Chabad-Lubavitch of Bingham Farms Bloomfield Hills (248) 688-6796 chabadbinghamfarms.com Dovid Ben Nuchim-Aish Kodesh Oak Park (313) 320-9400 dbndetroit.org Kehillat Etz Chayim Huntington Woods etzchayim-detroit.org Kollel Institute of Greater Detroit Oak Park (248) 968-1891 kollel@kolleldetroit.org

Sara & Morris Tugman Bais Chabad Torah Center of West Bloomfield (248) 855-6170 baischabad.com Shomer Israel Oak Park (248) 542-4014 godaven.com Shomrey Emunah Southfield (248) 559-1533 congregation-shomreyemunah-105705.square.site The Shul-Chabad Lubavitch West Bloomfield (248) 788-4000 theshul.net Yagdil Torah Southfield (248) 559-5905 Young Israel of Oak Park (248) 967-3655 yiop.org Young Israel of Southfield (248) 358-0154 yisouthfield.org RECONSTRUCTIONIST Congregation T’chiyah Ferndale (248) 823-7115 tchiyah.org

Mishkan Israel, Nusach H’ari, Lubavitch Center Oak Park (248) 542-4844 theyeshiva.org

Reconstructionist Congregation of Detroit (313) 567-0306 reconstructingjudiasm.org

Ohel Moed Shomrey Emunah West Bloomfield (248) 737-2626 ohelmoed.org

REFORM

Or Chadash Oak Park (248) 819-1721 or-chadash.org

Temple Beth El Bloomfield Township (248) 851-1100 tbeonline.org

Temple Emanu-El Oak Park (248) 967-4020 emanuel-mich.org Temple Israel West Bloomfield (248) 661-5700 temple-israel.org Temple Kol Ami West Bloomfield (248) 661-0040 tkolami.org Temple Shir Shalom West Bloomfield (248) 737-8700 shirshalom.org REFORM/RENEWAL Congregation Shir Tikvah Troy (248) 649-4418 shirtikvah.org SECULAR/HUMANISTIC Congregation for Humanistic Judaism of Metro Detroit Farmington Hills (248) 477-1410 chj-detroit.org Sholem Aleichem Institute West Bloomfield (248) 865-0117 secularsaimichigan.org SEPHARDIC Keter Torah Synagogue West Bloomfield (248) 681-3665 rabbisasson.wixsite.com/ keter Ohr Hatorah Oak Park (248) 294-0613 Ohrhatorah.us TRADITIONAL Woodward Avenue Shul Royal Oak (248) 414-7485 thewas.net

MINYANS Fleischman Residence West Bloomfield (248) 661-2999

OUTSTATE Battle Creek (Reform) Temple Beth El (269) 963-4921

Yeshivat Akivah Southfield (248) 386-1625 farberhds.org

Bay City (Reform) Temple Beth Israel (989) 893-7811 tbi-mich.org

ANN ARBOR

Benton Harbor (Conservative) Temple B’nai Shalom (269) 925-8021 tbnaishalom.org

CONSERVATIVE Beth Israel Congregation (734) 665-9897 @BethIsraelCongregation ORTHODOX Ann Arbor Chabad House (734) 995-3276 jewmich.com Ann Arbor Orthodox Minyan annarborminyan.org RECONSTRUCTIONIST Ann Arbor Reconstructionist Congregation (734) 445-1910 aarecon.org REFORM Temple Beth Emeth (734) 665-4744 templebethemeth.org RENEWAL Pardes Hanah pardeshanah.org SECULAR HUMANISTIC Jewish Cultural Society (734) 975-9872 jewishculturalsociety.org

WINDSOR Shaar Hashomayim (Orthodox) Windsor (519) 256-3123 Congregation Beth El (Reform) Windsor (519) 969-2422 bethelwindsor.ca

East Lansing (Reform) Congregation Shaarey Zedek (517) 351-3570 shaareyzedek.com Flint (Orthodox) Chabad House-Lubavitch of Eastern Michigan (810) 230-0770 chabad.org

Kalamazoo (Conservative) Congregation of Moses congregationofmoses.org Kalamazoo (Reform) Temple B’nai Israel (269) 342-9170 Templebnaiisrael.com Lansing (Reconstructionist) Congregation Kehillat Israel (517) 882-0049 kehillatisrael.net Mackinac Island (Independent) Kehillat Hatzhav Hagadol (906) 202-9959 mackinacsynagogue.org Marquette (Reform) Temple Beth Sholom tbsmqt.org Midland (Reform) Temple Beth E (989) 496-3720 tbe_midland@yahoo.com

Flint (Conservative) Congregation Beth Israel (810) 732-6310 cbiflint.org

Mt. Pleasant (Reform) Temple Benjamin (989) 773-5086 templebenjamin.com

Flint (Reform) Temple Beth El (810) 720-9494 tbeflint@gmail.com

Muskegon (Reform) Congregation B’nai Israel (231) 722-2702 cbimkg@gmail.com

Grand Rapids (Conservative) Ahavas Israel (616) 949-2840 ahavasisraelgr.org

Petoskey (Reform) Temple B’nai Israel (231) 489-8269 templebnaiisraelofpetoskey.org

Grand Rapids (Orthodox) Chabad of Western Michigan (616) 957-0770 chabadwestmichigan.com

South Haven (Orthodox) First Hebrew Congregation (269) 637-1603 firsthebrewcongregation.org

Grand Rapids (Reform) Temple Emanuel (616) 459-5976 grtemple.org

Traverse City (Reform) Congregation Beth Shalom 231-946-1913 beth-shalom-tc.org

Hancock (Reform) Temple Jacob templejacobhancock.org

OHIO

Jackson (Reform) Temple Beth Israel (517) 784-3862 tbijackson.org

Toledo (Orthodox) Etz Chayim of Toledo (419) 473-2401 Etzchayimtoledo.org Email factual corrections or additional synagogues to list to: smanello@thejewishnews.com.

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SPIRIT

A WORD OF TORAH

A Sense of Direction

S

martphones can do amazing things — few more amazing than Waze, the Israeli-designed satellite navigation system acquired by Google in 2013. But there is one thing even Waze cannot do. It can tell you how to get there, but it cannot tell you where to go. That is something you must decide.

The most important decision we can make in life is to choose where we want eventually to be. Without Rabbi Lord a sense of destiny and Jonathan destination, our lives will Sacks be directionless. If we don’t know where we want to go, we will never get there no matter how fast we travel. Yet despite this, there are people who spend months planning a holiday, but not even a day planning a life. They simply let it happen.

That is what our parshah is about, applied to a nation, not an individual.

God, through Moses, set out the stark choice. “If you follow my statutes and carefully obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit …

I will grant peace in the land, and you

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will lie down, and no one will make you afraid.”

If, on the other hand, “You do not listen to me, and do not keep all these commands …” then disaster will follow.

The curses set out here at length are among the most frightening of all biblical texts — a portrait of national catastrophe, bleak and devastating.

The entire passage, both the blessings and the curses, can be read supernaturally or naturally. Read the first way, Israel’s fate, at least in biblical times, was a direct result of its faithfulness or lack of it to the Torah. God was constantly intervening miraculously in history to reward the good and punish the bad. Every drought and famine, every bad harvest or military defeat, was the result of sin. Every peaceful and productive year was the result of obedience to God. That is how Israel’s prophets understood history.

But there is also a more naturalistic reading, which says that Divine Providence works through us, internally rather than externally. If you are the Israelites in the Land of Israel, you will always be surrounded by empires and enemies bigger and stronger than you are. You will always be vulnerable to the

hazards of rainfall and drought because Israel, unlike the Nile Delta or the TigrisEuphrates valley, has no natural, reliable, predictable supply of water. You will always, therefore, find yourself looking up to the heavens. Even quite secular Jews often understand this — most famously David Ben-Gurion when he said, “In Israel, in order to be a realist you have to believe in miracles.”

A ROADMAP FOR LIFE On this reading, the way of life set out in the Torah is unique in ways that are natural rather than supernatural. It is indeed the word of God, but not God as a perpetual strategic intervener in history, but rather, God as guide as to how to live in such a way as to be blessed. The Torah is a set of instructions for life issued by the Designer of life.

That is what the Sages meant when they said that at the beginning of time, “God looked into the Torah and created the world.” Living according to the Torah means, on this view, aligning yourself with the forces that make for human flourishing, especially if you are a tiny people surrounded by enemies.

What was unique about the society

envisaged by the Torah is that in it every individual mattered. Justice was to be paramount. The rich could not buy special treatment and the poor were not left destitute. When it came to communal celebrations, everyone — especially the orphan, the widow, the stranger — was to be included.

Everyone had at least some share in the harvest of grain and fruit. Employers were to treat employees with fairness and sensitivity. Even though there were still slaves, one day in seven they would enjoy the same freedom as their owners.

This meant that everyone had a stake in society. Therefore, they would defend it with their lives. The Israelites were not an army conscripted by a ruler for the purpose of his own self-aggrandizement.

That is why they were capable of defeating armies and nations many times their size.

Above all, they were to have a sense of destiny and destination. That is the meaning of the keyword that runs like a refrain through the curses: keri, a word that appears seven times in our parshah and nowhere else in Tanach. “If you walk with Me with keri … then I will walk with you with keri.”

There are many interpretations of this word. Targum Onkelos reads it as “hard-heartedly,” Saadia as “rebelliously,” Rashi as “treating as a casual concern.”

Others understood it as “harshly” or “with hostility.” Maimonides, however (partially echoed by Rashi, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, Chizkuni and others), understands it as related to the word mikreh, meaning “chance.” Hence the meaning of the passage according to Maimonides is: “If you believe that what happens to you is simply a matter of chance, then, says God, I will leave you to chance.”

CHOOSING PURPOSE On this reading, the book of Vayikra ends as it began, with the fateful choice between mikra (with an aleph) and mikreh (with a heh): between seeing life as a call, a summons, a vocation, a destiny, and seeing it an accident, a random

happening with no ultimate meaning whatsoever.

So it is in the life of nations and individuals. If you see what happens to you as mere chance, your fate will be governed by mere chance. That is what the Sages meant when they said, “Wherever [the Torah] says, ‘And it came to pass’, it is always a prelude to tragedy.”

If you simply let things come to pass, you will find yourself exposed to the vagaries of fortune and the whims of others. But if you believe you are here for a purpose, your life will take on the directedness of that purpose. Your energies will be focused. A sense of mission will give you strength. You will do remarkable things.

That was the special insight Jews brought to the world. They did not believe — as people did in ancient times and as atheists do today — that the universe is governed by mere chance. Was it mere chance that a random fluctuation in the quantum field produced the Big Bang that brought the universe into being? Or that the universe just happened to be regulated by precisely the six mathematical constants necessary for it to give rise to stars and planets and the chemical elements essential for the emergence of life? Was it mere chance that life did in fact emerge from inanimate matter? Or that among the hundred million life forms that have existed on Earth, just one, Homo sapiens, was capable of asking the question “Why?” There is nothing self-contradictory about such a view. It is compatible with all the science we now know, perhaps with all the science we will ever know.

That is the universe as keri. Many people think this way. They always did. On this view, there is no “Why,” not for nations, and not for individuals. Life just happens.

We are here by accident.

Jews believed otherwise. No one said it better than the Catholic historian Paul Johnson: “No people has ever insisted more firmly than the Jews that history has a purpose and humanity a destiny. At

a very early stage in their collective existence, they believed they had detected a Divine scheme for the human race, of which their own society was to be a pilot.

They worked out their role in immense detail. They clung to it with heroic persistence in the face of savage suffering.

“Many of them believe it still. Others transmuted it into Promethean endeavors to raise our condition by purely human means. The Jewish vision became the prototype for many similar grand designs for humanity, both Divine and manmade. The Jews therefore stand right at the center of the perennial attempt to give human life the dignity of a purpose.”

The people who change the world are those who believe that life has a purpose, a direction, a destiny. They know where they want to go and what they want to achieve. In the case of Judaism, that purpose is clear: to show what it is to create a small clearing in the desert of humanity where freedom and order coexist, where justice prevails, the weak are cared for and those in need are given help, where we have the humility to attribute our successes to God and our failures to ourselves, where we cherish life as the gift of God and do all we can to make it holy. In other words: precisely the opposite of the violence and brutality that is today being perpetrated by some religious extremists in the name of God. To achieve this, though, we have to have a sense of collective purpose. That is the choice that Moses, speaking in the name of God, set before the Israelites.

Mikra or mikreh? Does life just happen?

Or is it a call from God to create moments of moral and spiritual beauty that redeem our humanity from the ruthless pursuit of power?

“To give human life the dignity of a purpose.” That is what Jews are called on to show the world.

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks served as the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His teachings have been made available to all at rabbisacks.org. This essay was written in 2015.

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ARTS&LIFE ART

All In for Art Fairs You’ll find plenty of Jewish artists at this summer’s fairs.

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

COUNTER-CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: Bobby Harr’s artwork: Menorah, Torah, Sunergy, Jerusalem, Hamsa.

Summer Arts Fairs

June 11: Berkley Art Bash, 12 Mile in downtown Berkley. berkleyartbash.com.

June 17-19: Arts and Acts, downtown Northville. northvillearthouse.org.

June 11-12: Art of Fire, Washington and Fifth, Royal Oak. artoffirero.com.

June 24-26: Trenton Summer Festival, downtown Trenton. trentonmi.org.

June 4-5: Palmer Park Art Fair, near Woodward and Seven Mile in Detroit. palmerparkartfair.com.

June 11-12: Flint Art Fair, grounds of the Flint Institute of Arts. flintartfair.org.

July 8-10: Plymouth Art in the Park, downtown Plymouth. artinthepark.com.

June 4-5: Art on the Grand, downtown Farmington. artonthegrand.com.

June 16-18: Canton Liberty Fest, Heritage Park. cantonlibertyfest.com.

July 9-10: Royal Oak Outdoor Art Fair, 13 and Woodward. royaloakarts.com.

May 28-30: Kensington Metropark Art Fair. kensingtonartfair.com.

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F

rom the colorful glass Judaica projects of Bobby Harr to the colorful abstract oil paintings of Eva Antebi-Lerman, artistic creativity of all kinds will be filling the displays at warm-weather fairs returning to Detroit and surrounding areas.

While Harr’s projects will be seen at three of the fairs (Art of Fire in Royal Oak, Art in the Park in Plymouth and Orchard Lake Fine Art Show in West Bloomfield) among those listed below, Antebi-Lerman’s works will be featured as part of the Ann Arbor Art Fair.

“I do fused glass, and my work has been shown in the Jewish

July 13-16: Wyandotte Street Art Fair, downtown Wyandotte. wyandotte.net.

July 14-16: Farmington Founders Festival, downtown Farmington. foundersfestival.com July 21-23: Ann Arbor Art Fair, various locations. theannarborartfair.com.

July 28-30: Sterlingfest, City Center Campus, Sterling Heights. sterlingheights.net.

Museum in New York and the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles,” said Harr, based in Arizona and Chicago so he conveniently can travel with his work. “Right now, I only do art shows.”

Harr will offer some 20 different kinds of mezuzahs, a selection of menorahs, wall pieces showing iconic expressions of Jewish identity and what he has labeled a “nosh plate.”

“I also do contemporary abstract wall pieces that emphasize the

Eva AntebiLerman’s work: Ayna.

continued on page XX

July 30-31: Orchard Lake Fine Art Show, 6900 Orchard Lake Rd., West Bloomfield. hotworks.org.

Aug.5-6: Allen Park Street Fair, Allen Road between Southfield and Roosevelt. allenparkstreetfair.org.

July 30-31: Fine Art at the Village, 220 N. Adams Rd., Rochester Hills. fineartatthevillage.com.

Aug. 6-7: Belle Isle Art Fair, near Scott Fountain. belleisleartfair.com.

Aug. 5-6: Brighton Art & Music Festival, downtown Brighton. brightoncoc.org. (events, signature events).

Aug. 12-14: Milford Memories Summer Festival, downtown Milford. milfordmemories.com. continued on page 58

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continued from page 57

color,” said Harr, whose original career had been in retail before he felt comfortable in his place and time financially to pursue art full time.

“Everything I do is on black glass. The way I do the colors, it screams on the black, and that’s the way the color comes out the best.”

Inspired by watching a television program about famed artist Dale Chihuly, he was essentially self-taught by studying books and a videotape and following through with buying a kiln and glass.

Mezuzahs became his first projects because they resonated with his Jewish background and were small enough to fit into his first kiln.

“I’m just having a blast traveling,” said Harr, who sold to galleries before he found a preference for art fairs about 12 years ago. “When I do the shows on the weekends, I’m onstage.”

COLORFUL ABSTRACTS Antebi-Lerman, in her first year on a limited fair circuit, is moving along a path of two

simultaneous careers.

Besides devoting time to painting and showing her work at the Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair as well as outside the state, she is studying toward a doctoral degree in clinical psychology at Ohio University.

“I don’t feel the need to choose one career path when life is long and you can do many things,” she said.

Growing up in the Beverly Hills suburb of Detroit, she is now based in Ohio, near the university she attends in Athens County. After trying various kinds of art at the encouragement of her mom (Elsa Antebi), an amateur artist, Antebi-Lerman took classes at the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center.

“My paintings have been about color and form, and there’s a continuous body of

continued from page 57

Aug. 13-14: Shelby Township Art Fair, River Bends Park. shelbyartfair.org.

Aug. 20-Oct. 2 (Weekends and Labor Day): Michigan Renaissance Festival, Holly. michrenfest.com.

Sept. 1-5: Michigan State Fair, Suburban Collection Showplace, Novi. michiganstatefairllc.com.

Sept. 2-5: Arts, Beats & Eats, downtown Royal Oak. artsbeatseats.com.

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Sept. 5: Art in the Village, Franklin. ((248) 514-9097.

Sept. 9-11: Art & Apples Festival, Rochester Municipal Park. pccart.org.

Sept. 17-18: Common Ground Birmingham Street Art Fair, streets around Shain Park. theguild.org.

Sept. 23-25: Funky Ferndale Art Fair, Nine Mile at Woodward. funkyferndaleartfair.com.

Eva Antebi-Lerman’s work: ABOVE LEFT: Ashen Vertebrae, LEFT: Horse Kiss, ABOVE: Molten Elephant.

work,” she said. “I’m really moving in the direction of painting in different layers, so you look at a piece and there’s all of this depth, almost [transporting viewers into] a new space.

“My painting inspiration can go one of two ways.

Sometimes, I just kind of close my eyes for a moment and try to come up with what feels like I’m feeling at that moment.

Sometimes, it’s much more concrete. I see something that inspires me, like a piece of pottery or a really cool rock or tree, and I’ll pull color or composition or element of that.”

After going through phases of ceramics, glassblowing and metal work, Antebi-Lerman settled into painting some 10 years ago. She started with acrylics and moved into oils.

She began with representational subjects, such as animals and trees, and went on to abstractions, using brushes and scrapers.

“It’s really up to the viewer’s

interpretations of what’s on the page,” said Antebi-Lerman, who had her bat mitzvah at Congregation Beth Ahm. “It’s an emotional space where someone can go up to a piece, look at it and respond from experiences and [what’s inside].

“I don’t think I gain insight into personalities when people tell me what they see in my abstractions. Instead, I get to experience my own artwork through their eyes.”

Popular fairs listed are arranged by date. Before heading out, visitors are advised to check websites for insight into additional activities — such as demonstrations, musical entertainment, carnival rides and food service — as well as updates that may change the particulars.

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Groups (10+) broadwayindetroitgroups@theambassadors.com (subject: Ain’t Too Proud) OC - August 14 - 7:30PM

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ARTS&LIFE ART

A Connoisseur’s Eye Sotheby’s Michigan art consultant helps collectors when it’s time to sell.

L

ois Pincus Cohn’s beautiful historic home is a wonderful backdrop for her paintings, sculptures and books about art and architecture. An art lover who describes herself as “more of a modernist,” she has been a collector for many years, adding to her collection after marriage to her late husband, Judge Avern Cohn.

In 1984, she transformed her interest in art into a business — Artspace II, a gallery for the resale of high-quality artwork.

Cohn says she was inspired partly by her sister’s art gallery in San Francisco and a desire to help people re-sell their art.

There is a sizable secondary fine art market, Cohn explains, because individuals often decide to sell their art for practical or aesthetic reasons.

Sometimes owners move to a new house that isn’t large enough or doesn’t fit the style of their artwork, or they need the funds for other purposes.

Also, Cohn says that artistic tastes change, and a collector may decide to sell a painting to purchase something new.

As the owner of Artspace for more than 30 years, Cohn came to know many local collectors and kept up on some of the fine art auctions held across the country. That led to an acquaintance with Gary F. Metzner, senior vice president and head of Sotheby’s Chicago office. Sotheby’s, founded

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in 1744, hosts hundreds of auctions annually to sell art, jewelry and other luxury items in the U.S. and abroad. Cohn says that about three years ago, Metzner “tapped my shoulder and I was anointed” to serve as Sotheby’s only consultant in Michigan.

In that role, she connects with potential art sellers in the state, often visiting their homes to see their collections. Each piece of art potentially for sale requires significant analysis on her part — first for quality and appropriateness for Sotheby’s.

“I do not take your grandma’s teacups,” Cohn explains.

Then she takes photos, does some research on the piece and assesses its condition. In addition, Cohn, who has a B.F.A. in art history and political science, considers whether the artwork is authentic. “There is a lot of fake art,” she says, especially artworks that are purportedly

by Chagall, Picasso and Léger.

If the artwork meets quality and authenticity criteria, a description is submitted to Sotheby’s and, if there is interest by the auction house, she discusses a potential price estimate with her client. Then the artwork is packed by an art shipping firm and sent to Sotheby’s in New York for consignment. The art owner is charged a sales commission by Sotheby’s when sold.

Cohn is Sotheby’s only consultant in Michigan. Most

SHARI S. COHEN

SHARI S. COHEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Lois Pincus Cohn

of her clients live in Oakland County, but she welcomes art sellers from other areas. Cohn has a connoisseur’s eye and a gracious approach to people.

“I’ve had the privilege of working closely with Lois over the last three years, in addition to our two decades of friendship, and she has brought a wealth of expertise to Sotheby’s from her storied career in the art world,” Metzner said.

“Her strong relationships with artists, institutions and collectors throughout the state of Michigan have been integral to deepening Sotheby’s presence in the Midwest. She works closely with the Chicago regional office in sourcing works for auction and private sale around the globe and connecting collectors with works of art from our global networks of auctions and sales.”

ARTS&LIFE CELEBRITY NEWS

NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST

THE REAL OPERATION MINCEMEAT

Bosch a series about Harry Bosch, an LAPD detective, streamed on Amazon Prime from 2014-2021. A spin-off, titled Bosch: Legacy, began streaming on May 6 on the newish IMDB streaming service (free, with ads). In Legacy, Bosch is retired from the LAPD and is working as an investigator for Honey Chandler, a defense attorney.

Mimi Rogers, 66, co-stars as Chandler. Born Miriam Spickler, Rogers is the daughter of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother. She was raised a Scientologist. She broke with them about 15 years ago. By the way, it was Rogers who introduced Tom Cruise to Scientology while they were married (1987-89).

She left; he never did.

Mean Baby, a memoir by Detroit-area native Selma Blair, has got a lot of media coverage. But do read, online, a May 15 interview with the NY Times Book Review. The actress talks about what it meant to her to record The Diary of Anne Frank. The well-read Blair mentions a lot of other “tribe members” in the same interview: Primo Levi, Todd Soldonz, A.O. Scott, Melissa and Joan Rivers, and Carrie Fisher.

Operation Mincemeat is an original Netflix film that is now streaming. It’s about a (real) British intelligence operation during WWII that saved thousands of lives. Colin Firth plays Ewen Montagu (1901-1985), a naval intelligence officer who played a central role in Operation Mincemeat. Montagu belonged to one of the most famous British Jewish families and was very active in the Jewish community.

Montagu was a top barrister before joining British Naval Intelligence in 1938.

I didn’t write about Mincemeat before I saw it because some advance reviews referred to Montagu’s wife as Jewish.

I thought perhaps the film had erased Montagu’s own Jewish identity. Not quite so.

In an early scene, Montagu is sending his wife and kids to Canada. He says he is doing so because of the potential Nazi danger to “a Jewish family.” It’s a bit unclear, but viewers probably “get it” that Montagu is Jewish, too. This scene is the only Jewish reference in the

Selma Blair

JOELLA MARANO

Jennifer Connelly

KARON LIU

TOP GUN, AGAIN; A MYSTERY, A MEMOIR AND MINCEMEAT FICTIONS Top Gun: Maverick opens in theaters on May 27. It is a sequel to Top Gun (1986), a huge box-office hit that starred Tom Cruise as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, a student at the Navy’s fighter pilot school. The sequel finds Maverick (Cruise) leading a group of recent pilot school graduates on a secret, very dangerous mission.

Jennifer Connelly, 51, plays Penny, Maverick’s love interest. Penny’s a single mother, bar owner and the daughter of a former admiral.

Connelly, who won a best supporting actress Oscar for A Beautiful Mind (2001), is the daughter of a Jewish mother and not-Jewish father.

She’s always been secular.

Tom Cruise is 59 but looks about 50. Still, I am sure that everyone connected with the film realized that even a 50-year-old fighter pilot is improbable. Also, the Maverick character was originally written as a full-ofhimself, “cheeky bad boy” who wooed the strait-laced (female) flight instructor at the flight school. Can Cruise be that guy again?

Connelly was a good casting choice. She’s a strikingly attractive woman at 51.

Penny and Maverick’s relationship is age-appropriate, but still potentially “hot.” You have to figure that Penny, the daughter of an admiral, and a bar owner, is prepared to banter with the “still-cheeky” Maverick as they “do the dance” of a movie romance.

Just being in such a romance makes Cruise seem younger and “cheekier.”

film.

The “real” Operation Mincemeat was a highly dramatic operation. It had the built-in drama of a prominent Jew leading an anti-Nazi operation. But that wasn’t enough for the screenwriters. Below are the biggest inaccuracies in the film. Don’t read them if you want to watch the film first. But do watch the film, in any event.

Here are the top four made-up things, as compiled by the Deadline website: 1) Admiral Godfrey (played

by Jason Isaacs, 58), is Montagu’s superior officer.

He’s against Mincemeat until it succeeds. Truth: Godfrey wasn’t against Mincemeat and left for other duties months before Mincemeat concluded.

2) Montagu’s closest colleague, Chas. Cholmondeley, spies on Montagu for British intelligence. In return, higher-ups bring back his soldier brother’s body from Burma, where he served. Truth: Cholmondeley didn’t spy on Montagu and his brother was killed after Mincemeat.

3.) Joan Leslie is an essential member of the Mincemeat team. She and Montagu were at the edge of having an affair. Truth: Leslie had only a peripheral role in Mincemeat. Montagu did not hide his friendship with Leslie. He told his wife, via letters, about it.

4) Montagu’s brother, Ivor, is suspected of being a Communist. He lives in Ewan’s house. Truth: Ivor was an open Communist, not shocking in the UK in 1943.

Ivor lived with his wife, in their own home.

MAY 26 • 2022

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ON THE GO

PEOPLE | PLACES | EVENTS

Patsy Cline

PLAY OPENS NOW-JUNE 19 A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline is at Meadow Brook Theatre on the campus of Oakland University in Rochester. A disc jockey from Patsy Cline’s hometown of Winchester, Va., traces the late singer’s footsteps from early honky-tonk and radio days through her rise at the Grand Ole Opry, plus her appearances at Carnegie Hall and Las Vegas. Tickets range from $36 to $46 and are available by calling the Meadow Brook Theatre box office at 248-377-3300 or going online at www.ticketmaster.com.

NEW EXHIBIT 6-9 PM, AS OF MAY 19 Building Community, Building Power: Art as Resistance is the latest show from Swords into Plowshares, 33 E. Adams, Detroit. The show features more than 60 works by local, national and international artists, with each wall of the exhibition being curated by a separate Detroit community organization.

Free reservable tickets are available via Eventbrite.

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CAREGIVER SUPPORT 1:30-2:30 PM, MAY 26 Virtual Caregiver Support Groups for individuals who are care partners for those living with cognitive changes, including various types of dementia. Contact Dorothy Moon, Brown Adult Day Program social worker, for Zoom link and more information: 248-233-4392, dmoon@ jvshumanservices.org.

DFT FILM 7 PM, MAY 27 Detroit Film Theatre at the DIA. Other showings: 7 pm, May 28; 2 pm, May 29.

Tickets: $9.50 general admission; $7.50 seniors, students and DIA members.

Nights of Cabiria. (Italy/1957 — directed by Federico Fellini — 117 minutes). A sex worker, Cabiria (Giulietta Masina), a seemingly tough cookie, is hypnotized at a 10th-rate variety show by a third-rate magician, and what pours out are the innocent dreams of adolescence.

Visitors will be required to show at the door a current photo ID and proof of full vaccination.

DISNEY IN CONCERT 7:30 PM, MAY 29 At Orchestra Hall in Detroit.

Disney in Concert: A Dream is a Wish transports audiences into the musical world of classic and contemporary Disney animated feature films to discover that dreams really do come true. Told through the talents of four Broadway-caliber singers, original Disney film footage and sweeping orchestral scores performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Ticket info: dso.org.

Nights of Cabiria

DFT FILM MAY 27, 7 PM REMEMBERING VETERANS 10:30 AM, MAY 30 The Jewish War Veterans of Michigan invite all members, auxiliary and their families to a memorial service at Machpelah Cemetery in Ferndale at 21701 Woodward, Ferndale.

A sermon will be given by Rabbi Michael Moskowitz.

A second service will be at Hebrew Memorial Cemetery at 12:30 pm, at 33230 Gratiot Ave., Clinton Township. A sermon will be given by Rabbi Jennifer Kaluzny.

SUPPORT GROUP 12:30 PM, JUNE 1 This weekly support group is for people dealing with loss of all kinds. It will run every Wednesday at the same time. Free. For more information and to sign up, contact

Alaine Ashkenazi, 248-8645395 or by email: aashkenazi@shaareyzedek.org. Dr. Jay Inwald, a psychologist and Congregation Shaarey Zedek member, will facilitate.

The gathering will take place online.

PRENATAL SUMMER JUNE 1-22 Expecting your first? The JCC’s JFamily has you covered with everything you need to know before welcoming your little bundle of cuteness. The JBaby Prenatal is a four-part course that covers topics including: Labor and Delivery, Newborn Care, Breastfeeding Basics, Brit Milah (Bris), Baby Naming. Cost $130. AT 5700 Putnam, West Bloomfield.

Register and see COVID waiver: jlive.app/events/1841.

JHSM MEETING JUNE 2, 11 AM

Arthur Horwitz and Harriet Saperstein

The Seedsmen to the World

Davidson’s New Music is “On the Edge of Familiar”

DIA EXHIBIT NOW-JUNE 12 JHSM MEETING 11 AM- 1 PM, JUNE 2 The Jewish Historical Society of Michigan will hold its annual meeting at the Corner Ballpark in Detroit. Part of the program will be the recognition of Arthur Horwitz and Harriet Saperstein with the presentation of the Leonard Simons History Makers Award.

Register: form.jotform. com/221214752273146.

RABBINIC PANEL 7-9 PM, JUNE 2 At Temple Kol Ami in West Bloomfield; also available on Zoom. “Judaism and the Separation of Religion/ State: Reproductive Rights and Public Funding of Private Education.” A rabbinic panel with an Orthodox, a Conservative and a Reform rabbi. Info: call the temple, 248-6610040.

ICE CREAM SOCIAL 5:30-6:30 PM, JUNE 3 Hosted by JFamily Detroit and Aish HaTorah Detroit.

This free event will be at Aish, 25725 Coolidge, Oak

DON COHEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Park. An afternoon of sweet fun and sweet treats in celebration of Shavuot. There will be Shavuot-themed activities geared toward kids ages 0-10. Register: jlive.app/events/2288.

SHAVUOT EVENT 6:30 PM, JUNE 4 Celebrate Shavuot at Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Township and immerse yourself in the world of cheese. Enjoy an evening under a tent with a private cheese tasting by Mongers’ Provisions, followed by a cheese-themed strolling dinner by Platinum Dish Catering. Wine and beverages included. $40 per person for members; $50 per person non-members. RSVP by May 30: tbebloomfieldhills.shulcloud. com. Info: Nancy Fortier at nfortier@comcast.net or 248-495-5013.

DIA EXHIBIT NOW-JUNE 12 At the Detroit Institute of Arts, 5200 Woodward Ave., Detroit. Free with museum admission. With the Shield of the Nile series begun

in 1984, Shirley Woodson (b. 1936) has been presenting Black bathers in rivers, a reference to the diasporic myth that the Nile River holds transformative and nurturing benefits for people of African descent.

Born in Pulaski, Tennessee, Woodson studied art at Wayne State University.

Info: dia.org.

BROADWAY IN DETROIT AUG. 9-28 At the Detroit Opera House in Detroit. Ain’t Too Proud is the electrifying, new smashhit Broadway musical that follows The Temptations’ extraordinary journey from the streets of Detroit to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

With their signature dance moves and silky-smooth harmonies, they rose to the top of the charts creating an amazing 42 Top Ten Hits with 14 reaching No. 1.

Tickets now on sale. Info: broadwayindetroit.com/ shows.

Compiled by Sy Manello/Editorial Assistant. Send items at least 14 days in advance to calendar@ thejewishnews.com.

Last week, Ethan Daniel Davidson and Gretchen Gonzales Davidson released new music with a new band, Seedsmen to the World.

Seedsmen dropped an eponymous first album they describe as “a collaboration between the cascading soundscapes of Detroit’s Infinite River (Joey Mazzola, Gretchen Gonzales and Warren Defever) and folk troubadour Ethan Daniel Davidson.”

Calling the four tracks “on the edge of familiar,” you’ll recognize both Dylan’s “It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding” and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain.” But you might not recognize them at first, given the waves of feedback and fuzz.

The album was released on May 20 and is available for listening and download on Spotify and Bandcamp, and on vinyl and FLAC at Birdman Records and Blue Arrow Records.

Seedsmen performed on May 21 at Galerie Camille as part of Looking for the Light, an art exhibition and event series dedicated to destigmatizing mental illness.

Part of Mental Health Awareness Month, the proceeds benefited Kadima Mental Health Services.

Visit www.galeriecamille.com for more information.

MAY 26 • 2022

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It’s ‘The Bomb’ Showstopper gourmet ice cream bars have one goal: to make people smile.

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

I

n fall of 2017, Jill Kasle’s husband, Matt, was diagnosed with cancer. Four months later, Jill was diagnosed with cancer as well. With four young kids just starting out in elementary school, the situation was extraordinarily challenging for the couple.

“We tried to keep things really positive and optimistic,” says Jill Kasle, who is the founder and owner of gourmet ice cream bar on wheels Bombshell Treat Bar, which makes Instagram-worthy ice cream pops dipped in various flavors of Belgian chocolate.

At the time, Kasle’s gourmet ice cream bar business was nonexistent. Instead, she worked in corporate America, doing event planning for auto companies.

While going to culinary school had always been a dream for the now 48-yearold Birmingham resident, she just “didn’t have the guts to do it,” she explains.

Therefore, event planning was the next best thing, where food would always be a part of

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the picture.

Yet the dual diagnosis for both Jill and Matt changed everything. “While we were both being treated, I felt the need to focus on creating something that would involve the kids and get them excited,” Kasle explains. “Something that took me away from all the negatives that surrounded our health situation.”

A SWEET SURPRISE IN MONTREAL During downtime, Kasle researched different food concepts. She was drawn to the culinary scene in Montreal, Canada, and decided to plan a trip with her family. As a self-proclaimed “choco-holic,” Kasle, who needs to have dessert every day, asked her husband to find a unique dessert joint in the city that they could visit during their trip.

Matt discovered a tiny ice cream shop on a cobblestone street that was glowing turquoise. There was a long line out the door.

Once they got inside, Kasle was “blown away” by what she saw: the shop offered vanilla soft-serve that could be dipped in more than 30 flavors of Belgian chocolate, which then hardened into a magic shell.

“It would become like a candy bar,” Kasle recalls. “I was buzzing with excitement, and I walked out and said, ‘I have to do this.’”

At the time, Kasle didn’t know much about chocolate, other than her love for the flavor profile. Yet the idea stuck with her, and she began to develop a business plan to open a gourmet ice cream bar inspired by the tiny storefront in Montreal. “I pitched it to a couple of people, and I was told not to do it,” Kasle explains, “that I wouldn’t make any money.”

Discouraged for several months, one day Kasle woke up with a different mindset: She was going to bring her idea to life. “When you come from being sick, it’s so important to be around positive energy,” she says. “I wanted to give something to someone that makes them smile. I just felt I had to block out the negative and try.”

FROM SOFT-SERVE TO POPSICLES Through a contact in the restaurant indus-

PHOTOS COURTESY OF JILL KASLE

DINING

try, Kasle connected with a contract culinary expert to help develop Belgian chocolate recipes. With 12 flavor profiles ready to go, the idea hit another roadblock: the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Now, there was no way for me to get this out into the public,” Kasle recalls.

Instead of using soft-serve like the shop in Montreal, she had to pivot to something more realistic. “I realized the only way I could get this into people’s hands is if I used a popsicle and I dipped the popsicle in chocolate,” she says.

Pivoting to an idea that’s portable and possible to package and deliver, Kasle officially launched her business during COVID-19 by delivering to people’s homes.

Her husband, Matt, served and continues to serve as co-owner and “right hand ice cream man.”

Bombshell Treat Bar’s original Party Pops Boxes came with sampler bars delivered contact-free across Metro Detroit. Kasle also found a dedicated employee, “Chef Tori,” who could work with her aroundthe-clock on making ice cream products and fine-tuning Belgian chocolate recipes.

Tori, ironically, doesn’t like chocolate, which Kasle says worked out perfectly for creating standout recipes that everyone would love.

As things began to open back up, Kasle brought her products to farmers markets, where they offered a different menu each month with unique flavor profiles. Bombshell Treat Bar, which was now becoming more well-known around the area, was promoted entirely by word-of-mouth, especially by mothers in Birmingham and Bloomfield.

The biggest flavor hit, Kasle says, was a sweet and salty ice cream bar made with potato chip ice cream. It was dipped in dark Belgian chocolate, then rolled in crushed Better Made potato chips and Rold Gold pretzels, finally topped with edible gold glitter stars, gooey caramel and pink Himalayan sea salt. “That one was a showstopper,” Kasle recalls.

A WORLD OF FLAVORS Priding herself on using premium ingredients, Kasle says people are drawn to Bombshell Treat Bar because of its high-quality products and unique flavors, which range from key lime pie to plain ol’ traditional Belgian chocolate. Using premium ingredients, Kasle says, is something she’ll never compromise on.

“You can go to Dairy Queen and get a cone dipped in chocolate, but it’s all wax Jill Kasle

and flavor oils,” she says. “There’s no chocolate in the chocolate dip and it leaves a waxy residue on your tongue. With our chocolate, it’s pure chocolate. It has the crunch.”

Bombshell Treat Bar also creates dairyfree ice cream bar options, which Kasle says is important to her brand.

In addition to offering a standard menu of select flavor profiles, they also have flavors unique to holidays, like Christmas, Kwanzaa and Chanukah.

A Halloween set of gourmet ice cream bars, for example, included Candy Corn-ish and Purple People Eater, which were vanilla popsicles dipped in caramel and grape-flavored chocolate. A dairy-free option, Snack for Drac, incorporated a cranberry peach popsicle with dark chocolate, red sugar crystals and bat-shaped sprinkles, while Mummy Dearest, on the other hand, had a milk-and-cookies popsicle in a cookie dough shell.

“Our goal is to show how versatile and creative we can be,” Kasle explains.

Now, Kasle, who is a member of Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Township, has returned to her event planning roots, combining the best of both worlds. Bombshell Treat Bar caters to a wide variety of events, including weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, corporate events and more.

Eventually, she’d like to open a brick-andmortar store just like the one that inspired her several years back in Montreal, when things were tough, and she simply needed a smile.

“I really believe it has legs,” Kasle says of her vision, “and that it can go many places.”

MAY 26 • 2022

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Folks can use The Porch as a place to get together and schmooze.

ESTHER ALLWEISS INGBER

LIZZ CALDWELL

DINING

The Porch at The J has grab-and-go kosher food and provides a place for people to meet up and connect.

A Place to Connect The Porch at the JCC (now known as “The J”) is a great place to meet up with friends and chill.

JN STAFF

C

arol Eisenshtadt and her friends from the West Bloomfield JCC (now known as “The J”) were elated to be able to sit down, relax and spend time together. Most hadn’t seen each other since early in the pandemic, but they were recently able to meet for bagels and coffee at The Porch, a new kosher grab-and-go spot located just inside The J’s entrance.

Eisenshtadt’s group has met at the venue twice so far, and she says she’s glad it’s there.

“It’s a place to meet, to have a cup of coffee and talk with your friends,” Eisenshtadt says of the space, which reopened this fall after an earlier pre-pandemic launch in 2019. “They may not want to go to a restaurant. They

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can go to this beautiful lounge, have a cup of tea, sit down and chat.”

Eisenshtadt, who has been a member of The J since its opening in West Bloomfield in 1975 and spent time on its board as well, says this is the first time The J has had a lounge for the public, where people could stop by for informal meetings and to connect.

The Porch attracts everyone from friends catching up over a cup of coffee to Frankel Jewish Academy students, whose school is on The J’s campus.

“In the last year and a half, they’ve repurposed this space, and it’s warm and welcoming,” says Eisenshtadt, noting that The Porch also has sandwiches, pizza and snacks on offer. “It’s

not just a room; it’s truly lovely.”

Architect Arik Green, owner of Arik Green Design, remembers when The J’s CEO Brian D. Siegel came to him to talk about reimagining the space. They talked about moving the reception desk and about creating a connected feeling between the lobby and The Porch, so users knew it was a flexible space, open and available for work, study or relaxation.

“It’s a hub. It’s different settings,” Green explains. With various seating options, Jewish books and vintage J pictures on display, the space is ready for everyone, he says. “It’s open, comfortable, approachable to users of all ages within the building,” he says. “People are

very comfortable stepping in there to sit and dine or sit and chat and work.”

The Porch is meant to be a resource for the community, Siegel says. Whether people shmooze over a cup of coffee while they wait for their kids, meet their friends for a game of Mahj or work on their laptop, it’s set up to be welcoming to all, he explains.

“My hope is that our community will think of it as ‘theirs’,” he says.

“As we begin to get more comfortable with gathering, I see The Porch as a space for us to get reacquainted with sitting across from someone we care about and enjoying a beverage.

There’s really no virtual substitute.”

After 36 years in Southfield, Mcvee’s is now open at our new location in Troy

1129 E Long Lake Rd, Troy Michigan 48085 (248) 817-2980 | www.mcveespubandgrub.com Monday & Tuesday: 11am – 10pm Wednesday-Saturday: 11am – 11pm | Sunday: 12am – 9pm MAY 26 • 2022 | 67

DINING GUIDE LISTINGS

ANDIAMO – BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP

MCVEE’S PUB AND GRUB

6676 Telegraph Road Bloomfield, MI 48301 (248) 865-9300 Our principles are based on the three Italian staples of great food, family and a zest for life. Our consistent hard work, commitment to quality and support of our community earned us HOUR Detroit’s 2021 Best Restaurant award.

1129 E. Long Lake Road Troy, MI 48085 (248) 817-2980 mcveespubandgrub.com McVee’s has been serving fresh — never frozen —food for over 35 years. Originally located in Southfield, McVee’s Pub and Grub has been a Michigan icon for over 35 years. pizzas. A banquet facility, full bar and extensive wine list are available at Dearborn Heights, Canton, Farmington Hills and Roman Village in Dearborn.

BIRMINGHAM PUB

ANTONIO’S CUCINA ITALIANA

Canton: (734) 981-9800 Dearborn Heights: (313) 278-6000 Farmington Hills: (248) 994-4000 Dearborn: (313) 842-2100 Livonia: (734) 513-8000 (No Banquets) antoniosrestaurants.com Antonio’s Cucina Italiana, the Rugiero family and its staff have impressed their guests since 1964 with their traditional and authentic Italian cuisine.

Signature dishes like Gnocchi Rita, Chicken Antonio, mouthwatering veal dishes, our famous bread and awesome

555 S. Old Woodward Ave. (248) 885-8108 thebirminghampub.com Birmingham Pub is Birmingham’s original gastropub. When you visit Birmingham Pub, you’ll experience a re-imagined concept with a sophisticated twist to everything from classic pub fare to craft cocktails and libations. Enjoy it all in a chic, high-energy atmosphere.

GREAT LAKES POT PIES

809 W. 14 Mile Road Clawson, MI (248) 266-1160 greatlakespotpies.com All of our pies are handmade and baked with fresh ingredients in Michigan. Our menu includes personal and large chicken pot pies, with or without the crust. Many of our pot pies are now available in a gluten-free option.

STAR DELI

JOE MUER SEAFOOD -BLOOMFIELD HILLS

39475 Woodward Ave. Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304 (248) 792-9609 www.joemuer.com There’s a reason Joe Muer has won HOUR Detroit’s Best Seafood Restaurant for the past nine years — quality. We serve only the best ingredients and are dedicated to serving exceptional seafood with precise execution and a classic presentation.

24555 W. 12 Mile Road Southfield, MI 48034 (248) 352-7377 stardeli.net The Star Deli is a take-out only restaurant that also provides personal catering deli trays, using only the highest-quality products. Serving the Metro Detroit community for over 40 years, everyone is warmly welcomed, whether you are a life-long customer or just coming in for the first time.

STAR DELI

“…one of America’s finest carryout-only delicatessens!

Star’s reputation has never wavered!”

— Danny Raskin

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$19.99

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Get 10% OFF in our store when you mention that you saw us in the Detroit Jewish News or use code DETROITJEWISHNEWS when checking out online.

TEMPORARY HOURS: 8AM-7PM EVERYDAY Carry-Out, Delivery & Curb Side Available 5" Chicken Pot Pie

Great Lakes Pot Pies 809 W. 14 Mile • Clawson, MI 48017 68

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MAY 26 • 2022

24555 W. 12 MILE ROAD

5 OFF

$

On Star’s beautiful already low-priced trays

Just west of Telegraph Road • Southfield

Expires 06/15/2022. One Per Order.

Not Good Holidays. 10 Person Minimum. With this coupon.

www.stardeli.net

DELIVERY AVAILABLE

248-352-7377 Prices subject to change

A N U N F O RG E T TA B L E D I N I N G E X P E R I E N C E E V E RY T I M E !

Our cuisine and unparalleled service makes our award-winning restaurants the top dining destinations in metro Detroit. Delight in the finest seafood at Joe Muer, experience elevated gastropub dining at Birmingham Pub, and indulge in remarkable scratch-made pasta at Andiamo.

Our restaurants all feature crafted cocktails, sommelier curated wines, a captivating ambiance, and the service you deserve.

Since 1989, Andiamo has proudly upheld the standards for creating scratch-made pasta dishes with fresh ingredients. Our hard work, commitment to quality, and support of our community earned us HOUR Detroit’s 2021 Best Restaurant award!

There’s a reason Joe Muer has won HOUR Detroit’s Best Seafood Restaurant for the past 9 years– quality. We serve only the best ingredients and are dedicated to serving exceptional seafood with precise execution and a classic presentation.

Birmingham Pub is Birmingham’s original gastropub! A re-imagined concept with a sophisticated twist to everything from classic pub fare to craft cocktails and libations. Enjoy it all in a chic, highenergy atmosphere.

6676 Telegraph Rd. Bloomfield, MI 48301 (248) 865-9300 AndiamoItalia.com

39475 Woodward Ave. Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304 (248) 792-9609 JoeMuer.com

555 S Old Woodward Ave. Birmingham, MI 48009 (248) 885-8108 TheBirminghamPub.com

VIC AR I RE STAU RA N TS .CO M MAY 26 • 2022

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the exchange community bulletin board | professional services

HEALTHCARE

Embrace Comfort Care LLC. Embracing your private duty needs. Over 15 years of experience. References are upon request. Part time only. M,W,F. Feel free to call anytime. 248 275-9674.

A1 CAREGIVER/COMPANION. Experienced, excellent references. 248-991-4944 Live in or hourly care Mon-Fri. References available. Call 346-282-1181

24-HOUR AFFORDABLE CAREGIVER w/ Memory Care, Med Reminder & Companionship Experience. 26 Years of Excellent Services!

References Available.

Call April 586-335-5377

Looking for Reliable & Loving Care for a family member don't hesitate to contact Ever Lasting Impression Home Healthcare. We provide experience care givers and nurse assistance in the private of your home. Please call Brandis (313) 296-3966 or (586) 343-8662.

G&F Professional ServicesCompassionate, affordable, responsible and efficient homecare. Call Georgiana (248) 571-1837 or (947) 234-2647 (www. gfprofessionalservices.com)

Cita Angels Home Care.

Caregiver Services 24 hr. care. We assist in cooking, cleaning, bathing/grooming, doctor appointments, errands, etc. We accept private pay and Medicaid payment.

Please call 1-866-542-6435.

Caregiver seeking live-in position for elderly care. 15 yrs. exp. Call Melinda 248-550-5637

20+ YEARS EXP CAREGIVER, CNA, FULLY VACCINATED, REFERENCES. CALL CAROL (313) 443-8363

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MAY 26 • 2022

SPECIALTY REPAIRS INCLUDE: Brick, Stone, Concrete, All Masonry, Rotted and Damaged Wood, Cedar Roofing, Decks & Patios, Retainer Walls, Critter Control & Repairs, Kitchens, Bathrooms, Tile and Flooring

Reliable Driver-Best Rates Airport, appts., errands, shopping & more or ask?

Call David 248-690-6090

JF Green Renovations

SERVICES AAA Cleaning Service.15 yrs. in business.

Natalie 248-854-0775 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

CALL JOHN: 248 -770-8772 FORMER MARINE

Looking for watch repair people. Please ask for Efim at (248) 723-5550.

Transportation to appts/ shopping. Companionship & caregiving. Available days.

Call Carol 248.355.4875

Your Trusted Local Expert For Interior & Exterior Restorations Free Attic, Crawl Space & Basement Inspections

ANTIQUES WANTED. / BUYING / ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLESCOINS, STAMPS, WATCHES, CAMERASPlease Call (248) 259-8088 or Text (313)395-8599Website= a.airsite.coEmail= wevexgotxstuff@aol.com

Based Painting & Coatings LLC • EXTERIOR/ INTERIOR PAINTING • CABINET REFINISHING • DECK STAINING & CONCRETE STAINING • • • •

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A1 DRIVER for Drs appts,shopping, errands,airports and more.

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TRANSPORTATION

For information regarding advertising please call 248-351-5116 or 248-234-9057 or email salessupport@thejewishnews.com Deadline for ad insertion is 9 a.m. on Friday prior to publication.

EPOXY FLOORING DECORATIVE/METALLIC FLOORING FLAKE FLOORING ANTI SLIP FLOORING FREE

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MEMBERSHIP COORDINATOR Full-time Membership Coordinator supports the overall management of our membership process and data and works closely with temple affiliate groups.

We are seeking a dynamic “people-person” who also has excellent organizational and communication skills, a collaborative team player who is excited about supporting Jewish life for our TBE community.

Detailed job description on jewishjobs.com.

Please submit cover letter and resume to Executive Director, Rachel Ellis at

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Full-time Controller directs all finance and accounting functions of the Temple, provides support and guidance to staff and Board, and interacts with Temple members. We are seeking an experienced professional, with excellent organizational and communication skills, who can both work independently and as part of our dynamic team.

248.542.8022

www.waterworkplumbing.com MAY 26 • 2022

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OBITUARIES

OF BLESSED MEMORY

A Student of Science

D

r. Robert Arking of Troy, a scientist, beloved husband, father and grandfather, passed away suddenly May 16, 2022, while visiting family in New York City.

He was 85.

Born on July 1, 1936, in New York City, he grew up in Atlantic City, N.J., roaming the Boardwalk with friends and working in his father’s linen store.

Dr. Arking received a B.S. in biology from Dickinson College and a Ph.D. from Temple University. After various positions at the University of Virginia, University of Kentucky and the University of California at Irvine, he landed at Wayne State University in Detroit, where he spent 45 years as a professor in developmental biology, developmental genetics and the biology of aging before retiring in December of 2020.

Dr. Arking was instrumental in both designing courses, reforming WSU’s undergraduate curriculum and establishing the M.S. Biotechnology Program.

He also promoted modern teaching methodologies and developed courses to help at-risk students.

However, research was his true passion; and throughout his career he was fascinated by the physiology of healthy aging and developed a strain of

72

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MAY 26 • 2022

long-lived fruit Teachers, serving flies that enabled as treasurer him to identify and executive the factors that board member, promote healthy implementation aging. Dr. Arking officer and vice collaborated president. He was with scientists also a member in Russia, of the union Dr. Robert Arking Switzerland and negotiating team.

South Korea to explore the Even after retirement, genetics, physiology and Dr. Arking still taught metabolism of aging using his course the Biology of these flies.

Aging as a volunteer.

In addition to prolific While he was a lifelong research articles and student of science, reviews, Dr. Arking is the Dr. Arking was also a sole author of a textbook, committed humanist who Biology of Aging, now in its never failed to exhibit fourth edition. His text enthusiasm for the has been translated into endeavors of his loved ones Japanese (legally) and and offer encouragement at Portuguese (illegally), and just the right time. He was he was very proud that his devoted to his wife of 60 book was good enough to years and lived, loved and steal. laughed through each and Dr. Arking won the every one.

Wayne State Faculty He was preceded in recognition award in 2000 death by his beloved for outstanding scholarship wife, Lucille. He leaves and was elected a Fellow behind two sons, David of both the Gerontological and Jonathan; two Society of America and cherished daughters-inthe American Aging law, Deanne and Carolyn; Association. He was an six grandchildren he invited visiting professor at thoroughly adored, Ben, Pusan National University Jared, Joshua, Rachel, in South Korea in 2000 and Emily and Ari. He is also 2013, and won a Fulbright survived by his siblings, Fellowship to teach and Richard Arking, Madelon study at the University of Holder and Linda Avila.

Salzburg in 2006.

A celebration of life In addition to his will be held at noon on scholarship and teaching, Saturday, June 25, 2022, Dr. Arking held many at the Congregation for positions with the Humanistic Judaism of American Association Metro Detroit, 28611 W. of University Professors/ 12 Mile Road, Farmington American Federation of Hills.

DR. ELIE D. ABOULAFIA, 93, of Farmington Hills, died May 9, 2022.

He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Eileen Aboulafia; children, Diane and Dr. Peter Shapiro, Dr. David and Audrey Aboulafia, Dr. Albert Aboulafia and his fiancee, Cheryl Kalb, Robert and Deborah Steingold, David Steingold and Lisa Dwyer, Michael and Janice Steingold, and Dr. Marc Steingold; grandchildren, Miriam and Yves, Dr. Gabriella and Joe, Elie Chorlton, Jacob, Ariella, Alanna, Woody and Carla, Jason, Sean and Brooke, Rachel and Adam, Lindsay and Aaron, Eric, Meghan, Dana and Matt, Jamie and Reuben, Melissa and Barrett, and Dr. Brandon; greatgrandchildren, Yoni, Yael, Zaidie, Stella, Caleb, George, Hunter, Asher, Juniper, Ivy, Jackson, Miles and Josie; brother, Dr. Yeshaya Aboulafia; brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Dr. Paul and Dr. Ruth Helman. He is also survived by Susan Steingold, many loving nieces, nephews, cousins, colleagues, friends and his devoted caregivers, Nefertiti Newsome and Caitlin Bonner.

Dr. Aboulafia was the devoted son of the late David and the late Mazel Aboulafia.

Interment was at Clover Hill Park Cemetery.

Contributions may be made to Magen David Adom, P.O. Box 96402, Washington,

DC 20090-6402, afmda. org; or David Horodoker Organization, 6953 Candlewood Trail, Attn: Susann Kauffman, West Bloomfield, MI 48322, suekauffman@comcast. net. Arrangements by Ira Kaufman Chapel.

LILLIAN BRATT, 105, of West Bloomfield, died May 14, 2022.

She is survived by her daughter and son-in-law, Reva and Michael Cowan; son and daughter-inlaw, Barrie and Iris Bratt; grandchildren, Margot Cowan and John Walbaum, Jonathan and Kristen Cowan, Meredith and Thomas Boylan, Heather and Jeffrey Tomey; greatgrandchildren, Benjamin, Ryan and Toby Cowan, Hayley and Parker Boylan, and Leah and Willow Tomey; nephews and nieces, Dr. Donald Schiff, Renee Schiff, Judy Boesky, and Roger and Marilyn Boesky; many loving greatnieces and great-nephews.

Mrs. Bratt was the beloved wife of the late Morris D. Bratt; the loving sister of the late Kate and the late Henry Schiff, the late Goldie and the late Harry Abram, and the late Al and the late Belina Boesky; the dear aunt of the late Rosalie Schiff, the late Dr. Dale Boesky, the late Gloria Schaefer, the late Marilyn and the late Mel Barnett, and the late Robert Abram.

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continued on page 74 MAY 26 • 2022

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The sooner you call, the more we can help.

OBITUARIES

OF BLESSED MEMORY continued from page 73

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Some days seem to last forever…

We’re offering one that actually will.

You can honor the memory of a loved one in a most meaningful way by sponsoring a day of Torah learning at Yeshiva Beth Yehudah.

During the coming week, Kaddish will be said for these departed souls during the daily minyan at Yeshiva Beth Yehudah. Your support of the Torah learning of our children and our Kollel’s Torah Scholars brings immeasurable heavenly merit. Please call us at 248-557-6750 for more information.

28 Iyar May 29 Hyman Fenkel Sarah Iger Louis Kazdan Bessie Landgarten Laura Nusbaum Ruth Ratner Abraham Sachs Philip Schlussel Chaja Rachel Siwek Tillie Snyder Dorothy Terebelo Etta (Pascal) Waldman 29 Iyar May 30 Florence S. Dann Adolph Gastman Sam Kleiman Charles Lesser Regina Levi Janette Noler Boris Joseph Sheawitz Samuel Shoenig Morris Sklar Eva Stein Eva Wexler 1 Sivan May 31 Jennie Bolker Ethel Cash

Solomon B. Cohen Max Erstein Helen Farczadi Samuel Kaner Gizella Klein Yetta Rosenberg Rose Schwartz Jake Sherman John Zarkin 2 Sivan June 1 Ethel Allen Emma J. Berg Jeanette Bloch Moshe Cohen Harry Samuel Gottlieb Samuel Pomerantz Bertha Roth Morris Stern Minnie Suchman 3 Sivan June 2 Chaya Tzipa Chesluk Abraham Isaac Davidson Taube (Tillie) Dresner Jack Holzman Michael Malter Harry S. Markowitz Daniel Richard Rollins Jean Wander Gertrude Wolfe

4 Sivan June 3 Max Feuerman Elsie R. Greene Harry Greenstein Lenore Katkin Lena Levine Jack Lipton Rachel Ross Etta Schultz Lana Soloveichik Gary A. Zieger 5 Sivan June 4 Nathan Beitner Jay S. Bodzin Israel Eisenshtadt Esther Fidler Teresa Glancz Max Glassman Fanny Kaplan Yetta Ketchen Louis Lesonsky Beatrice Levitt David Margulies Sol Nusbaum Sam Solomon

School for Boys • Beth Jacob School for Girls • Bais Yehudah Preschool Weiss Family Partners Detroit • Kollel Bais Yehudah • Maalot Detroit P.O. Box 2044 • Southfield, MI 48037• 248-557-6750 • www.YBY.org

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Interment was at Clover Hill Park Cemetery.

Contributions may be made to Jewish Senior Life, Attn. Jo Rosen, 6710 W. Maple Road, West Bloomfield, MI 48322, jslmi.org; Temple Shir Shalom, 3999 Walnut Lake Road, West Bloomfield, MI 48323, shirshalom. org; Jewish Hospice & Chaplaincy Network, 6555 W, Maple, West Bloomfield, MI 48322, jewishhospice. org; or to a charity of one’s choice. Arrangements by Ira Kaufman Chapel.

HENRY FRIEDMAN, 98, of West Bloomfield, died May 11, 2022.

He was an award-winning artist who was recognized and appreciated throughout the state and belonged to various art clubs.

Mr. Friedman also spoke at the Holocaust Memorial Center, and he volunteered in multiple Jewish charities for more than 50 years.

He is survived by his daughters and son-inlaw, Melinda Snyder of Farmington Hills, Miriam and Dr. Shalom Siegel of Brooklyn, N.Y.; grandchildren, David Snyder, Daniel Snyder, Golda and Chaim Shanet, Mordechai Siegel, Rivkah and Shalom Akiva Wininger, Hillel Siegel, Malka Siegel, Shoshana Siegel, Yosef Siegel; greatgrandchildren, Chani Wininger, Rochel Wininger,

Ahuva Wininger, Dina Wininger, Hadassah Wininger, Yochanon Wininger, Yonason Shanet, Rafi Shanet, Atara Shanet, Yair Shanet; sisters-in-law, Lea Perlberg, Florence Golsky; many other loving family members and friends.

Mr. Friedman was the beloved husband for 69 years of the late Bess Friedman; treasured son of the late Amalia and the late Bernard Friedman; dear father-in-law of the late Dr. Michael Snyder; cherished brother and brother-in-law of the late David and the late Frieda Friedman, the late Abraham and the late Erna Friedman, the late Norman Perlberg, the late Bernie Golsky.

Contributions may be made to Bais Chabad of West Bloomfield, 5595 W. Maple Road, West Bloomfield, MI 48322; or Chabad of Greater Downtown Detroit, 278 Mack Ave., Detroit, MI 48201. A funeral service was held at Hebrew Memorial Chapel. Interment was at Hebrew Memorial Park.

Arrangements by Hebrew Memorial Chapel.

LEO HOLLANDER, 98, of Farmington Hills, died May 17, 2022.

His life experiences were numerous. He was a World War II Purple Heart recipient. He was proud to have worked with NASA on Apollo 11-13

space missions. He also felt privileged to teach math to hundreds of Detroit students over the years.

What was most meaningful to Leo was sharing his life for 55 years with his wife, Harriett, raising four kind and generous children, and passing on his knowledge, love and laughter to his many grandchildren, greatgrandchildren, family and friends.

Mr. Hollander is survived by his wife of 55 years, Harriet Hollander; sons and daughters-in-law, Kevin Hollander, Jeffrey and Jennifer Hollander, and Gary and Bonnie Hollander; daughter, Tobi Hollander;

grandchildren, Kelly Wilson, John Floyd and Christine McPharlin-Floyd, Rachel and Chris Krebs, Ari Hollander and his fiancee, Miranda Kalinowski, Matthew, Darren and Kadie Hollander, and Rosie and Sadie Meisler; great-grandchildren, Logan Wilson, Hailey McPharlin, Emerson Floyd and Scarlett Floyd; brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Jay and Laura Mackie; many loving nieces and nephews.

He was the loving brother of the late David Hollander, the late Martin Hollander, and the late Miriam Weberman.

Interment was at Adat Shalom Memorial Park.

Contributions may be made to Yad Ezra, 2850 W. 11 Mile Road, Berkley, MI 48072, yadezra.org/ donate; Jewish Hospice & Chaplaincy Network, 6555 W. Maple, West Bloomfield, MI 48322, jewishhospice.org; Hospice of Michigan, 43097 Woodward Ave., Bloomfield Hills, MI 48302, hom.org/ donations; or to a charity of one’s choice. Arrangements

by Ira Kaufman Chapel.

HERBERT KAY, 93, of Sylvan Lake, died May 12, 2022.

He is survived by his partner, Martha Stalburg; daughters

and sons-in-law, Ronna and Mitch Ersher, Jodie (Karl Loeffler) Kay, Sandra and Brian Lesniak; son, Richard Kay; grandchildren, Brandon Kay, Jenna Kay, Emily Ersher, Marteen Kay-Loeffler, Lauren Lesniak and Adam Lesniak; great-grandchildren, Violet and Damian; sister, Iris Wolf; many other loving family members and friends.

Mr. Kay was the husband of the late Marjorie Kay; son of the late Estelle Kay and the late Harry Kamnetzky.

Contributions may be made to the Michigan Humane Society.

Arrangements by Dorfman Chapel. continued on page 76

For the peace you need . . . for the respect of the life you treasured.

MAY 26 • 2022

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OBITUARIES

OF BLESSED MEMORY continued from page 75

DR. KEVAN KREITMAN, D.P.M., 61, of Birmingham, passed away unexpectedly on March 29, 2022.

Born in Detroit, Dr. Kreitman grew up in Southfield and graduated from Detroit Country Day School in 1979. He was a graduate of the University of Michigan in biology and chemistry and earned his D.P.M. from the thenPennsylvania College of Podiatric Medicine. He served as chief resident during his surgical residency at North Detroit General Hospital. Dr. Kreitman was a diplomat of the American

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Board of Foot and Ankle Surgery.

He was a partner of Shores Podiatry Associates in Roseville for 20 years and was a leader of the Michigan Podiatric Medical Association, serving as president from 2002-2003.

He was active with the APMA and the APMAPAC and served as speaker of the APMA House of Delegates for the first time in 2022.

Dr. Kreitman could best be described as being the nicest and most honest person any individual could meet.

Wise beyond his years, he was a man of extremely high morals and integrity. Known for always doing the right thing, Dr. Kreitman loved his

ability to help others through his job and volunteer roles.

His biggest joys in life were being a husband, father, grandfather, brother, son, uncle, brother-in-law and friend.

He was the quintessential mensch. The community is mourning the loss of such an accomplished and selfless man. Dr. Kreitman’s kindness, humor, friendship and leadership will be missed by all.

Dr. Kreitman is survived by his beloved wife of 31 years, Barbara Kreitman. He was the devoted father of Doree (Jake) Lapping, Josh Kreitman, Seth Kreitman and Sarah Kreitman. He was the adoring grandfather of Isla

Lapping; treasured son of Rene and Max Kreitman of West Bloomfield; cherished brother of Alisa (Ken) Bloom; brother of Sheldon Kreitman; son-in-law of Johnny Katz; brother-in-law of Susie (Rodney) Shacket, Marlene (Larry) Glanz and Larry (Rhonda) Katz. Dr. Kreitman is also survived by many loving nieces, nephews, extended family and a world of friends and loyal podiatry colleagues.

Interment was held at Adat Shalom Memorial Park.

Contributions may be made to the Leukemia Lymphoma Society or a charity of one’s choice. Arrangements by Hebrew Memorial Chapel.

ROSE LIGHT, 91, of West Bloomfield, died May 17, 2022.

She is survived by her beloved husband, Jerry Light; daughter, Verna Cole; son and daughter-in-law, Steven and Diana Light; grandchildren, Danielle (Jason) Justin, Stephanie (Austin) Petersen and Nicole Light; great-grandchildren, Eli, Esther, Cali and Shayla; many other loving family members and friends.

Mrs. Light was the sister of the late Louis Gordon.

Interment took place at Clover Hill Park Cemetery.

Contributions may be made to the American Heart Association. Arrangements

by Dorfman Chapel.

JACQUELINE “JACKIE” LORFEL, 75, of Farmington Hills, died May 13, 2022.

She is survived by her loving husband and soulmate, Dr. Ronald Lorfel; daughters and sons-in-

law, Elissa and Rabbi Jason Miller, Stephanie and Dr. Hylton Gelb; grandchildren, Joshua, Jonah and Talya Miller, Regan and Caden Gelb; sister and brother-inlaw, Kathryn and Stephen Sussman; brothers-in-law, Bruce Lorfel, David (Linda) Lorfeland; many loving nieces and treasured friends.

Mrs. Lorfel was predeceased by her grandson, Rylan Foster Gelb.

Interment took place at the Clover Hill Park Cemetery in Birmingham. Contributions may be made to Jewish Family Service, Pancreatic Cancer Action Network or a charity of one’s choice.

Arrangements by Dorfman Chapel.

BARBARA WEISBERG, 84, of West Bloomfield, died May 14, 2022.

She is survived c. 1985 by her daughters and son-in-law, Julie Edgar, and Lisa and Louis Corey; grandchildren, Zachary Edgar, Andrea and Scott Unger, Robert and Rachel

Krekun The unveiling of Barbara Krekun will take place on

Sunday May 29, 2022 at 10:30am at Hebrew Memorial Cemetary on Gratiot and 14 mile Rd. Rabbi Steven Rubenstein officaiting.

Luncheon to follow.

Edgar, Hadas and Thomas Benhamou, and Samuel Corey; great-grandchildren, Casey Unger, Brandon Unger, Tessa Unger, Quinn Benhamou and Celia Benhamou; brother, Melvyn Rubenfire; brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Clifford and Marilyn Weisberg; many loving nieces and nephews.

Mrs. Weisberg was the beloved wife for 58 years of the late Sheldon Weisberg; the dear sister-in-law of the late Diane Rubenfire, and the late Jerry and the late Rosalind Weisberg.

Interment was at Clover Hill Park Cemetery.

Contributions may be made to Project Healthy Community, P.O. Box 252433, West Bloomfield, MI 48325, projecthealthycommunity. org/donate; or ORT America Michigan Region, Max M. Fisher Federation Building, 6735 Telegraph Road, Suite 350, Bloomfield Township, MI 48301, ortamerica. org. Arrangements by Ira Kaufman Chapel.

Corrections

The obituary for Ellen Ziff (May 12) should have indicated she was the also the beloved wife of the late Ernest Weiss.

In the obituary for Maurice Reizen (May 19), there was a misspelling of the name of his granddaughter Lucy. We apologize for the error.

OBITUARY CHARGES The processing fee for obituaries is: $125 for up to 100 words; $1 per word thereafter. A photo counts as 15 words. There is no charge for a Holocaust survivor icon.

The JN reserves the right to edit wording to conform to its style considerations. For information, have your funeral director call the JN or you may call Sy Manello, editorial assistant, at (248) 351-5147 or email him at smanello@ thejewishnews.com.

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MAY 26 • 2022

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Looking Back

From the William Davidson Digital Archive of Jewish Detroit History accessible at www.djnfoundation.org

Borenstein’s — A Detroit Institution

S

o, you need a book in Hebrew, a menorah for Chanukah or a shofar? Perhaps you just need some advice about building your sukkah? Then, Borenstein’s Hebrew Books and Music Store is the place for you.

Over my years of working with the William Davidson Digital Archive of Jewish Detroit History, I have seen hundreds of ads and references to Borenstein’s. In the best Mike Smith sense of the word, Borenstein’s Alene and Graham Landau is a Detroit institution. In Archivist Chair business for more than 75 years, it is the “largest and oldest Hebrew supply house in the Detroit Metro Area.”

Borenstein’s began nearly eight decades of operation when Joseph Borenstein purchased Chesluk’s bookstore in 1946.

Polish-born Talmudic scholar and businessman Solomon Chesluk immigrated to Detroit with his family in 1921. He saw a need for a good bookstore and, in 1929, opened Chesluk’s on 12th Street.

Chesluk modestly cited himself as an “old Mocher Seforim (book dealer),” but he was a bit more than just a seller of books (Aug. 19, 1941, Jewish Chronicle). Chesluk was also a recognized authority on the Talmud, Jewish literature and Judaica.

The first advertisement in the JN with the store’s new name, Borenstein’s, appeared in June 1947. An ad two months later cited wares such as “presents, greeting cards, winecups, a big selection of religious articles,” and “electric shavers that can be used in Palestine.” It also added that the store was working “together with the wellknown Mr. Chesluk” (Aug. 19, 1947, JN).

Borenstein’s thrived and followed Detroit’s Jewish community as it moved northwest. It moved into a new store on Dexter Avenue in 1953, and soon opened a second store on Seven Mile Road. Joseph worked the new

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Seven Mile branch and his wife, Rachel, handled the Dexter Avenue store. The Seven Mile store moved to a new location on the same road near Schaefer in 1957.

By 1960, only the Borenstein’s on Seven Mile remained … but not for long. In 1967, the current Borenstein’s on Greenfield in Oak Park opened. The Seven Mile store closed in 1973.

Avrom, the eldest son of Joseph and Rachel, began working at the main store in 1960. He managed the new location until around 1998. Avrom’s brother, Cheskel “Charles,” began working at the Oak Park store in 1975 and is the Borenstein in charge today.

As the store expanded, so did its list of goods and services. One could buy tickets for events at local theaters or the Music Hall, your weekly Detroit Jewish News, or in the March 11, 1949, JN, “unbreakable children’s records for Purim” (Hmm — “children” with “unbreakable?”). In the 1950s, Borenstein’s reminded readers “don’t forget, we send scrip and certificates to Israel.” The store’s latest hot seller is the game of Monopoly featuring Jerusalem. Play well and you’ll have a chance to buy the Western Wall or the Mount of Olives with Monopoly dollars!

Borenstein’s is still a place of Jewish knowledge. In one JN article, for example, Cheskel provided advice about shofars (Sept. 6, 2009, JN). In another story, Avrom gave insight into selecting the perfect etrog, along with a good Jewish joke (Oct. 13, 2000).

Cheskel Borenstein now continues the tradition of knowledge and service to the community. He is a good guy, and I appreciated his kindness as I wrote this story.

Want to learn more? Go to the DJN Foundation archives, available for free at www.djnfoundation.org.

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