THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, October 26, 1984
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Five Jewish stores on Greenfield that will be adjacent to the freeway.
Cong. B'nai Israel Beth Yehudah is one of many synagogues affected by 1-696.
port troubled the coalition. Freedman
says that at one point, a proposal was
seriously under consideration which
would have placed a $100 tax on each
home in the tightly-knit Orthodox
community in order to finance the con-
tinuing battle.
We always dealt with the threat
that we could get you (our opponents in
the Administration) 7,000 letters in
the mail tomorrow," explains Freed-
man, "although we were always afraid
that doing so would blow our wad.
Once you do it and they get 7,000 let-
ters, then they say 'so what?' The fear
of getting 7,000 letters is much worse
than actually receiving them.
"We used to say we'd have all the
old ladies on Greenfield lying down in
front of the bulldozers. We'd have all
the apartment buildings emptied out
and everyone on the street carrying
placards.
"Could we do it?
"Would we do it?
We don't know. But they always
thought we could."
Meanwhile, Rabbi Kaplan, who -
owes his job to the last-minute conces-
sions the Orthodox Coalition wheedled
out of Jimmy Carter, tries to find state
Department of Transportation offi-
cials who might be sensitive, if not
outright sympathetic, to the plight
and needs of his constituency. He
shrugs off the criticism of those who
believe he has sold out to his em-
ployer, placing the concerns of the
state over those of the Orthodox com-
munity.
"I am thin-skinned to a degree,"
says Kaplan. The point is that my job
is a temporary one anyway. I'm only
going to have it for a limited amount of
time. Pm not making a career out of it,
so I can afford to do what I have to.
have my law degree in about a year-
and-a-half, and I'll be able to get a job
then. You might even say that the
more controversy I create here, the
easier it might be for me to get a job.
"The more involved I get, I learn
that if you just sit back complacently
and do nothing, you learn nothing and
you accomplish nothing. And I can try
to accomplish things because there are
people who will appreciate that for
what it's worth."
Especially people like Marty Brin
and his wife of six months. Twelve
years ago, Brin's parents moved from
their comfortable home on Lincoln be-
cause they had been told the ex-
pressway would be coming down their
street. They bought a more expensive
home in Southfield. Had they stayed in
Oak Park, their home would have been
paid off within a year. Now they're still
paying.
Brin originally lived in an apart-
ment on Montmartre Street in Oak
Park (actually Royal Oak Township).
He was told he had to leave because his
apartment was coming down to make
room for the expressway. Because of
the area's proximity to the
synagogues, he had to find another
apartment in the area. He found .one
right down the street on Rue Versail-
les East. In January, he will have to
move again. The apartment building
he is now living in will also have to be
torn down. He has nowhere to go.
"It's really outrageous," says
Brin, "but because the landlords know
that we have to stay in this area close
to the shuls, they are charging as
much as they do for apartments in
West Bloomfield. Many people who
lived in these apartments have been
forced to buy homes they can't afford
just to have someplace to live. It's
really unfair, but people who lived in
these apartments since 1982 can get
Continued on next page
Ten Mile and
Greenfield:
Picking up the
human pieces.