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Johnny Pomodoro’s new owners plan
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Under New Management
Johnny Pomodoro’s new owners plan improvements along with more gourmet items.
SHARI S. COHEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Since Hiller’s Market in West Bloomfield closed in 2015, Johnny Pomodoro’s Fresh Market in Farmington Hills has been a “go-to” place for shoppers seeking kosher and other traditional Jewish foods as well as high quality produce. From brisket and shankbones for Passover to pomegranates and apples for the High Holidays, Johnny Pomodoro’s has attracted many Jewish shoppers from the western suburbs. The store has been owned by Dan Sonenberg, a member of the Jewish community, since he purchased it in 2008 from Nino Salvaggio’s, which operated it as Strawberry Hill.
Now Johnny Pomodoro’s has four new owners — siblings Lisa Serra Barker and Anthony Serra, who are owners of Serra Produce, a Detroit produce wholesaler, and Johnny and Matthew Shouneyia, who own Value Center Markets. Serra Produce has been a supplier to Johnny Pomodoro’s for years, says Lisa Barker, who adds that she had always wanted to own a store.
According to Joe Montgomery, Pomodoro’s long-time store manager, Sonenberg has been on medical leave since last year. Barker says that he approached her and her brother about buying the store and the sale was finalized in late July.
“We will do a complete remodel but won’t close the store. We won’t change the products at all but will add more gourmet items,” said Barker, partner-operator. She assures customers that kosher and other traditional Jewish foods will still be featured but “we will go above and beyond. Our whole game is going up.”
A first step was having a commercial cleaning service, Pure Clean, whose employees wear haz-mat suits, come in and “bomb the place. We will have all
here’s to Jewish Family Service announced the promotion of Linda Rosberg of Dini Peterson to chief program officer, Family and West Bloomfield The board of directors of the Community Services. Her responsibilities span across completed trainJewish Community Relations the agency. She oversees a multitude of programs, ing as a civil Council/AJC has named Seth including the Resource Center, Family Support Services, mediator at the D. Gould of Bloomfield Hills School Social Work Services, Volunteer Services, Oakland medias president. He has chaired Behavioral Health Navigation, Cancer Thrivers Network for Jewish ation Center. She has done the Development and Israel Women, Lev Detroit Resource Line and Healthcare Navigation. domestic mediation since 2018. Programming committees and served as vice president and first vice president. Gould Joining the Ann Robin Schwartz recently Detroit Jews is a member of the Shalom Hartman Arbor Symphony won two Emmy awards for Justice Institute’s Detroit Community Leadership Board of Directors from the National Academy announced Program cohort. He is also a partner at the is Rosalie Koenig. of Television Arts and its newest Miller Law Firm. For its 2020-2021 programShe has been on Sciences Michigan chapter staff memming year, JCRC/AJC has also welcomed the education comfor her first-ever documenber, Kendra four new board members: Rabbi Yonatan mittee, drawing on a career as tary, Detroit is Limitless, and a sports feaWatkins. They are the Dahlen of Southfield, Jeri Fishman of an Ann Arbor Public School music ture on the Michigan Senior Olympics. first ever program assoSouthfield, Sheldon Freilich of Bloomfield teacher. She will continue to The documentary followed several brilciate for racial equity. Hills and Sheri Shapiro of Farmington Hills. help guide educational activities, liant young Detroiters through a summer Support for their position especially in the COVID-19 era. technology experience designed to bridge was provided by Jews of Detroit’s digital divide. You can watch it by Color Initiative, a project Wendy Strip of Farmington Hills has joined the Midwest team of visiting detroitislimitless.com. Schwartz is of the Tides Center in American Friends of Magen David Adom as development execua Detroit Jewish News contributing writer partnership with Edot tive for Greater Detroit. She will raise support for Israel’s national and owns her own PR and video producMidwest Regional Jewish ambulance, blood-services and disaster-relief organization. tion company, Robin Schwartz PR. Diversity Collaborative.
new equipment and tables. Produce and floral will be the first areas to be remodeled,” Barker said.
“The presentation will be a little nicer, more like Nino’s (Salvaggio’s) or Cantoro’s (Cantoro Italian Market located in Plymouth). Produce and meats are our niche. We will keep the name but change the logo. We are working around the clock and will post pictures of what the store will look like,” she explained.
The store’s cash registers and wine department will be moved and a second entryway may be created.
Business has been good, according to Barker, with increases in curbside pickup and online ordering due to COVID-19. While she declined to provide an annual sales figure, Dun and Bradstreet reports that the store most recently had $11.3 million in annual revenues. Pomodoro’s has 70 employees.
According to Barker, who will work onsite, all previous Pomodoro’s employees have been retained as part of the sales agreement. In addition, the store will continue its popular 10 percent seniors’ discount on Tuesdays.
Tips for Job Hunting During a Pandemic
In spring, when COVID-19 was starting to affect the working lives of so many, JVS Human Services was inundated with clients looking for employment advice and ways they could change their careers. Many people found their jobs to be non-viable during the pandemic.
Sherrie James At JVS, we help workers reinvent themselves through the program Recharge!, a fourweek career development program for mature Metro Detroiters that recently opened up to workers 45 and over. The next session, presented over Zoom, will be held in October.
Here are some of my top tips you can do now if you’re looking for a job during these unprecedented times: • The hiring process is taking much longer than expected. Don’t get disheartened but do expect to apply to far more positions than you would have normally expected. • Keep your online profiles up to date with a recent professional photograph. • Ensure your social media accounts reflect you in a positive light. continued on page 28
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TIPS from page 27 • Be open and flexible — you may need to take a temporary job as an interim measure or even start at an entry-level job. • Believe in yourself and stay confident: COVID-19 has changed the employment status of so many in our community and you cannot blame yourself in any way. • Update your computer skills if necessary. Online training is available through JVS Human Services and its partners. • If you do get an interview, the chances are that it will be virtual. There are practical considerations to doing virtual interviews so prepare for these beforehand. Make sure the lighting is good, the position of the camera is appropriate and you are wearing a professional outfit. • Interview preparation is key. Practice your elevator pitch — a few sentences about yourself and why you would be successful in the position. • If you are offered an in-person interview, decide if you are comfortable with that and, if not, explain why not to the potential employer. • Re-identify your passions. If your work options have suddenly dried up, or you are simply eager for a fresh start, it might be a great time to reassess your skills and interests and translate them into a new career.
Sherrie James has been a career counselor at JVS Human Services for 17 years.
Since Recharge! launched in 2012, more than 275 individuals have gone through the program. Graduates who have reinvented themselves include a lawyer who became a CEO of a nonprofit, and a Corporate America worker who became a fundraiser. You can reach Sherrie at sjames@ jvshumanservices.org or call (248) 233-4472.
Innovation vs Corona On Aug. 31, the Michigan Israel Business Accelerator will kickoff a strategic initiative called “Innovation vs Corona.” Business leaders from across Michigan and Israel will get together in a free online event to identify Michigan’s needs and discuss opportunities in defense, mobility, cyber/artificial intelligence, health and life sciences, and food and agricultural technologies.
Following the kickoff event, MIBA will establish working groups across the sectors to convene conversations that will identify immediate shortfalls and long-term strategic challenges within each industry segment to address COVID. For more information, visit michiganisrael.com or call (313) 462-2880. Register for the event on Eventbrite.com.
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Moments
Ryan Matthew Calanchi, son of Debra and Reuben Calanchi, will lead the congregation in prayer as he becomes a bar mitzvah at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield on Aug. 15, 2020. He will be joined in celebration by his sister Sarah and proud grandparents Rena and Ronald Weintraub, and Alicia and Rick Calanchi.
Ryan is a student at Novi Middle School. As part of his most meaningful mitzvah project, Ryan volunteered at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Walk in Detroit, where he painted faces and applied temporary tattoos. He also raised funds for JDRF through a bottle drive.
Ingber 50th
Paul and Roberta Ingber of Farmington Hills will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary on Aug. 16, 2020. They are the proud parents of David and Amy Ingber, Esther and Carlito Young, and Steven and Jill Ingber. They are the lucky grandparents of Ethan and Sydney Ingber, Hailey and Max Young, and Jacob, Cooper, William and Lucas Ingber. They are celebrating every day they are given.
Muslim Jewish Advisory Council Aids Seniors During the height of the COVID-19 crisis in Michigan, the Muslim Jewish Advisory Council of Detroit and Jewish Community Relations Council/AJC arranged to have hundreds of meals delivered to hospitals workers to support their incredible work under strained resources.
Now, the organizations are sending hundreds more to senior apartments and care facilities through Jewish Senior Life. Staff in
JCRC
these facilities are risking the health of themselves and their families to protect those that are the most vulnerable among us.
Spirit
torah portion
Considering Others’ Needs
In 1642, Sir Thomas Browne are we not then enjoined to wrote the famous proverb manifest that spiritual loyalty “Charity begins at home.” by elevating all of those in need And it does. If your own needs so that they are no longer in are unmet, it is difficult to see to need? Maimonides (1138-1204) the needs of others. suggested a ladder of tzedakah,
There remain so many unmet with the highest level on that needs. Even in the most prosladder elevating someone to perous of communities there are true self-sufficiency. In so many those who thrive and of our Jewish educational those who struggle, the institutions, Maimonides’ “haves” and the “haveladder of tzedakah is taught nots,” the rich(er) and as the model to emulate; and the poor(er). numerous Jewish leaders
In the 21st century, have taken this to heart why does this continRabbi Jeremy and diligently applied this ue? How have we been Yoskowitz as their model of giving unable to meet the Parshat and leadership. If we all needs of every human Re’eh: apply this model in our being in a world that Deuteronomy communities, we then show seems increasingly 11:26-16:17; that we have surpassed unequal? This chalIsaiah the statement of the Torah lenge has been antic54:11-55:5. that “There will never stop ipated and addressed being those who are needy in the Torah; “There in your land?” will never stop being those Presently, we seem to be who are needy in your land,” caught between the false dichot(Deuteronomy 15:11) and we are omy of feeling we must either then commanded to open our protect people or protect our hands to those in need. economy. The Torah reminds us
The 15th century Portuguese that tzedakah comes from the scholar Abravanel (1437-1508) word tzedek — justice and righsuggests that this relates to the teousness. It is not, and never idea that serving the Divine has been, solely about money. with our hearts and souls — There may always be those in referring to our ideological and need of support — educational, spiritual loyalty to God — can spiritual, physical or financial — then lead into serving God with and we must always open our all of our might, referring to our hearts and hands to them. physical actions in the world, Tzedakah begins at home, in including the application of our our very souls; it doesn’t end money. there. While we may not see
Tzedakah then not only the fruits of our labors in our begins at home, but inside of lifetimes, or live to see the world our very essences; then, after we perfected, we must always strive have internalized the imperative toward that goal together. to make the world more just, can it manifest in the world Rabbi Jeremy Yoskowitz is a Jewish we partner with God to help perfect. Studies instructor and the Jewish Student Life Coordinator at the Jean and Samuel Frankel Jewish Academy
That being the case, why of Metropolitan Detroit.
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Arts&Life documentary
Shoah Ambassadors
On Jan. 13, 2020, Keith Famie watched Edith Maniker, an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor, speak to a group of high school students about her experience escaping Nazi Germany on the Kindertransport mission. Before the talk, Famie, an Emmy-award winning director and producer, knew nothing about the rescue mission. As he listened to Maniker speak, Famie looked around the room at the group of young students and wondered what they would take away from the conversation.
“Out of the 100 kids there, two to three years from now, how many of them will remember?” he said. “I thought, there have to be more ways to tell this story to the younger generation.”
It was after the talk that Famie decided he wanted to take a different approach to a film he was already planning about Holocaust
New documentary aims to pass the torch of ‘Never Again’ to a new generation.
MADELINE HALPERT CONTRIBUTING WRITER PHOTOS COURTESY OF KEITH FAMIE
Local artists Hailey Callahan and Curtis Bates tour the Holocaust Memorial Center with Howard Lupovitch during the filming of Shoah Ambassadors.
survivors: to share the story through the eyes of a younger generation learning about the tragedy. The educational experiences of the young people, or “ambassadors,” will comprise an hour-long PBS documentary, Shoah Ambassadors, produced by Famie through his Visionalist Entertainment Productions company, as well as by Warren Rose, Marjory Epstein and the Marvin and Betty Danto Family Foundation. Famie is aiming for the special to air in winter.
COVID-19 ADAPTATIONS
Originally, Famie had hoped to film in Poland, planning to pair two young ambassadors with two Holocaust survivors. Together, they would tour major sites of the Holocaust such as Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps and the Warsaw Ghetto. Then the pandemic hit.
After months of work, Famie says he felt the project was too important to let go. He decided to switch the focus of the film to a local site of remembrance: the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills.
Famie then searched for two local young people who had limited knowledge about the
Holocaust and artistic talents they could use to articulate what they learned about the genocide.
After an in-depth search using Facebook, local schools and colleges, Famie found Curtis Bates, a 19-year-old rapper, singer and songwriter from Detroit, and Hailey Callahan, a 22-year-old artist and sculptor from Rochester. Famie feels that Bates and Callahan’s educational experiences and passions will provide the potential for a new kind of Holocaust narrative.
“This film is not for the 60-, 70- and 80-year olds,” he said. “It’s for the 16-, 19-, 22-year olds. So, it’s important that it’s their narratives, their thoughts and their creativity.”
FILMING AT THE MEMORIAL CENTER
On July 6, Bates and Callahan came to the Holocaust Memorial Center for the first day of Shoah Ambassadors filming. Though they both grew up within 40 minutes of the center, neither had visited before.
Throughout the first day, Famie and his production crew followed Bates and Callahan on a guided visit of the center as they viewed exhibits on the history of antisemitism, Kristallnacht and the rise of Adolf Hitler. Howard Lupovitch, an associate professor of history at Wayne State University and the director of the school’s Cohn-Haddow Center for Judaic Studies, provided historical background and context before each display. Lupovitch says that in a country where two-thirds of millennials don’t know what Auschwitz is, educating young people about the Holocaust is crucial.
“It’s so important to know about, both to understand the past and to have better perspective on these sorts of events in the present,” he said.
Bates explained that his Holocaust education in school was at times confusing and focused more on sequences of events. He says that the HMC was the perfect place to start to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the Holocaust.
“It feels like such a step up from a museum,” he said. “It’s really a great learning tool for people who don’t know much about the Holocaust to leave knowing so much more.”
In addition to a learning experience, Bates says the filmed tour of the center was an emotional one. He was particularly struck by footage of soldiers liberating concentration camps with bodies piled on top of each other.
“Those were images that I saw that stuck with me,” he said.
And while the guided visit of the HMC had an emotional impact on the young ambassadors, on Friday July 10, Bates and Callahan embarked on
Rene Lichtman
Irene Miller
Edith Manaker
Fred Lessing
Mania Salinger an even more poignant journey as a part of the second day of filming: interviewing Holocaust survivors. Throughout the day, Bates and Callahan took turns asking questions of Holocaust survivors Rene Lichtman, Irene Miller, Edith Manaker, Fred Lessing and Mania Salinger.
Famie says that the safety of survivors during filming in the wake of COVID-19 was paramount. Through a series of meetings, Famie and directors and staff at the Holocaust Memorial Center worked to understand and incorporate safety protocols. As a part of these procedures, survivors came in one at a time for interviews, stayed 6 feet apart from others during filming and wore masks when filming ceased.
Bates and Callahan say they feel privileged to have the opportunity to learn from survivors. Having never spoken to one before, Callahan says she wanted to know more about how the experience affects them to this day. Throughout interviews, Bates and Callahan asked survivors a range of questions, including what their experience in death camps was like and who they lost in the genocide. During a particularly emotional moment of his interview, Lessing, a psychologist and survivor from the Netherlands who went into hiding at the age of 6, described looking at an image of another 6-year-old boy in the Holocaust later in life and weeping uncontrollably. Lessing said the boy looked lost. “And I realized that I was crying for my 6-year-old self,” he told Callahan during the interview.
Callahan says this story from Lessing will stay with her. She says she was extraordinarily touched by Lessing’s and other survivors’ willingness to be open with her and Bates about the terrible things that happened to them.
“It’s their history, their life,” she said. “It’s real. It happened. We need to know. We need to respect them and what they went through.”
Callahan plans on leading another interview with Lessing later on at his home to hear about the story of his childhood teddy bear, which is now part of a permanent display at Yad Vashem in Israel.
Lessing says that when it comes to the tragedy, sometimes people don’t want to remember. But he feels that this dialogue is one of the most important ways to educate and prevent future atrocities.
“I sometimes tell people if you want to learn about the Holocaust, don’t just read history books,” said Lessing. “Listen to what people who were there have to say. If you don’t remember it, it will come back.” continued on page 34 AUGUST 13 • 2020 | 33
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Lessing’s words struck Bates as well. He says he will always remember Lessing’s advice for younger generations: Question authority.
FUTURE PRODUCTION AND ARTISTIC EXPRESSION
Famie says there is much work left to be done for the documentary, including several months of production. For the next part of the project, he is eager to begin filming the daily lives of Bates and Callahan, and show how they will use their artistic talents to express the stories and information they have learned from the HMC and survivors.
Callahan says she plans on sitting with the survivors’ stories for a little while before she begins an art installation. She is considering creating a sculpture in her community using barbed wire.
“I’m going to be inspired by their stories to create something that will hopefully do justice for the community,” she said.
Bates plans on creating a song to relay the narratives he heard. He hopes to call it “Stolen Dreams,” inspired by a question he asked survivors about the childhoods that were taken away from them.
“I want to keep it true to my sound while merging it with my experience learning about the Holocaust and talking to the survivors,” he said.
For Lichtman, an 82-yearold Holocaust survivor and artist, educational opportunities about the Holocaust can take many forms. He says that as a survivor, he takes every chance he can to tell his story to the younger generation, which he feels has the most power to make a difference.
“The young people, they’re the only hope we have,” Lichtman said.
Famie feels grateful to have been able to include so many survivors’ experiences and to have completed the filming of the interviews as soon as possible during an unpredictable time.
Eventually, he hopes Shoah Ambassadors will be used as educational material throughout high schools, so that future generations will take an active role in sharing the legacies and lived experiences of the true ambassadors: Holocaust survivors.
“Who’s going to carry the torch?” he said. “Who’s going to carry that really emotional understanding of the depth of what went on and the dreams that were stolen from so many children if our young people don’t help tell the story?”
