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Phillip Applebaum: Family Portraits
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NAME: Phillip Applebaum
AGE: 36
OCCUPATION: Former executive director
of Akiva Hebrew Day School. As of
June 1, 1988, a public relations position
for Guardian Industries.
RESIDENCE: Oak Park
FAMILY: Single. One sister residing in
Detroit.
EDUCATION: Bachelor of Arts degree
from Wayne State University with
geography major.
SYNAGOGUE: Young Israel Oak-Woods.
ORGANIZATIONS: Jewish Historical
Society, past president. American
Jewish Historical Society, former board
member of Midrasha College of Jewish
Studies and past president of Young
Israel Oak-Woods.
FAVORITE BOOK: "I don't know. The
Encyclopedia Brittanica, because you
just pick it up anywhere and start
reading. I'm a browser, and it's hard to
pin me down on a favorite."
HOBBIES: Reading, gardening, music,
touring, exploring and making tapes for
the blind.
LATEST ACCOMPLISHMENTS: "On a
profession level, I helped establish the
Akiva Endowment Fund. I'm very
pleased with the improvements both in
the physical plant and the educational
program. I would like to think that I
left Akiva a better place. On a personal
basis, I have an ongoing
accomplishment. A few years before my
father's death, I had him relate in
detail his reminiscences. I've been
translating and transcribing his
personal history."
BACKGROUND: Phillip Appelbaum was
born in Detroit but raised with old
world traditions. His parents Isadore
and Freda were Polish and spent the
war years in a Russian prison camp.
Both parents were the sole survivors of
their families. After the war, his parents
met in a camp for displaced persons in
Italy and married. His parents settled
in Detroit because his mother had some
distant relatives here. His father worked
for Ford and his mother was a
homemaker. Phillip Applebaum's first
language was Yiddish. "I grew up
without an extended family. It was just
the four of us;' he recalls. His bar
mitzvah was at Cong. Beth Joseph on
Wyoming. When Applebaum was 14 his
mother died. He spent his teenage years
in Oak Park and was graduated from
Oak Park High School in 1970. At
Wayne State University, he studied
geography and for a directed study, he
researched Jewish neighborhoods and
synagogues. "I researched every Jewish
congregation from Temple Beth El
originating in 1850 to the present."
After graduating from college, he made
aliyah to Israel with his father. When
his father died in 1975, he returned to
Detroit. His fascination with Jewish
geographical history continued, and he
published a tour of Jewish Detroit in
1975. He also became active in the
Jewish Historical Society and
eventually was editor of its journal,
writing numerous articles and county
histories. After working as an editorial
assistant at The Jewish News and then
in public relations for the Jewish
Community Council, he worked four
years with Max Fisher, writing his
family history and documenting his
archives. In 1982 The Fishers: A Family
Portrait by Phillip Applebaum was
published. Fisher inscribed a personal
note on his own portrait to Appalebaum
describing the book as a "gem." On one
side he traced Fisher's family back
seven generations. When his work for
Fisher was completed, he then worked
in public relations. For the last three
years, he was executive director of
Akiva Hebrew Day School. Other
families have commissioned him to
research their family histories. "A
family history and genealogy tells the
family about itself. We go through life
trying to find out about ourselves. You
study the past to understand the
present. We look at where we've come
from to understand where we are now."