96
Friday, May 10, 1985
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Left: Tobye Bello's kindergarten class
shows off their school bags.
Below: FLEP coordinator Harlene
Appelman and founder Bill Berman.
RAINBOW
CONNECT!
Shaarey Zedek's FLEP is
personalizing a large synagogue
and re-educating parents.
BY ELLYCE FIELD
Special to The Jewish News
WANTED: Bright, ambitious, upwardly
mobile Jewish family seeks lost Jewish
values and identity. All easy-to-
understand literature and fun family ac-
tivities will be appreciated.
WANTED: Articulate, single, professional
woman seeks unconditional ac-
ceptance into community institutions
and new ways to celebrate Jewishly.
WANTED: Young-at-heart couple in 60s,
with children and grandchildren living in
California and Israel, seeks extended
family with similar interests, to pursue
Jewish-oriented activities.
A
quiet revolution is under
way at Congregation
Shaarey Zedek that prom-
ises to explode and reshape
our community's view of
Jewish education and family life.
Since 1982, Harlene Winnick Ap-
pelman has headed Shaarey Zedek's
Family Life Education Program
(FLEP), the first synagogue program
of its kind in the United States. Creat-
ing, coordinating and implementing
family programs that educate,
strengthen and bind Jewish families,
Appelman has become nationally rec-
ognized as an innovative leader.
Without established curricula or
books, she has put together a dynamic
and varied program, focusing on the
diverse Jewish family, helping each
member participate more fully and
find more meaning in his or her
Judaism.
Behind the program lies the
visionary dream of a man unafraid of
challenge and risk. For the last 30
years, Mandell (Bill) Berman, philan-
thropist and community leader, has
listened to sociologists and demog-
raphers talk about the dissolution of
Jewish identity and erosion of Jewish
family life.
Working in leadership positions
on local and national boards of Jewish
educational institutions as well as De-
troit's Jewish Welfare Federation and
the National Council of Jewish Feder-
ations, Berman has been a staunch
supporter of Jewish education. In
1982, he decided he had heard enough
talk. Proposing an innovative plan of
family life education to Rabbi Irwin
Groner of Shaarey Zedek he offered to
financially endow an experimental I
program for three years. During the I
first year, the program was also
funded by the Bill Davidson family.
"I felt," Berman said, "let's stop
talking and do it! Let's experiment.
Why not approach young families who
are facing the issue ofJewishness with
their small children? Let's find new,
creative ways to have fun being
Jewish."
Berman recognized the family's
central role in transmitting Jewish
identity, and Rabbi Groner agrees.
"The primary responsibility of trans-
mission, teaching and renewal of
Jewish tradition rests in the family.
The deepest Jewish experiences and
most profound feelings of identity are
found within the home."
The synagogue, itself an affilia-
tion of fainilies, an extended family to
many, was the logical and fertile place
to start.
Enter Harlene Winnick Appel-
man, a committed, creative and ex-
Continued on Page 66