DJN March 25, 2021 by The Detroit Jewish News

THE DETROIT

JEWISH NEWS

200 March 25-31, 2021 / 12-18 Nisan 5781

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Hearts Together Days of Memory and Meaning

Commemorate our Jewish history and heritage — and celebrate our community’s unique connection to Israel. Join the Jewish Federation’s Israel & Overseas Department, our Detroit ShinShinim (young adult Israeli ambassadors), and other local and international Jewish organizations for these very special community-wide events.

YOM HA’SHOAH

YOM HA’ZIKARON

Holocaust Remembrance Day Virtual Commemoration

Israel’s Day of Remembrance Virtual Commemoration led by Our Community Youth

Thursday, April 8 | 7 PM | Virtual

Take part in this virtual community commemoration by the Holocaust Memorial Center, including moving tributes from Holocaust survivors, local clergy and others. Register at: holocaustcenter.org

Tuesday, April 13 | 8 PM | Virtual

Join us as we all come together to honor Israeli Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism. Led by youth from across our community and Federation’s Partnership Region, including Frankel Jewish Academy students and our ShinShinim. Register at: jewishdetroit.org/yom

YOM HA’ATZMAUT

Israel’s Independence Day Sunday, April 18

Socially Distant Picnic & Trail Walk | 10 AM - 12 PM | Beverly Park 18801 Beverly Rd., Beverly Hills, MI 48025 Celebrate Israel’s Birthday! Come to Beverly Park and get your free picnic box filled with kosher Israeli food, a blanket (for you to keep), Israeli games, recipes and playlists. Then take part in the fun, including a short hike filled with Yom Ha’Atzmaut-related discoveries. Presented in cooperation with JCC’s Jfamily. Register and choose your socially-distant trail walk timeslot at: jewishdetroit.org/yom

Live Concert from Israel with Kobi Oz | 3 PM | Virtual

Popular Israeli music artist Kobi Oz and members of his band will lead the world in song to celebrate Israel’s Independence. Perfect for the whole family. Register at: jewishdetroit.org/yom

Questions or need more information? Contact Yiftah Leket at leket@jfmd.org or (248) 971-4198.

MARCH 25 • 2021

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contents March 25-31, 2021 / 12-18 Nisan 5781 | VOLUME CLIX, ISSUE 8

30 12

PURELY COMMENTARY

MAZEL TOV!

ETC.

The Exchange

PASSOVER

SPIRIT

Obituaries

Danny Raskin

Looking Back

5-10

Positively Medieval

This Passover, a Haggadah that’s different from all others.

Moments

The Quest for Curiosity Starts with the Seder

Torah portion

Synagogue Directory

Some Unleavened Levity for Passover

Love Was Key Ingredient of Grandpa’s Horseradish

SPECIAL SECTION

The Binds that Tie

ARTS&LIFE

Black and Jewish communities share a common history of slavery.

Visitors Welcome

Passover Crafts (That Don’t Require You to Be Crafty)

JSL moves toward a more normal Passover.

Getting the kids (and their parents) engaged in holiday DIY is as easy as pressing “Order.”

OUR COMMUNITY 26

Let Your Heartshine

Good Neighbors

“The Little Shul that Could” helps school next door. West Bloomfield man creates artistic T-shirts to help heal from tumultuous year.

MARCH 25 • 2021

Our Home

A Modern Plague

Look Who’s Coming to Dinner

Art installation advances ‘Plastover’ holiday theme. New play examines what might happen if Elijah really came to the seder.

Celebrity News

EVENTS 52

Shabbat & Holiday Lights

Shabbat starts: Friday, March 26, 7:34 p.m. Passover Day 1 starts Saturday, March 27, 8:36 p.m. Passover Day 2 starts: Sunday, March 28. 8:37 p.m. Holiday ends: Monday, March 29, 8:38 p.m.* *Times according to Yeshiva Beth Yehudah calendar.

ON THE COVER: Cover art: Art by Brooklyn, N.Y.-based artist Naomi Broudo. See more of her work at ketubah.com. Cover design: Michelle Sheridan

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PURELY COMMENTARY for openers

Who Inspires Us, Moses or Pharaoh?

here are many ways to think of the drama that took place between Pharaoh and Moses in Biblical Egypt. Some think of it as history; others see it as folklore, and still others see it as an allegory to teach us morals. The wisdom of Kabbalah has Michael a completely Laitman different take on Times of Israel the story of the Exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt. It views it as a process that leads to one’s defining moment in life: The liberation from the ego and the entry into a new reality, where the ego is the servant and care for others is the king. This is why today, when egoism is our sole ruler, it is so important to introduce the concepts of the wisdom of Kabbalah, since only caring for others will prevent the world from exploding into pieces. In Kabbalistic texts, Pharaoh represents the ego, our inclination to focus on ourselves and strive for superiority over others. The period that humanity is in today is indeed a “Pharaoh” period. These days, Pharaoh, people’s untainted and unhinged egoism, is coming to the fore. It controls our lives, organizes them, and we have nowhere to run from its control. Even when we realize that it is not good for us to let Pharaoh

govern and enslave us, we opt for “bread and circuses” since we feel helpless against it. A PLEASURE HUNT? Nevertheless, bit by bit, the realization that our situation is not as it should be is forming within us. Gradually, we are realizing that the endless pleasure hunt leaves us empty in the end. We are born, mature, get a job, perhaps a career, have children, grow old, get sick and die. Why do we go through these cycles? If in the end we die and stop existing, then why be born in the first place? The little pleasures we have in life, if we have them at all, alleviate some of the pain we experience the rest of the time, but if there is nothing left of our lives when they end, then what is the purpose of living, and what is the purpose of the suffering? When we begin to ask these questions, and today more and more people are asking

them, it is a sign that we are beginning to disagree with Pharaoh’s governance over us. This is the beginning of the emerging of the Moses within us — a new perspective on life that wishes to pull us out of the shackles of egoism and deliver us from the metaphoric land of selfishness: Egypt. The wisdom of Kabbalah does not relate to physical locations or to flesh-and-blood people. Every persona in the drama is a force within us, and every land, a type of desire. Egypt represents the desire for self-indulgence, concentration on oneself, while Israel stands for the desire to give, to care about others, to connect with their hearts. Both “lands” exist in every person in the world; therefore, every person can choose with whom to sympathize: the inner land of Egypt, egoism, or the inner land of Israel, giving. When Moses begins to grow within us, we begin

to feel our stay in Egypt as pressing and oppressive. When the Passover story tells us that the people of Israel were in exile in Egypt, it means that they began to want to free themselves from the shackles of egoism, but Pharaoh, the kernel of egoism, would not let them go out free. After some time in that state, the Moses force within us begins to gain strength and makes all the pleasures that the ego offers seem pointless and tasteless. It isn’t that we suddenly fall from riches to rags, but that the same riches that felt so good before, feel pointless and meaningless, and we lose all joy from having them. But in the absence of having any other pleasures, we feel it all as emptiness and hunger. Worse yet, since we are not yet free from egoism and must still serve it, though we no longer want to, we feel that we are slaves, enslaved to Pharaoh. WORTHWHILE GOALS Today, many thousands of people already feel like that. They are especially common among younger people, who grew up seeing their parents’ lifestyles and simply do not want them. They find no pleasure in them, but they also find no pleasure in anything else. This is why so many of them turn to substance abuse to forget about life, or to extreme sports or violence, frantically searchcontinued on page 8 MARCH 25 • 2021

PURELY COMMENTARY commentary

‘Progressive Except for Palestine’

utgers University assistant professor of Africana studies Noura Erakat demands that self-professed progressives share her Israel-hatred, lest they carry the taint of “Progressive Except for Andrew E. Palestine” Harrod (PEP). jns.org She made this point laboriously during a March 3 webinar with Marc Lamont Hill and also Mitchell Plitnick, whose recent book, Except Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics, is dedicated to Erakat’s terrorist cousin, Ahmed Erekat, killed last June by Israeli border security after committing

a car-ramming attack that injured a guard. Hill, professor of communications at Temple University, and Plitnick, former co-director of the radically anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and former vice president of the anti-Israel Foundation for Middle East Peace, spoke with Erakat as part of a book talk presented by Chicago’s leftist Haymarket Books bookstore. The trio invoked the tired litany that the State of Israel racially oppresses Arabs, whether its own citizens or their Palestinian relatives. Hill claimed absurdly that PEP is just as unacceptable as “Progressive Except for Slavery.” Erakat praised the infamous 2001 Durban,

South Africa, United Nations World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, which degenerated into a hate-fest against Israel. She had had a tangential conference connection as a researcher for a conference paper titled “The Forgotten ‘ism’: An Arab-American Woman’s Perspective on Zionism, Racism and Sexism.” “Global, grassroots coalitions” went to Durban, she boasted, “intent on holding up the banner that Israel is an apartheid state.” The U.S. Durban delegation, led by America’s first black secretary of state, Colin Powell, thought differently. Disgusted by the

conference’s antisemitism, the delegation withdrew. Erakat asserted without evidence that the “United States was using Israel to protect itself because it was going to be held to account for reparations for people of African descent in the United States.” For Erakat, Palestinians are always victims, never violent perpetrators. Last summer, she fantasized that Israeli border guards shot her Palestinian cousin during a tragic car accident and not a car-ramming attack, as video proved conclusively (all the more reason for Hill and Plitnick to honor him). Like Plitnick, who denigrated Zionism as a “European construct” akin to other previously continued on page 8

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MARCH 25 • 2021

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PURELY COMMENTARY PROGRESSIVE continued from page 6

accepted colonialisms, Erakat dismissed the Jewish national liberation movement as imperialistic. Rather than fulfilling millennialong Jewish desires to return to their indigenous homeland, Zionism repeats the “colonial denial of peoples’ sovereignty beginning in the 15th century and the conquistadores’ exploration and conquest of the Americas.” Despite massive historical and archeological evidence substantiating and complementing Jewish biblical claims to Israel, she asserted that this Jewish “biblical right” is merely a “stand-in with an indigeneity.” That Zionism “is predicated on the removal of Palestinians” also appeared on Erakat’s rap sheet against Israel. She did not explain how then some 600,000 Arabs in the League of Nations Palestine Mandate, created in 1922 for the establishment of a Jewish national home, grew to about 1.2 million at Israel’s independence in 1947. Furthermore, Israel’s own Arab citizenry today numbers almost 2 million, in addition to more than 4.7 million Arabs in the Palestinian-ruled territories. HOLOCAUST COMPARISON Not even the Holocaust was sacred for Erakat, who relativized the Nazi genocide of 6 million innocent Jews by comparing it with the nakba,

MARCH 25 • 2021

MOSES OR PHARAOH continued from page 5

the “catastrophe” that was the establishment of modern-day Israel. According to Palestinian myths, during its 1948 independence war, the Jews ethnically cleansed perhaps 750,000 Arabs from what became Israeli territory. In reality, most of these anti-Israel Arabs fled combat zones, often under directives from Arab authorities who wanted to destroy Israel without worrying about Arab civilian casualties. Without explaining how the flight of a relatively small number of Arabs equals the systematic extermination of European Jewry, she declared that the Holocaust and nakba should be Arab-Jewish “traumas that we hold together.” Hill attempted to substantiate Erakat’s demonization of Israel by stating that “to be Palestinian in the State of Israel means that I am less likely to get a high-quality education.” Yet, Israeli Christian Arabs are more likely than Jews to qualify for university admission — a fact that disproves his simplistic

analysis. His Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.-like appeal that “our Jewish brothers and sisters can’t get free until everyone is free” will surely fall on the deaf ears of Israeli Jews (who Dr. King, a Zionist, supported) who reject the charge that Israel holds Palestinians in bondage. Plitnick, despite his self-description “as a Jew,” likewise will win little Jewish sympathy with his statement that, given the “crimes that Israel has committed,” it “has become a victimizer and that is very hard for people to accept.” A lie is a lie, no matter who tells it. The panelists, each with long records of anti-Israel activism that, in the cases of Erakat and Hill, frequently spill over into antisemitism, have established their reputations by recycling anti-Israel propaganda as fact. That Erakat and Hill are professors in good standing and represent commonly held views on Israel epitomizes the intellectual and moral decadence of the contemporary university. They should be recognized as the toxic purveyors of lies that they are.

Andrew E. Harrod is a Campus Watch Fellow, freelance researcher and writer who holds a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and a J.D. from George Washington University Law School. He is a fellow with the Lawfare Project. Follow him on Twitter at @AEHarrod.

ing for something that will excite them and give them a reason to keep living. These youngsters are not failures and they are not fools. They are actually very bright and very honest with themselves and cannot pursue a goal that doesn’t seem worthwhile. This transition period we are in can be long and painful. The struggle between Pharaoh and Moses happens within each of us, but it also has social, national and international ramifications. The Bible describes the time of hesitation whether to go Pharaoh’s way or Moses’ way as the 10 plagues of Egypt. But in the end, the ego, namely Pharaoh, surrenders. Now we are approaching that point of choice on the global level. We can choose to experience the plagues, as well, or we can choose Moses’ way before the plagues land on us. We know that in the end, Moses will win, and we will build a united society, where people care for one another. Therefore, the sooner we head in this direction, the faster we will achieve this blissful state. In the process, we will avoid Egypt’s afflictions. Now is our time to make a choice which way to go, toward the land of Egypt, and suffer, or toward the land of Israel, the land of unity and love.

Michael Laitman is a Ph.D. in philosophy and Kabbalah, M.S. in medical bio-cybernetics, and founder and president of Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute.

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NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING — RESCHEDULED UPPER LONG LAKE — LAKE BOARD

SPECIAL ASSESSMENT DISTRICT NO. 75 W. BLOOMFIELD TWP. SPECIAL ASSESSMENT DISTRICT NO. 288 BLOOMFIELD TWP. HEARING OF ASSESSMENT | MONDAY, MARCH 29, 2021 TO THE OWNERS OF THE FOLLOWING DESCRIBED PROPERTIES: TO THE OWNERS OF all properties abutting and/or with access to Upper Long Lake, Bloomfield Twp. & W. Bloomfield Twp., Oakland County, MI (Legal Description: T2N, R9E, Section 12 & T2N, R10E, Section 7) The Lake Board of Upper Long Lake will meet via Zoom on Monday, March 29, 2021, Bloomfield Twp. Hall, 4200 Telegraph Rd, 3:00 p.m., to consider confirming the Special Assessment Roll in order to continue a Lake Improvement Program for the years 2021-2024. Any person may attend this Public Hearing and may comment. This Public Hearing is pursuant to the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act provisions for Inland Lake Improvements, MCL 324.30901 et. seq. Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88308317707?pwd=d3VkYXFxU0hTeWtGdnhBT3JvbHM4UT09 Meeting ID: 883 0831 7707

Passcode: 738242

The proposed Special Assessment Roll with riparian parcels assessed at $638.06 per year and lake access parcels assessed between $159.52 and $210.56 per year. To examine the Special Assessment Roll contact the Bloomfield Township Clerk’s Office or West Bloomfield Township Clerk’s Office. To preserve your right to appeal the Special Assessment Roll to the Michigan Tax Tribunal, you MUST both timely object and timely appeal. • To object: you or your agent may appear at the Public Hearing or prior to the time of the Public Hearing your objection may be submitted in writing to Martin C. Brook, Clerk, Charter Twp. of Bloomfield, 4200 Telegraph Rd., Bloomfield Hills, MI 48302.

My STORY While in his last year of college, Jon Berman was looking with concern at the balance in his college fund. “I was fortunate to grow up in a family that helped me establish that college fund, because at home, we tended to frown on debt,” Jon said. “As a result, I’m pretty squeamish about that kind of financial obligation. However, I needed to finish undergrad, and I was short. So when a friend mentioned Hebrew Free Loan as a source for interest-free money for college, and then my grandmother also mentioned HFL, I looked into it.” Jon went to the HFL website and learned about the agency’s William Davidson Jewish College Loan Program. “I applied, but I didn’t expect to be helped,” Jon said. “At the time, I wasn’t sure if there was a level of ‘Jewish enough’ that I would have to meet in order to get money from a Jewish agency. Also, I was at the end of my undergrad experience, not the beginning, and I didn’t know if that mattered. None of that factored in at all, but still I felt it necessary to package myself to them as a good investment: a person with a good internship, and great post-graduation prospects. Hebrew Free Loan just looked at me as a person who had a need, and they worked with me.” Jon, who majored in physics and math, graduated and went on to become a data scientist, a job that allows him to work with the numbers he enjoys. He also repaid his HFL loan as quickly as he could. “HFL helped me, and I was grateful for it,” Jon said. “I also learned that it’s the borrower loan payments that return to HFL and combine into fresh loan capital and then allow new loans to be made. It really opened my eyes that my loan payments could help the next person. It’s a group effort – community for the community.”

Click. Call. Give Now.

www.hfldetroit.org • 248.723.8184

Community donations help Hebrew Free Loan give interest-free loans to local Jews for a variety of personal, health, educational and small business needs.

• To appeal: you must file a written appeal of the special assessment with the Michigan Tax Tribunal within 30 days after Notice of Confirmation of the Special Assessment Roll has been published in the Jewish News. Martin C. Brook, Bloomfield Twp. Clerk Upper Long Lake-Lake Board Secretary

Teri Weingarden, W. Bloomfield Twp. Treasurer Upper Long Lake-Lake Board Officer

NOTE: The Charter Twp. of Bloomfield will provide necessary, reasonable auxiliary aids and services at all meetings to individuals with disabilities. All such requests must be made at least five days prior to said meeting. Individuals with disabilities requiring auxiliary aids or services should contact Bloomfield Twp. by writing or calling the following: Letter • Bloomfield Twp. Clerk’s Office, 4200 Telegraph Rd, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48302. Email • clerk@bloomfieldtwp.org Phone • 248-433-7702.

Post: 3-8-2021

Publish: 3-18-2021 & 3-25-2021

US Mail: 3-11-2021

6735 Telegraph Road, Suite 300 • Bloomfield Hills, Michigan 48301 Hebrew Free Loan Detroit

@HFLDetroit

MARCH 25 • 2021

PURELY COMMENTARY Yiddish limerick

Pesach

Di shtub is Pesachdik, di tzimern will shine. Der tish iz shayn with di glezlach of wine. Mir essn un mir trinken, the Haggadah we read. Mir zingen alle zmirot, ich bin hayzerik un mid. Ober Pesach, oy Pesach, a yontef of mine.

Di shtub is Pesachdik — The house is Pesach-ready di tzimern — the rooms Der tish iz shayn with di glezlach of wine — The table is beautiful with the glasses of wine. Mir essn un mir trinken — we eat and we drink Mir zingen alle zmirot — we sing all the songs ich bin hayzerik un mid —- I am hoarse and tired Ober — but yontef — holiday By Rachel Kapen

What if society labels you a genetic threat? Explore the Nazi regime’s “science of race” and its implications for modern medical ethics and social responsibility in this provocative new exhibit.

Exhibit Now Open

Open Sunday to Friday Free with admission or membership This exhibition has been made possible by The Lerner Foundation and Eric F. and Lore Ross, with additional support from the Lester Robbins and Sheila Johnson Robbins Traveling and Special Exhibitions Fund established in 1990.

PRODUCED BY

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL CENTER ZEKELMAN FAMILY CAMPUS 248.553.2400 • holocaustcenter.org

1 10R2-HMC-DM-Ad-JN.indd | MARCH 25 • 2021

1/20/21 12:18 PM

Holocaust Memorial Center Commemorates Yom HaShoah

Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

The worldwide Holocaust memorial project “Unto Every Person There is a Name” is designed to perpetuate the memory of the Six Million — among them 1.5 children — murdered while the world remained silent. The project offers the opportunity to remember them as individuals — one at a time — through the public reading of their names on Yom HaShoah during a Holocaust Memorial Center community broadcast Thursday, April 8, at 7 p.m. at holocaustcenter.org. You can help to restore the identity and dignity of the victims of the Holocaust by participating in the virtual name-recitation ceremony by memorializing those who perished. Sign up at https://tinyurl. com/3y8bn7wx. Following your registration, a member of the HMC staff will send you a list of names to read and instructions. If you have questions, email events@holocaustcenter.org. The HMC has other events planned to commemorate Yom HaShoah as well. • On Monday, April 5, at 1 p.m., there will be book talk with Dr. Bernice Lerner, author of All The Horrors of War, in conjunction with the CohnHaddow Center for Judaic Studies. For information, email andrea.ritter@wayne.edu. • On Wednesday, April 7, at 7 p.m., there will be a virtual reading of the Megillat HaShoah, the Holocaust Scroll. For information, visit www.cbahm.org/event/ megillathashoah2021. • On Thursday, April 8, at 8 p.m., The Well is hosting a Young Adult Yom HaShoah in conjunction with HMC. Information is available at meetyouatthewell.org/calendar.

This Passover, help us make it possible to celebrate another kind of freedom. Freedom from a pandemic. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage around the world, there’s reason for hope. And no country has offered more hope for what life might be like again than Israel, which has led the world in immunizing its people. Magen David Adom, Israel’s paramedic and Red Cross service, has played a major role in this success. MDA has treated tens of thousands of stricken Israelis, administered Covid tests to more than 4 million, and vaccinated Israel’s most vulnerable populations, including all its nursing home residents. When you support Magen David Adom, your gift has an immediate impact in helping Israelis — today and every day. Make a gift today. Pesach kasher v’sameach.

afmda.org/passover

MARCH 25 • 2021

PASSOVER

Positively Medieval

This Passover, a Haggadah that’s different from all others. BARBARA LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

hy is this Haggadah different from all other Haggadot? Well, it’s the first one Southfield educator and medieval culture buff Marilyn Finkelman has written, illustrated and bound. And while it’s based on a medieval document, Finkelman’s alterations make it uniquely hers. Finkelman, 71, of Southfield, and her husband, Rabbi Eliezer Finkelman, have a keen appreciation for all things medieval. For more than 20 years they have been active with the Society for Creative Anachronism, an organization dedicated to researching and recreating the arts and skills of medieval and Renaissance Europe. The Finkelmans specialize in the lifestyle of Jews of that era. Finkelman has been creating medieval-style Hebrew pieces for many years.

MARCH 25 • 2021

ABOVE: Marilyn Finkelman binds the Haggadah she made for her grandson. TOP: Pages from the medieval-style Haggadah she has created.

When the eldest of her 11 grandchildren celebrated her bat mitzvah, Finkelman’s gift was an illuminated panel with the word baruch — blessed — in Hebrew. Other pieces followed, including a 12-page booklet containing the Hallel prayers for a granddaughter named Hallel and a Hebrew primer for a daughter-in-law’s graduation from library science school. Finkelman also did a collection of psalms for herself. Now her grandson, Shmuel Pessah Englard, is preparing for his bar mitzvah, and in honor of his middle name and the celebration’s springtime date, Finkelman decided to create a Haggadah for him. At 86 pages, it’s her most ambitious project yet. She chose as her model the Haggadah portion of the Hamilton Siddur, an illuminated manuscript from the early 1300s owned for many years by Alexander, Earl

JN-Pesach2021_Layout 1 3/9/2021 10:31 AM Page 1

of Hamilton. The original is now in the Berlin State Library. Finkelman said she liked the illuminations, which are almost entirely initial letters turned into zoomorphic (animal-like) or anthropomorphic (human-like) forms. She also gained inspiration from a manuscript from the Palatina Library of Parma. Finkelman made several changes. She added in portions of the modern Haggadah that are missing from the Hamilton version. Before the invention of printing, written text was enormously expensive to produce, and creators of Hebrew manuscripts often omitted passages that the reader would probably have known by heart or had available in other books. For example, the Grace After Meals appears only by reference in most medieval Haggadot. Most also instruct readers to recite various blessings, such as those for matzah and bitter herbs, without writing them out word-for-word. MODERN ELEMENTS Finkelman consulted modern Haggadot, including the Maxwell House Haggadah, before deciding on the final wording. She also found some scribal errors in the original and corrected them. “In general, I stuck with the original where the meaning was the same and went with the modern version where there was a difference in meaning,” she said. Most Haggadot, both medieval and modern, end with collections of piyutim, religious poetry. Finkelman chose to include the modern set rather than the medieval ones that are unfamiliar to modern readers. Finkelman’s Haggadah

measures 7.5 x 5 inches. She wrote with a reed pen and oak gall ink. Her paint was mixed from pigment, water and gum arabic. “As I began painting the illuminations, I was surprised to discover they were not as vivid as I expected, “she said. “Therefore I included more of the most vivid colors in the palette and I added decorative whitework throughout.” Using parchment like the original manuscript did would have been prohibitively expensive, however, so Finkelman used Pergamenata, a vegetable imitation that looks and behaves like parchment. The book is covered with vegetable-tanned goatskin and cotton paper that she and her husband made last year. It is bound using traditional cord-binding techniques. The illustrations in medieval manuscripts are “more fun” than those in modern Haggadot, said Finkelman. “The art is telling you, ‘Look at me!’” She thinks her grandson, Shmuel Pessah, will appreciate them because he has a good sense of humor. One illustration in the Hamilton manuscript stood out: a miniature of three women under an arch. The largest figure is sitting at a desk holding a pen. In the middle a woman holds a ladle in a bowl or pot. The smallest woman is spinning yarn with a drop spindle. Finkelman wonders if the women represent the artist or perhaps the woman who commissioned the work. Finkelman made high-quality scans of the pages before binding them. Perhaps when the project is completed, she’ll look into making printed copies.

A Seder with Adat Shalom Synagogue Join Rabbi Aaron Bergman, Hazzan Daniel Gross, and Michael Wolf for an online 2nd night Seder experience Sunday, March 28 at 6:30 pm concluding at the dinner break Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83816523450 Meeting ID: 838 1652 3450 / Dial in: 1-646-558-8656 Passcode: Seder We will provide a Haggadah on Zoom for the Seder

Best wishes for a joyous and fulfilling Passover

Chag Sameach! www.adatshalom.org

MARCH 25 • 2021

PASSOVER HUMOR

Some Unleavened Levity for Passover

an, oh man, oh Manischewitz, where does the time go? Passover is once again upon us. I just received my updated Haggadah, which has been amended with the following additional Four Questions: 1) Anybody got Alan any leads on getMuskovitz ting a vaccine? 2) When will we reach herd immunity? 3) How much longer should we wear masks? 4) Should gatherings be limited to only those who have been

vaccinated? As we all know, God served up the 10 plagues, which eventually forced the Pharaoh’s hand in letting our people go. Can you imagine how the course of history would’ve changed had COVID-19 been one of the plagues? Who knows how long a travel ban would’ve delayed the Israelites’ trip to the Promised Land? We know that God decreed that the Jews wander in the desert for 40 years. But did you know it would’ve taken 50 years had Moses not had the good sense to finally ask his wife for directions? It didn’t hurt that

she had just purchased a new chariot that came with On-Star of David. And who knew that Moses, once referred to as a Prince of Egypt, would have so much in common with another prince, Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex? Both went to their respective leaders (the Pharaoh and Queen Elizabeth) seeking their freedom. Both had to cross

large bodies of water and wander a bit until they finally found their respective new homes. After 40 years, Moses led his people to the Promised Land, while Meghan and Harry ended up in LaLa Land. On a side note, if while wandering, Israelites ate one piece of matzah every day for 40 years, or 14,600 days, at 25 grams of carbohydrates per portion, each would have con-

ESSAY

Love Was Key Ingredient of Grandpa’s Horseradish LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

randma constructed a feast for family and guests in the little kitchen in the middle of their apartment. Grandpa prepared two items: the charoset and the horseradish. Since he worked on the horseradish, he worked beside an open window in the bedroom at the end of a long corridor, far from the rest of the apartment. We grandchildren could help Grandpa. The charoset was simple: We took turns using an oldfashioned grater (in Yiddish, rebeisen or rub iron) to turn a couple of apples into raw applesauce and chopping some walnuts. Grandpa would mix

MARCH 25 • 2021

the walnuts and applesauce, add generous amounts of cinnamon and some sweet red wine. The horseradish was more of a production. Grandpa had picked a good horseradish root

— he knew about fruits and vegetables — years ago he had sold them from a pushcart until he bought his own fruit store. He peeled the horseradish, and then we took turns grating it

into the bowl. No one could take too long a turn before the aroma made our eyes tear, and we had to leave, and the next child had a turn. Eventually, when he had enough grated horseradish in the bowl, Grandpa squeezed lemons one after another with a little glass juicer. Then Grandpa would mix lemon juice, sugar and maybe water into the horseradish, releasing torrents of fresh aroma. Children could get sent to the kitchen to bring more lemons or sugar until Grandpa was satisfied with the end product, and we could taste it. Sometimes it needed a bit

sumed approximately 365,000 total grams of carbohydrates during their journey. So, it’s quite likely many of them developed diabetes, which ironically was actually the name of the Pharaoh’s sisterin-law. You can’t make this stuff up. For their history making efforts, both Moses and Meghan and Harry landed blockbuster interviews. Moses spoke with God on Mount Sinai while Meghan and Harry chatted with Oprah in someone’s backyard. By the way, if you twist the rules of an anagram, as only a twisted mind can do, you can use all the letters of the word pharaoh to spell … Opraahh. I recognize that observation is neither historical nor hysterical. Meanwhile, I hope among the already vaccinated

Michiganders there is a healthy number, both literally and figuratively, who can once again share seders in person. I know there’s no way of determining ahead of time if Elijah has been vaccinated. But when you open your front door at the end of the seder to let him in, if all you see is a floating mask, at least you’ll know he’s being respectful. For those not able to gather in person, it will mean you’re in for another Zoom seder. Don’t feel too sad, remember, next year when you get the whole family back together at your house, you won’t be able to mute anybody.

more lemon juice, sometimes a bit more sugar. When he was satisfied with the result, Grandpa let us have one more taste. Through our tears, we would agree with Grandpa that the horseradish was good this year. Half the horseradish went into one bowl for the people who prefer white horseradish. We got to grate a beet into the horseradish in the other bowl for red horseradish, for the people who prefer the more delicate red horseradish. Grating the beet was much less dramatic. Now I have a couple of horseradish plants growing in the Southfield clay in my

backyard. In the fall, the plants display impressive three-foot tall leaves and delicate white flowers. Now, at the beginning of spring, the leaves are bleached ivory color and flat on the ground. I plan to dig up a bucketful of roots, wash them peel them, and put them through the grater before Passover, just like Grandpa used to do. One year, I tried to use a food processor. The horseradish came out good, but the food processor never recovered. When I prepare for the seder and remember Grandpa, I expect to have a good cry.

Alan Muskovitz is a writer, voice-over/ acting talent, speaker, and emcee. Visit his website at laughwithbigal. com,“Like” Al on Facebook and reach him at amuskovitz@renmedia.us.

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PASSOVER

enced by Blacks From KaszonyinToAmerica. Auschwitz To Detroit He emphasizes that “Blacks saw God’s hand in their emancipation and the Civil War just as Lincoln did in his second inaugural address.” Rabbi Chelst hopes that Jews and Blacks can use his book as part of their mutual discussion of the Bible and contemporary Michael Weiss points to the names of his parents on the Holocaust memorial in Detroit. The story about this monument begins on page 74. issues. That discussion happens in We, the survivors, the Coalition for Black and WILL remember the Holocaust forever. Jewish Unity, a partnership of We, the Jewish people, the Council of Black Baptist HAVE to remember the Holocaust forever. The Lingering Smell Of The Holocaust Pastors of Detroit and Vicinity Not only the people of Europe, but the people of the rest of the world too, and the Jewish Community by MUST remember the Holocaust forever. Relations Council/AJC. The Michael Weiss co-directors of the coalition are Mark Jacobs of the Mazo Publishers www.mazopublishers.com JCRC/AJC and the Rev. Kenneth James Flowers, Rev. senior pastor Kenneth at Greater New Flowers Mount Moriah To Remember ~ ~ An Obligation LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER Missionary Baptist Church in Detroit. In words that echo Rabbi the College of Engineering umerous cultures Divine intervention. The end Chelst’s observation, Rev. at Wayne State University, around the world have of slavery came to Blacks in Flowers states: “Blacks were devotes a book, Exodus and institutionalized slavAmerica by the Union victory brought to this country in Emancipation: Biblical and ery, but for Americans, slavery in the Civil War, chains. We were considered African American Slavery, to means race-based enslavement but the long quest t property, not fully human. comparing the experience of of Blacks in America. for freedom and on the Holocaus es of his parents points to the nam nt begins on page 74. Michael Weiss ume y about this mon This happened with the sancAs we prepare for Passover, equality drags on. slavery and exodus as preoit. The stor Detr ~ An Obligation To Rem tion of the government. We Jews contemplate our ancesRabbi ember ~ sented in the Bible and in From ors, Kaszony To Ausch We, the surviv forever. tz To Detr are the only group enslaved later Jewish thought with wi the tors’ enslavement in Egypt. Kenneth Chelst the Holocaust oit LL remember WI Rabbi , Freedom came to our ancesof Southfield, historical experience of slavery by law as chattel. And indeed, We, the Jewish peolocpleaust foreve Kenneth ember the Ho people have worked hard HA toVE to rem tors, in the biblical account, by Chelst a professor in and emancipation as experithe of Europe, but t only the people the world too, tell us that we are not fullyNopeo ple of the rest of locaust foreve Ho the ber em human. That damages the MUST rem psyche. Michael Weiss points to the nam “But people in the Black es of his parents Detroit. The stor on the Holocaus y about this mon ument begins on t memorial in page 74. Church read the story of Mazo Publishers Moses, that God called on We, the WILL remember survivors, the Holocaust Moses and delivered the slaves forever. We, the Jewish in Egypt, and we believed people, HAVE to remem ber the Holocaus t forever. that God would deliver us,” Not only the peo ple of Europe, The Lingering but the people of the res Smell Of The H Flowers continued. “We MUST remember t of the world too, olocauRev. the Holocaust st forever. believed that God is on the side by of the downtrodden. The bibliMichael Weiss cal narrative promised us that Mazo Publishers God would give us what we needed. This belief has helped to sustain us through the era of slavery and through the era of Jim Crow.” Weiss

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PASSOVER continued from page 16

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Sholem Aleichem Institute Presents...

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Jacobs describes the work of the coalition: “to promote solidarity between both Mark communities as Jacobs well as speaking out against racism and antisemitism.” Ashira Solomon, who serves as community associate with JCRC/ AJC, supporting the Coalition for Black and Jewish Unity, notes another Ashira connection: Solomon “Antisemitism and racism go hand-inhand … The Nazi lawyers modeled their anti-Jewish legislation on existing antiBlack legislation in America. They looked to American discrimination against Black people to create legislation against Jews.” Solomon says that a positive response “starts with education. Meeting people out of our comfort zone enables us to realize them as friends.” Her own background — growing up Black and Jewish in Oak Park — brought her into diverse communities. We need to “listen to actual people, instead of listening to our thoughts about what those people are,” she said. Then we liberate ourselves from uninformed notions about others, notions Solomon calls “slavery of the mind.” Desiree Cooper, who was a journalist with the Detroit Free Press for 11 Desiree years, notes that Cooper

Jews and African Americans remember the Holocaust and slavery. The goal, according to Cooper, is not that we engage in “competitions of victimhood. A better response would be ‘I am sorry that happened to you. How can we make sure that never happens again?’” Cooper notes that “Detroit has a history of amazing connections between the Black and Jewish communities.” The Jewish Federation’s FedRadioDetroit posted an interview in November with Rabbi Isaac Agree Ariana Silverman Downtown Synagogue Rabbi Ariana Silverman and her friend, Pastor Aramis Hinds of Pastor the Breakers Aramis Covenant Hinds Church International. Pastor Hinds referred to the biblical account of 400 years of the Jews in Egypt in describing the parallel experiences of slavery. He invoked the continuing need for our communities to build on those connections and share the work of enhancing freedom. Rabbi Silverman, observed that “we define our lives in stories.” She feels inspired by stories of Jews and Blacks working together during for the Civil Rights Movement 60 years ago. Now she feels a different challenge: “What are we doing now that our grandchildren will remember in 60 years?”

MARCH 25 • 2021

To the House Without Exit ONLINE @ flintarts.org

The Sheppy Dog Fund, Dr. Alan Klein, Advisor, presents topics of art, religion, and history through its funded lecture series.

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6.2.21 Notre-Dame of Paris: In the Light of the Fire

7.14.21 The Greatest Bible Ever Written: Kennicott no. 1, La Coruña, Spain, 1476

MARCH 25 • 2021

PASSOVER

Visitors Welcome Hadassah Greater Detroit wishes you a safe and healthy holiday

Happy Passover! Chag Sameach! 5030 Orchard Lake Road, West Bloomfield, MI 48323 248.683.5030 | greaterdetroit@hadassah.org www.hadassah.org/detroit Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. ©2021 Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. Hadassah, the H logo, and Hadassah the Power of Women Who Do are registered trademarks of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc.

Wishing everyone a Chag Pesach Sameach and good health.

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MARCH 25 • 2021

JSL moves toward a more normal Passover. SHARI S. COHEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

uring Passover last year, residents of Jewish Senior Life (JSL) were restricted to their individual apartments to help prevent the spread of COVID. Group dining and other activities, as well as visits from family members, were eliminated. As a result, a few residents chose to leave JSL and move in with family members. These strict precautions were mandated by the state because the age and medical status of many JSL residents made them especially vulnerable to COVID. The situation has improved greatly as Passover approaches. Eighty-two percent of JSL’s 650 residents have been fully vaccinated for COVID. According to Nancy Heinrich, JSL CEO, health statistics are carefully monitored. She says there hasn’t been a resident COVID case at JSL in some time. As a result, small groups of residents are able to eat together and enjoy activities while wearing masks and maintaining a safe distance. Visitors are permitted at its four JSL independent living communities — Prentis and Teitel Apartments in Oak Park and Hechtman and Meer Apartments in West Bloomfield. At its assisted living communities (Fleischman and Coville), visits are permitted for those who test negative for COVID. Transportation services are

Avi Schreiber will lead small group seders at JSL this Passover.

being restored. Residents can leave JSL for outside visits and, in most cases, not be required to be tested for COVID upon return. As a result, Passover should be much less solitary this year. Residents have been reminded that they should take recommended CDC precautions, such as limiting seders to no more than 15 people from no more than three households. “We are restarting slowly because there is still a risk for transmission. We are anxious to get residents engaged and active,” Heinrich said. Passover meals will be delivered to each resident, along with a seder plate for the first two nights of the holiday. In addition, gift bags with Pesach candy and ingredients to make charoset will be distributed. Small group seders will be held in some JSL communities, conducted by local musician Avi Schreiber, as well as staff and volunteers. A special socially distanced model seder will be held for residents of the Memory Care Pavilion. In addition, where available, a livestreamed seder will be broadcast in-house and an audio version will be available by phone. Most important this Passover, many JSL residents will be able to see their children and grandchildren, even if masks are still required and elbow bumps substitute for hugs.

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PASSOVER

Passover Crafts

(That Don’t Require You to Be Crafty) Getting the kids (and their parents) engaged in holiday DIY is as easy as pressing “Order.” LYNNE KONSTANTIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

COURTESY OF MICHIGANCRAFTCO Something for the big kids! Northern Michigan-bred Lily Hickman began creating cross-stitch patterns during quarantine to pass the time. When friends and family wanted more, she opened Michigan Craft Co. on Etsy to sell her custom-made kits. Hickman’s What’s a Matzo With You kit includes everything you need for your own matzah masterpiece. Etsy.com/shop/MichiganCraftCo. COURTESY OF MARZIPOPS After the success of their original marzipan matzah pops, Ann Arbor-based Marzipops has expanded to everything that’s playful and delicious in marzipan — including this adorable Passover Paint Your Own 10 Plagues Kit. They’ve drawn the outlines in edible black ink, and you and your kids paint them in with the included edible palette. Then eat! While you’re ordering, check out the Passover Paint Your Own Frogs and Paint Your Own Marzipan Matzah. Curbside pickup available. Marzipops.com. COURTESY OF JBRICK Husband-and-wife team Channie and Yitzy Kasowitz launched Jbrick to fulfill their dream of creating Jewish-themed custom Lego sets. After a two-year absence, their two-in-one Lego Seder Plate is finally back in stock — a Passover miracle! The 232 pieces can create two different designs — once finished, the plate can be displayed on a provided hanging hook. Jbrick.com.

continued on page 24 MARCH 25 • 2021

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COURTESY OF BENNY’S JUDAICA With 18 sets per package, kids can make one of these Matzah Tray Arts & Crafts Kits for every guest at your seder. Cardboard matzah trays can be colored and folded — no glue, no mess. Tjssc.com. COURTESY OF DAYS UNITED Days United’s Passover in a Box includes a family-friendly fun Haggadah with stickers; a Tetromino Seder Plate; a 10 Plagues Memory Game; one-of-a-kind designer matzah cover and Young Detectives Afikomen Bag; and much more. Plus: For every one out of 10 boxes purchased, Days will donate one to the community. Daysunited.com.

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MARCH 25 • 2021

COURTESY OF YIS

OUR COMMUNITY

Good Neighbors

Volunteers distribute food.

Rabbi Morris and his 8-year-old son Moshe restock the food pantry.

“The Little Shul that Could” helps school next door. BARBARA LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

embers of Young Israel of Southfield have always helped their own, reaching out to homebound seniors and others who need help. In the past two years, they’ve also developed a special relationship with the school next door. Young Israel is a small congregation — only 140 families — but its members feel very connected to the neighborhood, where almost all of them live so they can be within walking distance of the Modern Orthodox synagogue. Most of the congregation’s children go to Jewish day schools, but the congregation feels connected to Stevenson Elementary School, their closest neighbor. The K-5 school has 400 students, includ-

ing one Jewish family. Congregants were helping the school community before the COVID shutdowns by funding food packages for low-income families through the Blessings in a Backpack program, headquartered in Rochester Hills. The program aids students who receive in-school meals on weekdays by providing food boxes to help their families through the weekends. The congregation underwrote the cost of packages for families that included 50 Stevenson children. Research has shown that as many as 5 million American children have food insecurity — meaning they are often hungry, said congregation member Andrea Gruber. “Hungry kids just pull at my

heartstrings,” she said. The congregation was planning to expand its support to two additional schools when COVID hit in early 2020. Blessings in a Backpack went on hiatus. At the start of the current school year, Young Israel of Southfield decided to provide its own food boxes. Contributions poured in as soon as the food drive was announced. “My basement looked like a Meijer warehouse!” said Gruber, who coordinated the drive. Through September and October, synagogue members prepared food boxes that they placed in cars as the families drove up to the school. Then they decided a food pantry would be more efficient. They’d already been doing something similar internally. Many synagogue famcontinued on page 28

MARCH 25 • 2021

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Sameach. Apart or together, Passover is a time to celebrate the enduring strength of our Jewish community. Have a wonderful holiday. MARCH 25 • 2021

CLOCKWISE: YIS volunteers Shoshana Gruber, Andrea Gruber, Marc Gruber and Sarah Voss. A Stevenson Elementary student receives a Christmas package. Tovah Morris, 12, works at the food pantry.

continued from page 26

ilies with children received weekly kosher KiwiKids boxes, with a weekend’s worth of breakfast and lunch foods. Those who didn’t want a particular food item left it at the synagogue; others came in the next day to take what they wanted. For the Stevenson families, congregants placed a large metal office cabinet outside the school. Donors leave food in the cabinet, and those who need food can take it. When word got out, other community organizations started bringing donations. While the program is promoted primarily within the school community, anyone who needs food is welcome to take items. The pantry is open 24 hours a day and is constantly being emptied and replenished. HOLIDAY HELPING As the December holidays approached, the congregation took their generosity a step further. The school’s principal, Tonya Hickman, identified 15 families who were struggling financially and unable to provide

MARCH 25 • 2021

Christmas gifts for their children. She gave the synagogue a wish list encompassing needs from computers and bikes to underwear, said the congregation’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Yechiel Morris. “It was really eye-opening,” he said. “This is a nice neighborhood; we don’t normally think people here may be in need.” Some congregants went shopping for gifts; others contributed cash. School families that could, including several alumni, chipped in. The synagogue raised enough to not only provide everything the children requested but also to add gift cards to the packages. A nearby Trader Joe’s donated a gingerbread house kit for every family. Before Christmas, synagogue members loaded the decorated gift packages into family members’ cars in front of the school. “Those families were truly grateful for the outpouring of love and the smiles that were placed on their children’s faces on Christmas morning,” Hickman said. After the successful food and gift distribution efforts, some congregants

wanted to do even more. Ten synagogue members, from college students to retirees, now serve as tutors for Stevenson students. “They Zoom into classes, and the teacher sets them up in private sessions to work on reading and math skills,” said Gruber. Principal Hickman praised Andrea Gruber, saying she is the hero in this story. “She is truly committed to Stevenson and this community,” she said. Hickman says the school community feels blessed and fortunate to have partnered with the synagogue. Gruber and Morris say Young Israel of Southfield is “the Little Shul that Could.” Almost all of the synagogue families participate in the community outreach efforts. “It’s a way for our community to reach out to others, a way to connect. It’s people taking care of each other, realizing we’re all in this together,” said Morris. The school and the shul have named the overall effort “Neighbor to Neighbor.”

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OUR COMMUNITY

Let Your

Heartshine

West Bloomfield man creates artistic T-shirts to help heal from tumultuous year. DANNY SCHWARTZ STAFF WRITER

n Jan. 6, 29-year-old West Bloomfield resident Sam Morris was overcome with sadness as he watched the television coverage of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. This came after a year of the pandemic, which was hard on Morris, who has autism. In response, Morris has turned to creating artwork to express his sadness in the form of love. After watching the coverage, Morris sat down to draw to express his feelings on paper. The next day, on Jan. 7, his mother posted Sam’s drawing and a message on her Facebook page. “After the events of yesterday, things felt so dark. Sam sat down to draw. He said that light can “penetrate the heart” and then the heart can shine. He calls it ‘HEARTSHINE.’ Here’s to more heartshine in 2021!” After the drawing was posted on Facebook, Morris read the reactions from

his friends, saw that it made people feel better, and thought about making a T-shirt. Morris called Adam LaVoy of Royal Oak, who had worked with Morris at Friendship Circle’s Farber Soul Center in West Bloomfield, an art studio that encourages self-expression for adults with special needs. Morris remembered LaVoy had a dream of opening a business to put art on T-shirts, an idea he had for about a decade. Morris’ call was the impetus for LaVoy to finally create and launch PeopleLoveArt.com, a brand and community celebrating the art of people with disabilities. LaVoy collaborated closely with Morris to perfect his artwork and ensure it would work well on a T-shirt. Soon after, the first Heartshine T-shirt was born. Orders have already come in from 14 states just by spreading the word on social media. Morris’ goals include seeing people wear-

Sam Morris’ original sketch of his Heartshine idea

MARCH 25 • 2021

“I WANT TO SPREAD HEALING LOVE INSTEAD OF HATE.” — SAM MORRIS

ing his Heartshine wearables in all 50 states and to benefit the Anti-Defamation League. All proceeds after printing and shipping costs will be donated to the ADL. “Heartshine 2021 is about light that penetrates through the heart to spread love all around the world,” Morris said. “I really wanted to do this because I felt heartbroken after a difficult year of people dying from the pandemic, followed by a new year where weapons penetrated through windows at the Capitol in D.C. People fighting, breaking windows, trying to spread hate across our country. “I want everyone to understand we are better people with many ways to let love shine,” Morris continued. “Just like with a vaccine where a syringe penetrates through an arm to spread healing and build immunity in a body, rays of the sun penetrate through a heart to let it shine. I want Heartshine 2021 to provide a real warmth of light going through a real heart to spread love! I want to spread healing love instead of

hate, and I look for light in the future ahead.” ADDING ARTISTS While Heartshine is currently PeopleLoveArt’s only shirt campaign and Morris is their only artist, LaVoy’s plan for PeopleLoveArt includes adding more artists to the product line with all new shirts. “People can come for Heartshine and see that Sam is not alone in this community as someone trying to reach out and be understood,” LaVoy said. “Whatever they want to talk about, we want to be a megaphone to their message.” Morris has been doing art for five-and-a-half years, and LaVoy believes art is the best way Morris expresses himself. “Expression is really what lit Sam up about art,” LaVoy said. “He can use it as a means of expression and communication, where otherwise there might

exist a barrier. But through art, people are paying attention to what you have to say.” Morris is happy about the reaction so far and wants it to spread as quickly as possible, so people won’t have to “feel hate anymore” after the past year. Lavoy agrees. “The thing I’ve been most pleasantly surprised with is not the number or volume of people reaching out, but what’s behind it,” LaVoy said. “People reach out not just saying, ‘We like what you’re doing, and we support it,’ but ‘this is so important, and how can I help?’” LaVoy says the Heartshine design could continue as long as there’s demand, and there’s no telling how far Morris, Heartshine and PeopleLoveArt could go in drawing attention to positive messages. “If we can keep doing good with this design, we’re going to

Sam Morris works on the final Heartshine concept.

keep doing that,” LaVoy said. “Every T-shirt, every print is to start these conversations. The more we can get them out there, the better.” “I would say with a lot more confidence, Heartshine or not,

this is certainly not the last apparel or artwork from Sam on People Love Art.” Visit peopleloveart.com/heartshine to buy a shirt and help spread Sam’s message.

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MAZEL TOV!

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an Wanetick of Southfield and Cheryl and Rick Kirsch of Bloomfield Hills are excited to announce the marriage of their children, Natalie and Scott. Natalie is also the daughter of the late Marvin Wanetick. The intimate ceremony and small party were held at an art gallery in Ferndale in October 2020. They were thrilled that bubbie Miriam “Ruth” Goldstein was there. Grandparents Harry Goldstein, Helen and Saul Wanetick, Bobbi and Jack Kirsch, and Anne and Norm Saulles were all there in their hearts. Natalie graduated from Michigan State University and works for a Mobile AdTech company based in San Francisco. Scott graduated from University of Michigan and works for a consulting firm in San Francisco. Natalie and Scott live in San Francisco.

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MARCH 25 • 2021

HOW TO SUBMIT ANNOUNCEMENTS Mazel Tov! announcements are welcomed for members of the Jewish community. Anniversaries, engagements and weddings with a photo (preferably color) can appear at a cost of $18 each. Births are $10. There is no charge for bar/bat mitzvahs or for special birthdays starting at the 90th. For information, contact Editorial Assistant Sy Manello at smanello@thejewishnews.com or (248) 351-5147 for information or for a mailed or emailed copy of guidelines.

SPIRIT COMMENTARY

The Quest for Curiosity Begins with the Seder

earning to nurture seder. curiosity is the quest This element of curiosity, of our times. of childlike wonder, How do we nurture continues throughout the in our children and in seder. We point, we probe, ourselves curiosity, we speculate, we not cynicism? marvel. Fascination not And it’s not just the apathy? How do we children. If there are raise a generation of no children attending, curious kids? then an adult will ask Rabbi In a fast-changing the four questions. Warren world, as technology Indeed, at the seder, Goldstein shifts the way we we are all children; JNS live, learn, work and we are all curious. play — and established And if, like the simple professions quickly son, we lack that curiosity become obsolete — how and “don’t know how to do we equip them with the ask,” others must “open up curiosity necessary to adapt the conversation for us,” and find their place? provoking us into a curious More fundamentally, in a state. world of mass cynicism and apathy, how do we raise our PROVOKING THOUGHT children to be engaged and People conventionally underenthusiastic, to be excited stand the seder to be about about life? And excited getting the children to ask about being Jewish? questions. But it’s deeper than that. It’s about provokASKING QUESTIONS ing curiosity. The Passover seder is a Curiosity is more crash course in curiosity. profound; it’s what makes We kick off the main section us care enough to ask — during which we relive questions in the first the great beginnings of the place. To be curious is to Jewish people, our Exodus show an interest — and to from Egypt and our liberbe interested enough to ation from slavery — with want to know more. It’s a “Mah Nishtanah?” (“The Four fascination that is expressed Questions”) traditionally through a question that sung or recited by the young- arises in your mind. est child. One of the reasons we do this is as a warmup exercise to provoke our curi- Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein is the osity for the remainder of the chief rabbi of South Africa.

HAPPY PASSOVER!

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MARCH 25 • 2021

SPIRIT

TORAH PORTION

Cherishing Creation

he intricacies of Temple yours. As we learn in the cresacrifice, as described ation story, those living beings in Parshat Tzav, may are the manifestation of Divine seem otherworldly to us. Priests impulse. Or, as the psalmist place on the altar particular (24.1) says: “The earth and items determined by a specific everything within it is God’s.” sacrifice. Then, over a The sacrifice then, is wood fire, the items are not giving a gift to God cooked — or burnt. A as much as it is reuniting portion is consumed with God what is already by the priest and a Divine. A chance to let go portion, through the of our very narrow concept fire itself, is consumed of human ownership and Rabbi Nate Degroot by God. embrace the expansive For the past 2,000 nature-based sanctity of Parshat Tzav: holy stewardship. For everyyears or so, ever Leviticus since the Temple was thing that is offered upon 6:1-8:36; destroyed, this sacrifithe altar comes from the Malachi 3:4cial tradition has been 24. (Shabbat earth or was once living. replaced by liturgical All the raw materials are HaGadol) prayer. And with this aspects of God’s unfurling change, something core creation. to Judaism has been forgotten, “Sacrifice” in Hebrew is koror neglected: the belief that all ban, built from the linguistic of creation is God’s, and that it root that conveys closeness and is our sacred service as humans intimacy. So while the sacrificial to tend it. process may at first seem disIf we consider the painstaking tancing — giving up that which labor that went into ancient is most precious to us — in fact, Israelites cultivating and raisit is affirming our role as sacred ing the goods they would later stewards of Earth and honoring sacrifice — growing grain for our interconnectedness with wheat, tending olive trees for God, and the more-than-human oil, planting herbs and flowers, world can be an act of profound raising bulls, rams and birds — closeness. From that place of we may begin to understand the humility and inspiration, we act value these things must have to ensure that God’s creation represented for that person. remains cherished. For that person to be comToday, taking sustainable manded to bring those precious action may no longer look like items to the Temple, only to animal sacrifices and altars, but know they will soon go up in each of us doing our part for a smoke must have been heart “greener” planet. wrenching. To take your next step, visit Except, perhaps, there was hazon.org/brithazon, join the something deeper happening. Brit Hazon and commit to To give of oneself in this way change! was to remind oneself — and Rabbi Nate Degroot is the Hazon to be reminded — that those Detroit associate director and spiritual items that you raised, grew and and program director. cultivated weren’t ever really

SPIRIT

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

Kehillat Etz Chayim Huntington Woods etzchayim-detroit.org

B’nai Zion Oak Park (248) 968-2414 Chabad House-Lubavitch of Eastern Michigan Flint (810) 230-0770 chabad.org Chabad Jewish Center of Commerce-Walled Lake Commerce Township (248) 363-3644 jewishcommerce.org Chabad Jewish Center of Novi-Northville Novi (248) 790-6075 novijewishcenter.com Chabad-Lubavitch of Bingham Farms Bloomfield Hills (248) 688-6796 chabadbinghamfarms.com Chabad of Western Michigan Grand Rapids (616) 957-0770 chabadwestmichigan.com Dovid Ben Nuchim-Aish Kodesh Oak Park (313) 320-9400 dbndetroit.org Etz Chayim of Toledo Toledo, OH (419) 473-2401 Etzchayimtoledo.org

Kollel Institute of Greater Detroit Oak Park (248) 968-1891 kollel@kolleldetroit.org Mishkan Israel, Nusach H’ari, Lubavitch Center Oak Park (248) 542-4844 theyeshiva.org Ohel Moed Shomrey Emunah West Bloomfield (248) 737-2626 ohelmoed.org Or Chadash Oak Park (248) 819-1721 or-chadash.org Sara & Morris Tugman Bais Chabad Torah Center of West Bloomfield (248) 855-6170 baischabad.com Shaar Hashomayim Windsor (519) 256-3123 Shaarey Zedek Windsor (519) 252-1594 shaareyzedekwindsor.com Shomer Israel Oak Park (248) 542-4014 godaven.com continued on page 36

MARCH 25 • 2021

SPIRIT SYNAGOGUE DIRECTORY continued from page 35

Shomrey Emunah Southfield (248) 559-1533 congregation-shomreyemunah-105705.square.site The Shul-Chabad Lubavitch West Bloomfield (248) 788-4000 theshul.net Woodward Avenue Shul Royal Oak (248) 414-7485 thewas.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 Kehillat Israel Lansing (517) 882-0049 kehillatisrael.net Congregation T’chiyah Oak Park (248) 823-7115 tchiyah.org Reconstructionist Congregation of Detroit (313) 567-0306 reconstructingjudiasm.org REFORM Bet Chaverim Canton (734) 480-8880 betchaverim@yahoo.com Temple Benjamin Mt. Pleasant (989) 773-5086 templebenjamin.com

MARCH 25 • 2021

Congregation Beth El Windsor (519) 969-2422 bethelwindsor.ca

Temple Israel West Bloomfield (248) 661-5700 temple-israel.org

MINYANS Fleischman Residence West Bloomfield (248) 661-2999

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

Temple Kol Ami West Bloomfield (248) 661-0040 tkolami.org

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

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

Congregation Shaarey Zedek East Lansing (517) 351-3570 shaareyzedek.org

ANN ARBOR

Temple Beth El Midland (989) 496-3720 tbe_midland@yahoo.com

Temple Shir Shalom West Bloomfield (248) 737-8700 shirshalom.org

Beth Isaac Synagogue Trenton (734) 675-0355 bethisaac.org

REFORM/RENEWAL Congregation Shir Tikvah Troy (248) 649-4418 shirtikvah.org

Temple Beth Israel Bay City (989) 893-7811 tbi-mich.org Temple Beth Israel Jackson (517) 784-3862 tbijackson.org Temple B’nai Israel Kalamazoo (269) 342-9170 Templebnaiisrael.com Temple B’nai Israel Petosky (231) 547-0817 templebnaiisraelofpetosky.org Temple Emanuel Grand Rapids (616) 459-5976 grtemple.org Temple Emanu-El Oak Park (248) 967-4020 emanuel-mich.org

SECULAR/HUMANISTIC The Birmingham Temple Farmington Hills (248) 477-1410 birminghamtemple.com Jewish Parents Institute West Bloomfield (248) 661-1000 jccdet.org Sholem Aleichem Institute Lathrup Village (240 865-0117 secularsaimichigan.org SEPHARDIC Keter Torah Synagogue West Bloomfield (248) 681-3665 rabbisasson.wixsite.com/keter Ohr Hatorah Oak Park (248) 294-0613 Ohrhatorah.us

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 Please email factual corrections or additional synagogues to list to: smanello@thejewishnews.com.

YOUR HOME DETROIT JEWISH NEWS SPECIAL SECTION

MARCH 25 • 2021

YOUR HOME

How to Pay Your Mortgage Off Faster BPT/BRANDPOINT

uying a home is a major life step. Homes are by nature expensive, and most home buyers cannot afford to purchase a home outright. Because of that reality, most home buyers finance a home purchase with a mortgage. A mortgage allows you to spread the payments for a home loan across many years. The result? Mortgages can make home ownership much more attainable for the average home buyer. WHY NOW IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY Currently, mortgage rates are at historic lows, meaning that the cost of borrowing funds is lower than it has been in previous years. If it fits within your budget, now is a good time to purchase a home. In fact, Vanderbilt Mortgage is offering new home buyers who choose to

MARCH 25 • 2021

finance their home purchase with Vanderbilt 60 days with no payments after their mortgage loan funds. This provides a new home buyer time to settle into their new home and pay for the costs associated with moving — without having to immediately account for their first mortgage payment. BENEFITS TO PAYING A MORTGAGE OFF FASTER While mortgages definitely make sense for most home buyers, there are advantages to paying off a mortgage before it reaches full term. Why? Because paying down your mortgage early: • Builds equity for resale. Paying down the principal balance on a mortgage can build equity in your home faster. Equity is defined as the market value of the home, minus the amount

owed on the mortgage. For example, if your home is worth $150,000 and you owe $100,000 on the mortgage, then you have $50,000 worth of equity in your home. This equity can then be utilized when you sell your home for a down payment on your next home. In addition, some of the equity could be used to qualify for a home equity loan to make home improvements. • Frees up cash for later. Another benefit to paying down your mortgage earlier is reducing the years the mortgage is active. Paying the mortgage off earlier will free up the money that was needed for a monthly mortgage payment, allowing that money to be spent on other items — or saved for retirement or an emergency fund.

HOW TO DO IT If you’re interested in paying your mortgage off more quickly, here are two common strategies you can use: • Extra payments every month. A more common way to pay a mortgage down early is simply to make extra payments to the loan’s principal each month, as frequently as possible. Whether it’s $5 or $100 extra per month, every additional principal payment you can make toward paying a mortgage down more quickly really adds up. To show you how that would work, Vanderbilt Mortgage has developed an early payoff calculator to show how much you can save by paying extra toward the principal each month. • Annual Additional Payments to Principal — You can also help pay your mortgage off faster by making extra payments to principal once a year. Whether it be a tax refund you receive, yearly bonus or extra savings, this investment toward paying your mortgage off sooner can help save interest cost in the future. GO AT YOUR OWN PACE It’s important to remember not to overextend yourself while you’re working to pay a mortgage down. Create a realistic budget and go at a pace you can afford, and you will reap the long-term benefits. Your future self will thank you!

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Align With the Best in the

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home is one of the most substantial assets a person can possess, and buying or selling a home is one of the weightiest and most significant transactions one will make in their lifetime. Michigan’s premiere luxury home and real estate group, Dan Gutfreund Reality Group, deeply recognizes and appreciates this – and has built a highly proficient, successful and compassionate company around it. Born and raised in a Jewish family in Toronto, Canada, Dan Gutfreund relocated to Michigan in 2009 and started his real estate career with Sotheby’s. Ten years later, the company has become the local mavens for all things real estate, quickly approaching $70 million in sales. Much of this success can be attributed to the company’s unique makeup. By assembling and employing experts in their respective areas - the industry’s top stager, videographer, photographer, copywriter, PR firm and contractors – it is built to showcase and feature homes like no other. It’s essentially set up like a highly specialized marketing agency. And that is by design. Further, the company’s Affiliation with Sotheby’s International Realty facilitates the distribution of properties to the most significant media companies and real estate websites in the world, resulting in 90 million property views annually. Properties are advertised locally, nationally and internationally in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and many more. “The process of getting a home sold for the best price is a very simple math equation,”, says Dan. “This is the most gratifying thing about our business because when we hire and partner with people who are the most professional and the best in the industry, and employ the best

MARCH 25 • 2021

SPONSORED BY DAN GUTFREUND REALTY GROUP

marketing tactics and assets, we get the best results.” Combined with an absolute white glove adherence to customer service and dedication to Michigan buyers and sellers, this approach has placed them among the top professionals in the real estate industry in Michigan and nationally. Dan and the team are fervent believers in a hands-on. “I take great care in assuring that I’m accessible to clients at any time,” says Dan. “I’m hands on top to bottom and believe in a certain decorum of conducting business … based around etiquette, respect and trust. In that way, I guess I’m a bit old school.” The company is certainly not old school when it comes to innovation and technology. Offering unique and highly advanced personal amenities, clients are taken care of at every turn. A Cloud-based custom suite of technologies offers paperless transactions, check lists, document sharing and contracts. The company’s Feedback 360 platform allows for daily updates, and all parties have access to where the process is at any moment. Busy homeowners can enjoy a personal Listing Concierge, which will handle home visits, contractor meetings and more. The strategic and careful use of social media is another important aspect, and one that’s handled with careful forethought and some outsidethe-box thinking. “Every home has a story – a reason or reasons to fall in love with it.” says Dan. “It’s my mission to capture those things and present that story to the marketplace for every home. I work side-by-side with the videographer and photographer and our marketing team to get very creative. Social media allows us to share unique and stunning imagery and video content to a huge audience. If done right,

we can articulate the homes narrative beautifully in a visual and captivating way.” The “thinking outside the box” to acquire and portray every homes’ features and nuances does not stop there. Aerial VIP, yet another signature service from Dan Gutfreund Realty Group, captures views via drone photography and video. This provides buyers with a dramatic and immediate understanding of the unique offerings in real estate and presents a unique perspective and intimate knowledge of slope lines, view corridors, construction opportunities and untapped land. It is all of these things combined that led the agency to facilitate the largest real estate transaction in Michigan to date, a $40,000,000 sale. The company handles transactions from $150,000 to $40,000,000 and everything in between. “We are devoted to our clients and to the craft in which we work,” said Dan. “Acting as a guide and facilitator to advise on our clients’ greatest asset – their home – is something we do not ever take lightly – not by a longshot. By aligning with the

best in the business, utilizing great talent and resources, thinking outside the box, and working from a compassionate and invested mindset, we achieve tremendous results for our clients. And that’s a beautiful thing. Dan and the company also find purpose and energy in giving back to the community. They are a major sponsor of the

Care House of Oakland County, and continually donate to cancer research. Dan and team also donated time and funds to the Oakland County Sheriff ’s Police Athletic League (PAL) bike giveaway, in which 270 new and used bikes were given to kids of families in need in Pontiac in July, 2020. Dan is also part of the Jewish Federation of Metro Detroit.

DAN GUTFREUND REALTY GROUP ADDRESSADDRESS PHONE NUMBER WEBSITE

MARCH 25 • 2021

YOUR HOME

BPT/BRANDPOINT

oving can cause our pets anxiety, so it’s best to learn some coping strategies for your furry friends. “Relocating is stressful for pets,” said Kurt Venator, D.V.M., Ph.D. and chief veterinary officer at Purina. “Planning ahead and making extra preparations can help your pet adjust to your new surroundings.” For families planning a move, Purina experts offer tips to help prepare pets for a stress-free move. 1. Take a ‘practice-run’ ahead of time: If you’re moving with dogs, let them explore the new neighborhood before you move if possible. This helps them become familiar with the scents and sounds of the area. For a cat, help him or her get used to their crate. Leave the carrier out with the door open for the cat to explore weeks ahead of time, making it an enticing place by putting favorite treats, toys or a blanket inside. Take a few short practice drives so the cat is used to traveling in the carrier. This will reduce the stress of travel on moving day. 2. Make a moving day plan: Consider your pets’ safety amidst the chaos of moving day. Keep cats in a space away from the moving process. A bathroom at your new home is an ideal spot to set

MARCH 25 • 2021

Tips for Moving Pets up food, water and a litter box, so cats are out of the way and comfortable until the move is complete. Just don’t forget about your feline friend when you’re done! Dogs can be trickier. It’s best to assign a family member to care for them throughout the move or ask a trusted friend to pet-sit for the day. 3. Help curious cats settle in: It takes time for cats to become familiar with their new surroundings. Make sure doors and windows are closed, as they may try to escape to find their old home. Cats may “disappear” into a hiding place like a closet to calm their nerves. When in doubt, look under the desks or beds. Introduce cats to one room at a time — beginning with the permanent location of their litter box, to avoid confusion. Set up one more litter box than you have

cats to promote harmony in your household. Keep their things in this first room, so they become used to the new home with familiar scents, then move their “scent soakers” like bedding and scratching posts across the house to make other rooms feel more familiar. 4. Let dogs sniff out their space: Allow dogs to use their natural instincts to smell and explore by walking them on a leash for their first tour around the house. The sooner they get used to the scents of their new environment, whether it be a huge backyard or the guest bedroom of a new apartment, the sooner they’ll feel at home. Maintain a regular routine and spend extra time with them at home to help them feel secure. Avoid leaving your pup outside unattended at first; a new environment may bring out new skills you

didn’t know your dog had like jumping over or digging under fences as an attempt to return to familiar ground. 5. Going the distance? Locate needed services: If you’re moving far away, consider the different types of pet care services you’ll need to secure once you’re in your new city. You’ll have to find a new veterinarian, pet-sitting or walking services, plus pet-friendly parks. Ask for recommendations from neighbors or online neighborhood sites, search for pet tips online at PetFoodInstitute.org or HABRI.org, or join a local pet meet-up group. “After you move, give your pet extra attention,” advises Annie Valuska, Ph.D. and senior pet behavior scientist at Purina. “Your presence will have a calming effect and reassure them.”

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YOUR HOME

Should You Buy or Sell a Home in 2021? Here’s What to Know STATEPOINT

analysts expect the housing market to remain strong and stable in the coming year. “Despite the uncertainties of the pandemic, the housing market performed well in the second half of 2020,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “Low mortgage rates and the ability to work remotely continued to propel demand for housing, which is reflected in home sales reaching levels not seen in 15 years.” Here are some of the biggest takeaways of Freddie Mac’s Quarterly Forecast:

• Interest rates are likely to remain low. The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) hit a record low over a dozen times in 2020. The low interest rate environment is projected to continue through 2021, with the 30-year FRM expected to average below 3 percent. Low rates are good news for buyers looking to purchase a home, and homeowners looking to refinance. • Home sales to remain high. The demand for housing is expected to remain strong in 2021, creating a sellers’ market. This year, home sales are expected to average 6.5 million for the

year. • House prices to grow moderately. In the second half of 2020, the high volume of home sales and low supply of housing drove up house prices. In 2021, house price growth is expected to moderate for the full year. • Refinances to start declining. Low mortgage rates spurred refinance activity in 2020, boosting mortgage originations (the process in which borrowers apply for a home loan) to historic highs.

As mortgage rates rise modestly in 2021, refinance activity should start to slow. “While many homeowners took advantage of these low rates last year, evidence suggests that many lower income homeowners still have the opportunity to strengthen their financial position by refinancing,” says Khater. For more insights on housing, visit freddiemac.com/ research. For homebuying and homeownership resources, visit My Home by Freddie Mac. Many of the trends that shaped the market last year, especially historically low mortgage rates, will continue to drive housing activity in 2021. As you embark on your journey toward your home goals, be sure to have a firm understanding of today’s market conditions.

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ARTS&LIFE

Art installation advances ‘Plastover’ holiday theme.

Olivia Guterson

ART

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

SAL RODRIGUEZ

A Modern Plague

n art installation linking Passover with the environmental issue of single use plastics will be on display March 25-April 4 outside MOCAD (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit). The piece, titled At Our Table, suggests that Jews give up more than unleavened bread for the eight days of the holiday. It asks that they suspend the use of plastic in the same time frame. Olivia Guterson, a Detroit artist who has been active with The Well, designed the piece for Reboot, the arts and culture nonprofit reimagining and reinforcing Jewish thoughts and traditions. Reboot counts Guterson as a member and considers her work part of its national project, Dwelling in a Time of Plagues, to advance site-specific projects in various cities. Local Reboot board member Gretchen Davidson, introduced to the organization by friends, connected Reboot with MOCAD. The project is supported by CANVAS, which advances Jewish arts and culture. Other supporters include the Jim Joseph Foundation, Joyce and Irving Goldman Family Foundation, Righteous Persons Foundation, Schusterman Family Gretchen Philanthropies and William Davidson Davidson Foundation. “The visual experience is planned as a 20-foot table set for four socially distanced observant guests with place settings of single-use plastics,” explained Guterson, who collected discarded plastic in her neighborhood to construct the piece. ‘The tablecloth is made out of braided and woven single-use plastic bags. “I wanted to examine plastic as a material we use for five or 15 minutes but lasts forever, and it’s becoming a plague for our time that we desperately need to deal with. “I have so many memories of Passover as the time of questioning and sacrifice in order to secure liberation, but I also want it to be a time for people to consider and talk about how we secure our future and the sacrifices we need to make in order to do that.”

DETAILS

At Our Table will be on outdoor display March 25-April 4 at MOCAD (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit), 4454 Woodward. mocadetroit.org. LEFT: Olivia Guterson works on the installation that will be on view in front of MOCAD.

MARCH 25 • 2021

For Passover, Reboot and Jimmy Kimmel Live! writer Jonathan Bines created Plastover, an initiative challenging everyone to take the first step away from reliance on the plastic-driven economy by committing to eliminate the use of single-use plastic for the duration of the holiday, March 27-April 4. “Saving the world from the plague of plastic will take more than just eliminating single-use plastic for a week and a day,” Bines said. “This project leverages Passover’s power of symbology to spark a sustained climate intervention. An Exodus of a thousand miles begins with a single step. We believe this step of Plastover will set us on a path toward having a real impact.”

can be taken during Plastover to address that specific issue. The project includes educational materials for Hebrew schools, synagogues and individuals to help guide them and provide prompts for reflection and discussion. As a Reboot board member and environmental advocate, Davidson explained her approach to this year’s holiday in light of the Plastover initiative. “Passing traditions down to our kids is important to us, so incorporating Reboot’s initiative of giving up single-use plastics will be a happy addition,” Davidson said about the outlook she shares with husband, Ethan. “We’ll participate by using our own grocery bags when shopping and not

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“THIS PROJECT LEVERAGES PASSOVER’S POWER OF SYMBOLOGY TO SPARK A SUSTAINED CLIMATE INTERVENTION. ” — JONATHAN BINES

PLAGUE OF PLASTIC As part of the reinterpretation of the holiday, Reboot is also reimagining the original 10 Plagues of Egypt as the 10 Plagues of Plastic. During the seder, Jews are called to empty their wine glasses drop by drop, naming each plague in remembrance of the tragedies that befell the Egyptians. The Plagues of Plastic ask the same, naming the tolls that plastic has taken on our world. Each Plague of Plastic draws directly from the themes of the original plagues. The waters of the Nile turning to blood becomes the oceans turning to garbage and ends with a simple action item that

using plastic wrap or bags for leftovers. “Eliminating other obvious plastics, like water bottles, and then refining the practice with other plastics we find throughout our Passover will help bring awareness of how much plastic we actually use,” she said. “If we raise that awareness in our families, we can set an example for the wider community. The impact can snowball into ideas for companies about the packaging they offer with their products or even how those manufacturing guidelines are legislated. It’s important to teach our kids the effect they have on the environment.”

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ARTS&LIFE THEATER

Look Who’s Coming to Dinner

New play examines what might happen if Elijah really came to the seder. SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

ast year at Passover, Udi Kapen was thinking about ideas for a script to be submitted in participation with a playwriting group he had joined. As the holiday also was on his mind, Kapen imagined a seder plotline. The sometime writer came up with a seriocomedy based on Elijah and what it would be like if Elijah introduced himself at the family’s front door. Beyond the group, he shared his idea with members of B’nai Israel Synagogue in West Bloomfield, and they decided to host a Zoom presentation with Kapen as producer/director. Kapen, a pediatrician by vocation and a community theater participant by avocation, brings considerable performance experience to Elijah’s Cup, which will be debuted at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 30. “It’s a short play about a family sitting down to a seder,” Kapen said. “The teenage son is moody and not into it at all. His mother and grandfather are going off on tangents. “It’s not going the way the father wants it. It’s his favorite holiday, and he wants to do

“THERE IS A MESSAGE IN THE SHOW THAT I HOPE COMES THROUGH.” — UDI KAPEN

everything by the book, the Haggadah, and the action takes off after the father opens the door because there is Elijah.” Appearing in the cast are Kapen as the father, Stacy Gittleman as the mother, Toby Gittleman as the son, Lou Severinsky as the grandfather, Mechelle Bernard as Officer Martin and Mark Robbins as Elijah. “Most of the cast I’ve worked with before in community theater productions,” Kapen, 52, said. “I knew they had some background in theater, and I knew what they could do. I made an email blast to the congregation saying that this was coming up, and anybody interested should contact me.”

ACTING BACKGROUND Kapen, interested in theater since school days in West Virginia and later Andover High School here, put theater on hold during medical studies at the University of Michigan and his residency. While raising two daughters, he won parts with the Bloomfield Players and the Village Players of Birmingham. Leading roles placed him in The Music Man, Oklahoma and Oliver! among some 30 productions. While he never had singing lessons, many directors felt comfortable choosing him for parts that featured him in song. During the pandemic, Kapen has immersed himself in the Zoom platform with playwriting experiences, auditions and rehearsals. “I belong to Playwrights@ Work through the Village Players,” Kapen said.

Details The cast of Elijah’s Cup rehearses over Zoom.

MARCH 25 • 2021

Elijah’s Cup can be seen at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 30, by going to bnaiisraelwb.org.

“Playwriting has really filled a void for me during this time that I haven’t been able to act on stage. It’s a wonderful creative outlet, allowing me to express thoughts, feelings, even opinions. “I’ve gotten to write semi-autobiographical plays and plays about things I love, like country music and Star Trek. It’s an incredibly fulfilling feeling to hear my words spoken and performed by others. “Elijah’s Cup lends itself to the Zoom format because the whole thing takes place in one scene around a dinner table.” While offstage, Kapen still is a bit of a performer. To ease the tensions of his young patients, he juggles three small rubber balls kept in his lab coat pocket. “The Passover play is a comedy, so I want people to be entertained,” he said. “But there is a message in the show that I hope comes through. It’s about the importance of family and realizing the things in life that are important can be right there in front of us but may not be recognized unless we know to take a beat and look for them.”

Soul Scholarship Created in Memory of Laela Miller Saulson

li Saulson never met his biological mother, Laela Miller Saulson, who passed away shortly after his birth at the age of 28. She possessed a caring nature and compassion for children facing challenges — and had an affinity for art. To honor her memory, Saulson has funded a Soul Scholarship, enabling an artist to develop their creative talents in perpetuity at Friendship Circle’s Soul Studio program. Laela was born in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in 1939 and grew up in a proud Jewish home in Crystal Falls. Voted most likely to succeed in high school, she achieved Statewide recognition in debate while also playing saxophone in the band and writing for the school newspaper. Furthermore, she was a prolific artist and loved outdoor adventures.

After graduating from the University of Michigan, she became a teacher in the Royal Oak School System, specializing in helping children with learning disabilities. The people in her life spoke highly of her fun-loving personality, humanity and capacity for friendship. For all of these reasons, Saulson found no better way to honor her memory than to make a contribution to Friendship Circle’s Forever Friendship legacy campaign. Giving to Friendship Circle’s legacy campaign allows donors to invest in the nonprofit’s mission by providing “forever friendship” for future generations. The Soul Scholarship will help support an artist in the Soul Studio program, a supported art studio program with an open studio space and gallery for adults, 18 years or older with special needs. The program

Dresner Foundation Soul Studio Artist paints in the open studio space at Friendship Circle Farber Center.

Laela Miller Saulson, of blessed memory.

provides participants the opportunity to reveal their hidden talents to the community and be recognized as included, contributing members of society. Dresner Foundation Soul Studio Artists enjoy the open studio space at Friendship Circle Farber Center and a wide variety of materials to work with. Saulson has long been involved with the Detroit Jewish Community and has been privileged to sit on the board of the William Davidson Foundation, who funded the scholarship through his discretionary fund. The impact of the Chabad Lubavitch movement and the message of the Lubavitcher Rebbe resonated with Saulson, motivating him to become more involved with Friendship Circle’s Soul Studio. “I found it interesting that the Rebbe would speak of people with developmental disabilities as exceptional,” says Saulson. “And the art at Soul Studio is truly exceptional.” Saulson is inspired by the way Friendship Circle has changed both the local community and the world’s view of kids, teens and adults with special needs. “When I was growing up in the 1970’s, special needs kids were separated from the rest of us and not always treated kindly by their peers. Now through Friendship Circle, there is a

waiting list for kids who want to be friends with them.” The legacy of his mother’s generosity and great capacity for friendship moved Saulson to give the gift of eternal friendship to an individual with special needs in her honor. Now, he hopes others will follow his example. “I’m hopeful that in giving this [scholarship] and in telling this story that I can inspire others to do the same thing.” To contribute to the Leala Miller Saulson Fund or to start a fund in memory or honor of a loved one, please contact: Rabbi Levi Shemtov levi@friendshipcircle.org 248-702-1020 Your gift to Friendship Circle’s Forever Friendship Legacy Campaign is an investment in the future. One that makes an incredible difference in the lives of individuals with special needs, their families, and those struggling with isolation. Your gift will ensure Friendship Circle is able to serve the community today and in the future. FRIENDSHIP CIRCLE 6892 West Maple Road West Bloomfield, MI 48322 248-788-7878

MARCH 25 • 2021

CELEBRITY NEWS

NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST

UPCOMING MOVIES FROM JEWISH AUTHORS You may recall Wonder, a 2017 film that starred Owen Wilson and Julia Roberts as the supportive parents of Augie, a 10-year-old boy whose face is disfigured by a rare medical condition. It got great reviews and made mucho gelt (cost $20 million and grossed $305 million). Wonder was based on a novel of the same name by R.J. Palacio, 57, the daughter of Colombian immigrant parents. In the book, the boy has a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother. Religion isn’t mentioned in the film. This cinematic “de-Jewing,” as a friend

R.J. Palacio

calls it, of original written source material, is incredibly common. This same friend told me that a graphic novel by Palacio, White Bird: A Wonder Story, is now filming in Europe. As my friend pointed out, this time they can’t “de-Jew” the film. In a collection of short stories, Palacio expanded on the characters in Wonder and introduced Sara, Augie’s French Jewish paternal grandma. In White Bird, we learn that when

Blume, 83. It’s about an adolescent girl who frequently talks to God, even though she is being raised in no faith by her Jewish father and Christian mother. This is the first time Blume has consented to have a film made from a book of hers (she says she “trusts the team” behind this film). Kathy Bates will play Sylvia, Margaret’s beloved Jewish grandma. Sylvia gently tries to get Margaret to embrace Judaism.

Sara was a girl, she was hidden during the Nazi occupation. The film co-stars Gillian Anderson (Margaret Thatcher in The Crown) as a Christian woman who hides Sara. Helen Mirren plays the much-older Sara. The screenplay is by Mark Bomback, 49, a top writer of many hit films. In a 2019 Kveller interview, Palacio (first name Raquel), described how she was close to her late Jewish mother-in-law (who lost a lot of family in the Holocaust). She added that the novel was written to function as an introduction to the Holocaust for younger readers. “Greenlighted” for film production is Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. It’s based on a mega-selling 1970 young adult novel by Judy

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PEOPLE | PLACES | EVENTS

TRAUMA & MEMORY NOON-1 PM, MARCH 25 “Thinking from Somali Diasporic Contexts” is presented by the U-M Frankel Center for Judaic Studies via Zoom. This workshop focuses on how geographies continue to limit our thinking. Advance registration required: https:// tinyurl.com/eyh7xady. FIRESIDE CHAT 8 PM, MARCH 25 Join The Well’s Rabbi Jeff and the Big Ten Network’s lead studio host Dave Revsine for a fireside chat about all things college sports (in and out of a pandemic), sports broadcasting and Jewish identity. Visit meetyouatthewell.org/ calendar/2021/3/25/a-marchmadness-fireside-chat-withdave-revsine-of-btn.

MARCH 25 • 2021

BIM BOM BABY 10-10:30 AM, MARCH 26 Temple Shir Shalom will host this Zoom celebration of Shabbat. The program is geared to babies and children up to age 6. Free. Info: Julie at julie@shirshalom.org or 248-406-4255. MUSIC SCENE 7:30 PM, MARCH 26 The Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor, 415 N. 4th Ave., will present the Daley-Smith-Robinson Trio. For ticket info: kerrytownconcerthouse.com or 734-769-2999.

MARCH 26 Daley-Smith-Robinson Trio SOULFUL YOGA 11 AM, MARCH 27 Join Adat Shalom Synagogue Rabbi Aaron Bergman and yoga instructor Mindy Eisenberg for Soulful Yoga, connecting body and soul as we apply the wisdom of Torah. No yoga experience is necessary. Free. To receive the Zoom link, email jgross@ adatshalom.org or visit adatshalom.org/calendar.

WANDERING JEWS 4:30-6:30 PM, MARCH 30 The Sterling Institute for Jewish Studies and Modern Israel in East Lansing presents a webinar panel discussion followed by a book discussion of Wandering Jews: Global Jewish Migration. Info: jsp.msu.edu. Compiled by Sy Manello/Editorial Assistant. Send items at least 14 days in advance to calendar@thejewishnews.com.

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The Don’t Leave Home to Visit! MAY 9-16, 2021

JOIN THE ADVENTURE! ”Travel” Israel with the J for a week, from the Galilee to the Negev, via a unique combination of online platforms and hands-on workshops. More information at jccannarbor.org/event/israelexperience. PARTICIPATION OPTIONS: $180 All Inclusive Adventure • $18 Individual Activity REGISTER ONLINE OR BY CALLING THE J AT (734) 971-0990. The Israel Experience is being underwritten in part by a generous grant from:

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CASH FOR VEHICLES any make or model Call Barry 248-865-2886 SITUATIONS WANTED Seeking live in care for sweet senior woman in West Bloomfield. Private room and board plus salary. Some flexibility, references required. Primarily companionship. Please call for more info 248.514.0437 AFFORDABLE CAREGIVER part/full-time 24hrs of loving care excellent references 248-896-4082 Looking for a room with access to a bath and shower. I am a male who does not drink, smoke or use drugs. I do yoga frequently and regularly attend services. I own a handyman service in Birmingham, and willing to provide services in exchange for rent. I have no pets and many excellent references. Contact Freeland 248.227.0353

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MARCH 25 • 2021

OBITUARIES

OF BLESSED MEMORY

He Sought the Sunny Side of Life

. Donald Slotkin, 84, of Jupiter, Fla., and Bloomfield Hills, died March 16, 2021. Don always looked for and found the bright side of life. It was everything from his mantra to the name of his pontoon boat at the family cottage in Michigan. He wore mostly yellow shirts and ate from mostly yellow plates because yellow is the color of the bright side. That’s the place Don called home. As grandson to Hygrade founder Samuel Slotkin, Don was born a meat man. He became an industry leader in his own right as president of Crown Packing and Swift and CEO of John Morrell. But Don wasn’t just a meat man, he was a true Renaissance man. He was a concert pianist as a child, gifted with perfect pitch. Later in life, he wrote and composed four albums of music inspired by songs from the ’20s through the ’50s. His most recent album called Before was produced during the pandemic. In that dark time, the songs were written to remind us all how beautiful life can be. GIVING BACK Don had been a mentor to hundreds of people over the years and it was one of his greatest joys. He always made time for his mentees, who relied on him for guidance and had faith in his wisdom. In the words of one of his mentees, “Don gave me life-changing advice.” These

MARCH 25 • 2021

were some of Don’s meaningful, lasting happiest moments: connections from Nothing gave him Grayling, Mich., greater pleasure than down to Jupiter and giving back. many, many places Don’s impact in between. extended to the charDon was the itable arena. He was consummate family chairman of Gleaners man. He was proudDonald Slotkin Food Bank in the est of his three boys, 1990s and his charcaring about every itable chef d’oeuvre was his detail of their lives — big and immense contribution to his small — and invested in them alma mater Cranbrook and every day. He coached little its music department. league and gave life advice Don believed that the that was worth its weight school should be known for in gold; a son couldn’t ask its music program, so he for a greater father. He was began with a donation of and will continue to be their Steinway pianos. From there, rock. he endowed the Don Slotkin Music Scholarship Program LOVE AND FAMILY that offers full tuition to Don’s love for his wife, Edie, deserving musicians from had no ceiling or boundaround the country and the aries. They wrote and sang world. To date, nearly 25 songs together and traveled Slotkin Scholars have benethe world à deux; their love fited from Don’s generosity, never stopped growing. It changing the trajectory of was a perfectly reciprocal Cranbrook’s music program love. Don protected Edie. through his love of school Edie protected Don. They and music. were each other’s rock. Don was also a great athNothing brought him lete, excelling in baseball as greater happiness than captain at Cranbrook and to bring joy to his family. hustling on the tennis court Playing piano to his family three times a week into his after dinner was one of those 84th year. Don was a proud principal joys. Countless graduate of Harvard though hours have been spent listenhe always pointed out that ing to Papa playing from his he was far from the smartest vast array of songs. What a in his class. Instead, he took gift he gave. great pride in the fact that Don’s smile, his sense of few in his class worked hard- humor and his playful nature er than he did. lit up the world; every one of One of Don’s greatest gifts his friends and family loved was his ability to connect his wit and the twinkle in his with an incredible array of eye. amazing people. He created Mr. Slotkin is survived

by his wife, Edie Slotkin; sons and daughters-in-law, Douglas and Susan Slotkin, Steven and Elisabeth Slotkin, and Louis Robert Slotkin; Edie’s children, Jim and Elyse Mittenthal, Bob Mittenthal and Hilarie Sheets, and Jan and David Rosen; grandchildren, Sam Slotkin, Mira Slotkin, Melanie Slotkin, Matthew Rosen, Allie Rosen, Paige Mittenthal, Sam Mittenthal, Owen Mittenthal and Charlotte Mittenthal; great-grandchild, Xander Lowery; brothers and sisters, Curt and Carole Slotkin, Todd and Judy Slotkin, Pamela Slotkin, and Susie and Jack Louiso. He is also survived by his former wife, Lorraine Marks; many loving nieces, nephews, cousins and dear friends; and his faithful companion, Maizie. He was the loving brother of the late Mitchell Slotkin; the devoted son of the late Hugo and the late Babette Slotkin; and the proud grandfather of the late Katie Slotkin. Interment was at Beth El Memorial Park. Contributions may be made to Cranbrook Schools, Attn: the Don Slotkin Music Scholarship Fund, Dept. 77428, P.O. Box 77000, Detroit, MI 482770428, schools.cranbrook. edu/giving/ways-togive; Yad Ezra, 2850 W. 11 Mile Road, Berkley, MI 48072, yadezra.org/ donate; or to a charity of one’s choice. Arrangements by Ira Kaufman Chapel.

JULIE BAKER, 43, of Bloomfield Hills, died March 14, 2021. She is survived by her beloved husband, James Baker; children, Dylan Baker, Jack Baker and Maryn Baker; she was the loving daughter of Toby and Michael Hyman; devoted sister of Cantor Bradley (Vicki) Hyman and Jason Hyman. She is also survived by many other loving family members and friends. Interment was held at Beth El Memorial Park Cemetery in Livonia. Contributions may be made to Jewish Family Service. Arrangements by Dorfman Chapel. DAVID “DAVE” LEE BIENENFELD, 63, died March 6, 2021. He peacefully passed away at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, N.Y., after a brave battle with cancer. The world lost a beautiful soul. Those who loved him lost a man who brought a special light to each one of their lives. Moving to New York in 1980, Dave quickly became a part of the city’s music scene, and music became a big part of who he was. Besides music, Dave loved traveling, books, records, old movies and ice-skating. In New York and when traveling, he loved walking in cities, discovering little nooks with bookshops, record and guitar stores, and cafes: just sitting with a coffee and people watching. One of his favorite week-

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continued on page 58 MARCH 25 • 2021

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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.

15 Nisan March 28 Rebecca Greenberg Frances Lynn Katt Abe Kole Ruth Doris Malach Sophie Mudrick Joseph Roth Solomon Rubens Anna Schneider Phillip S. Silverstein Joseph Singer 16 Nisan March 29 Edward E. Schultz Harry Schwartz Jennie Shoenig 17 Nisan March 30 Rozalia Fischer Charlotte Gould Morris Greenberg Jacob Gutterman Beverly Hacker Esther Manko Jacob David Pont

Zelik Rivkin David Solomon Irving Sperka Helen Wachtenheim

Bessie Goldstein Abraham Laven Percy Oretsky Beatrice Potok Yetta Sallan

18 Nisan March 31 Louis Forman 20 Nisan April 2 Harry M. Goldfarb Max Boesky Wolf Henigman Max Louis Brown Joseph Jermias Max Friedlander Ruth Kape Eli Gerson Henriette Loewenstein Pauline Goldberg Aaron Malamud Stanley Hart Amelia Meisner Dr. Morris H. Marks Jacob Rose Morris Pushkin Elie Scherr Miriam Rosenheck Artur Stern 21 Nisan April 3 19 Nisan April 1 Louis Corman Samuel Herskovic Charlotte Baggleman Melvyn Katz Rosalie Beber Brown Samuel Katz Samuel Butensky Sol Osborne Dora Dater Sarah Sitrin Pauline Goldberg Anna Weissler Goldenberg Jack M. Unrot

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MARCH 25 • 2021

OBITUARIES

OF BLESSED MEMORY continued from page 57

end activities was exploring local flea markets, yard sales and thrift shops, where he inevitably would find an unusual piece of music for himself or for others. For the last 17 years of his life, Dave worked as a senior copy editor at RAPP, an advertising agency. He was beloved by all his co-workers. Upon learning of his passing, the Global CEO Marco Scognamiglio said, “He always made time to say hello with a smile.” That was Dave. His laidback style mirrored his personality. Jeans and Hush Puppies: That was Dave. When he ate his lunch in the kitchen at RAPP, it often looked like he was holding court. Everyone wanted to sit and kibitz with him. Dave would scooch over, “Come on. Sit down. There’s plenty of room,” he would say, as he was practically falling off his seat. They don’t make them like him anymore. Mr. Bienenfeld is survived by his wife, Barbara; his mother, Dorothy; sister, Paula Bienenfeld; brother-inlaw, Emlen Myers of North Bethesda, Md.; sister, Sheila (Bienenfeld) Gruber; brother-in-law, Ya’acov Gruber of Israel; all their families. A memorial service was held March 12, 2021, at King Solomon Memorial Park, Clifton, N.J., where Dave was laid to rest. A larger memorial service to celebrate his life will be held when it is COVIDsafe. Memorial contributions may be made in Dave’s name to the Blues Foundation in Memphis, Tenn., or Mount Sinai Tisch Cancer Institute in New York, N.Y.

DR. GARY L. FISHMAN, 72, of Davie, Fla., died March 6, 2021. He is survived by his daughter, Samantha Fishman; devoted son of Arthur (the late Jeanne) Fishman; brothers and sisters-in-law, Marc (Ann) Fishman and Richard (Laurie) Fishman; dear uncle of Zachary and Ryan (Jordan) Fishman. He has spent the past many years with his companion, best friend and caregiver, Debra Mendelson. Contributions may be made to Temple Shir Shalom or to the Jewish War Veterans. Arrangements by Dorfman Chapel. MELVILLE GOLDBERG, 99, of West Bloomfield, died Feb. 26, 2021. He is survived by his wife, Audrey Goldberg; sons and daughters-in-law, Dr. Mark J. and Miriam Goldberg of West Bloomfield, Jaime and Giuseppina Goldberg of Portland, Ore., Dr. James Cornfield and Jana Bordegaray of Albuquerque, N.M.; daughter and sonin-law, Barbara and Bruce Williams of Folsom, Calif.; grandchildren, Joshua Goldberg, Ilana and Adam Block, Davita and Andrew McDonnell, Zachary Cornfield, Hannah Williams, Evan and Stephanie Harris Williams; great-grandchildren, Talia Block, Judah Block, Shira Block, Avianna McDonnell, Landon McDonnell, Riley McDonnell. Mr. Goldberg was the loving son of the late Joseph and the late Bertha Goldberg;

cherished brother and brotherin-law of the late Gerald and the late Rebecca Goldberg, the late Miriam and the late Bob Davenport. Contributions may be made to Frankel Jewish Academy, 6600 W. Maple, West Bloomfield, MI 48322. A family graveside service was held at Adat Shalom Memorial Park in Livonia. Arrangements by Hebrew Memorial Chapel. MELVIN “MEL” HARRIS, of San Clemente, Calif., and West Bloomfield died March 16, 2021. He is survived by his loving and devoted wife, Michele Rosen; sister and brother-in-

law, Hilda and Jeffrey Piell; brother and sister-in-law, Jeff and Joy Harris; brother-in-law, Michael Berke; many loving nieces and nephews. He was the beloved son of the late Sidney and the late Sara Harris; loving brother of the late Rosalyn Berke. Interment was at Adat Shalom Memorial Park. Contributions may be made to Tunnels to Towers Foundation, 2361 Hylan Blvd., Staten Island, NY 10306, tunnel2towers. org; or St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, TN 38105, stjude.org. Arrangements by Ira Kaufman Chapel.

FLORENCE RUBINSTEIN HOFFMAN, 96, formerly of Huntington Woods, died March 15, 2021. She was born in Detroit to Benjamin and Sarah Rubinstein. Florence attended Central High and received B.A. and M.A. degrees from Wayne State University. She taught English at Northern High School for three years and then stopped to raise her family. She later returned to Wayne to obtain a master’s in social work, and she subsequently worked for many years at Jewish Family Service of Metropolitan Detroit. After Louis died, Florence

moved to Providence, R.I., to be close to her daughter Anne. She loved poetry, political discussions, cooking and Yiddishkeit. Mrs. Hoffman is survived by her four children, son, Andrew, his wife, Wes Brown, and children, Samantha, Jacob and Zachary; daughter, Karen, and her daughter, Natalie; daughter, Judy, and her husband, Alan Baumgarten and children, Nathan (Ivana) and Alexandra (fiancée Sam Cates); daughter, Anne, and her husband, Evan Cohen, and their children, Sarah, Laura and Dana; and by her great-grandchildren, Oskar and Maks Baumgarten. She was the loving wife continued on page 60

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OBITUARIES

OF BLESSED MEMORY continued from page 59

for 66 years of the late Dr. Louis Hoffman. She was predeceased by her brother, David. Funeral services and interment were at Clover Hill Park Cemetery in Birmingham. Contributions may be made to the Jewish Family Service of Metro Detroit, jfsdetroit. org. Arrangements by Hebrew Memorial Chapel. LAURENCE E. PEVOS, 75, of Commerce Township, died March 14, 2021. He is survived by his wife, Joanne Pevos; daughter and son-in-law, Julie and Michael Solomon of Novi; son and daughter-in-

MARCH 25 • 2021

law, Eddie and Heidi Pevos of Novi; grandchildren, Sarah Solomon and Jacob Solomon; sister-in-law, Marcy Bard; many loving nieces and nephews. Interment was held at Workmen’s Circle Cemetery in Clinton Township. Contributions may be made to the Heart Transplant Dept. at Michigan Medicine or to a charity of one’s choice. Arrangements by Dorfman Chapel. MIRIAM SHAPIRO, 92, of West Bloomfield, died March 16, 2021. She is survived by her daughter and son-

in-law, Linda and Dr. Mark Rottenberg; grandchildren, Cari (Matthew) Jacobs, Adam (Lindsey) Rottenberg and Samuel Borin; great-grandchildren, Nolan, Graham and Felicity; many other loving family members and friends. Mrs. Shapiro was the beloved wife of the late Milton Shapiro; mother of the late Barbara Borin; sister of the late Meyer Sletzinger and the late Anne Alexander. Interment was held at Beth El Memorial Park Cemetery. Contributions may be made to a charity of one’s choice. Arrangements by Dorfman Chapel.

ALAN EDWARD SWARTZ, 78, of Waterford, died, March 11, 2021. Uncle Alan was like no other, He will be lovingly remembered by his family with smiles. Mr. Swartz was the beloved husband of the late (Darlene); beloved brother of Fern “Pudgy” and the late Jordan Kahn; beloved uncle of Bruce and Renee Kahn, Barry and Patti Kahn, Bradley Kahn; great-uncle of Daniel Kahn and Jenna Kahn.

THE BEST OF EVERYTHING

Authentic Mexican Delights

n this world of ethnic dining importance, it is key that significance is concentrated on its many styles of appearance and acceptance … But of even more importance is true authenticity by their presenters … and a restaurant’s staff Danny … More so in Raskin Senior Columnist today’s trying times. Those who need not offer false presentations will always win out like those when

Camelia and Tony Flores

PHOTOS COURTESY CAMELIA’S MEXICAN GRILL FACEBOOK

RASKIN

Mexican Village, located on Bagley in Detroit’s Little Mexico, and others in that sector offered the real thing. Such presentations today are by places like Camelia’s Mexican Grill on Orchard Lake Road between 12 and 13 Mile roads, Farmington Hills, and 11 Mile east of Main Street, Royal Oak … Both do their own baking of Mexican pastries like Tres Leches cake, etc., and desserts like flan, churros, Mexican fried ice cream, etc. … along with its own signature or exclusive sizzling fajitas … plus best seller dishes such as chips and salsa, enchiladas, poblanas, carnitas and camaron (shrimp tacos) … all within its striking Tex-Mex décor … The husband-and-wife combination of Tony and Camelia Flores can boast of having the longest standing Mexican restaurant in Farmington Hills and this year’s best Mexican restaurant in Royal Oak. Seating in Farmington Hills is 150 … and at Royal Oak is

82 with bars of 10 and eight respectfully … True ethnic dining by both Camelia’s Mexican Grills is very important and coupled with its family ownership is a valuable asset to indeed enjoy. THE RECENT RETIREMENT of heart doctor Alan Silverman after 26 years as a cardiologist at Cardiologist Specialists in Farmington Hills means that he won’t have to stand at the head of a patient’s hospital bed … And after the patient asked, “How do I stand, Doc?” … Alan could scratch his head and say, “That’s what I’d like to know!” … He is replaced by Dr. Demetris Demetriou and Dr. Mark Goldberg … both of whom have the patients’ medical records … and are very excellent and mighty gents. STATLER BISTRO may not open until sometime in May … Joe Vicari is a big stickler on doing things right or not at all … His Birmingham Pub, (formerly Triple Nickel) is slated

The sooner you call, the more we can help.

to open the first week in May … Good help is not easy to find. OLDIE BUT GOODIE Dept. … Harry was sick and tired of being constantly badgered by his wife, Bessie, for spending so much time at the bar … Hoping it would help matters, Harry invited Bessie along with him … “So, what would you like?” Harry cordially asked, as she took her seat next to him. “Oh, I don’t know,” Bessie says. “I guess I’ll have the same thing as you.” “OK,” said Harry to the bartender. “We’ll take Johnny Walker on the rocks.” Bessie barely took a sip of the drink before she started gagging. “Oh my gosh! Get me a cup of water! This stuff is horrible! How do you drink this garbage?” “See,” said Harry, “and you think I come here just to have a good time?” CONGRATS … To Bertram Sax on his birthday. Danny’s email address is dannyraskin2132@gmail.com.

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MARCH 25 • 2021

Looking Back

From the William Davidson Digital Archive of Jewish Detroit History accessible at www.djnfoundation.org

Ensuring All Have Food for Passover

assover will soon be here, and I thought I would dive into the William Davidson Digital Archive of Jewish Detroit History to find holiday stories. Using the search term “Passover” showed a list of 20,245 pages with that word. That’s a lot of pages! So, I narrowed the search. I added one of my favorite words to the search term — Mike Smith “Passover Food” was found Alene and Graham Landau on 852 pages. Archivist Chair Many of the Passover food citations are holiday advertisements for stores such as Chatham, Wrigley’s, Great Scott! and Farmer Jack, as well as the Dexter-Davison Markets. A recent issue of the JN had an ad for Johnny Pomodoro’s and also reported that Meijer is expanding its kosher selections. There were also other Passover food ads. Restaurants such as J. Lefkofsky & Sons’ “Hygeia Kosher Deli” or, more recently, Plaza Deli, and currently, Steve’s Deli promoted their Passover meals. Or in the 1950s, you could book a Passover cruise on the “Greek Line.” Its ships featured on-board kosher kitchens. And, of course, many Passover recipes have been published in the JN and Jewish Chronicle. In recent years, JN food columnist Annabel Cohen has written about many a tasty creation. Most impressive are the stories of Jewish Detroiters supporting those in need during Passover. The first such story appeared in the Feb. 26, 1921, issue of the Chronicle: “Urges Passover Food Be Rushed to Poland.” That year, there was a dire need for food in Poland in the aftermath of WWI and its subsequent war with Russia in 1920. During WWII, a report in the March 26, 1943, issue of JN noted that the Detroit Jewish Welfare Board was sending Passover

MARCH 25 • 2021

meals to Jews serving in America’s armed forces. In the 1950s, food for the people of the fledgling State of Israel was a critical issue. In this respect, there is an interesting ad in the April 4, 1951, issue of the JN. The Manischewitz company noted that there was still time to send one of its Passover food parcels to Israel. The headline for the March 22, 1963, issue of the JN, “USSR Jewry Faces Danger of Remaining Without Matzoth,” relates to another overseas Passover food issue. Once again that year, Moscow bakeries did not receive Passover flour rations, and there would be no matzah unless allowed from outside the country. This was another episode of antisemitism in Soviet-era Russia. The Jewish community also did its best to help its own needy people. The April 5, 1985, issue of the JN has a story, “Money for Wheat,” about the Moies Chetim Organization providing Passover food for Jewish poor in Detroit. There are also many stories about the work of Yad Ezra during Passover. Perhaps the reports that warm the heart the most are those of Jewish youth in action. See the April 4, 1998, JN story about Amy Miller working toward her bat mitzvah. She volunteered with Yad Ezra to make Passover food packages. Likewise, in the April 4, 2000, issue, see “Food for Passover.” Sarah Kiperman and Rachel Matz prepared for their bat mitzvahs by organizing a food drive. These are just a few of the interesting Passover stories in the Archive. Chag Pesach Sameach! Have a Happy Passover! Want to learn more? Go to the DJN Foundation archives, available for free at www.djnfoundation. org.

We Wish Our Jewish Community A Healthy & Happy Passover!

DJN March 25, 2021

Articles inside

Look Who’s Coming to Dinner

Good Neighbors

The Quest for Curiosity Starts with the Seder

Positively Medieval

Celebrity News

Looking Back

Moments