"I am miserable,"
says Lois Hassan,
who has been
confined to Clinton
Valley State Hospital
for six years.

for a stock position she held the
previous summer at a drug store
where her boyfriend worked. The re-
lationship fizzled after she returned
home.
She started attending sessions
with a psychotherapist, who told her
she suffered from schizophrenia.
"I live a very unexciting life. It's
here or a hospital," Davis says. "I
like it here."
Eventually, Davis says, she will be
ready to move into her own apart-
ment.
"I don't like to talk about leav-
ing," she says. "Now I am thinking
about getting a job."

N

ational Institute of Mental
Health estimates that about
40 million Americans, or one
out of every six, will suffer from men-
tal illness during their lifetime. A
disorder that strikes more often than
cancer, heart disease or diabetes, doc-
tors have not isolated the causes of
mental illness, which usually strikes
between ages 18 and 25.
"People think that these are
murderers who sit around and

smoke crack cocaine," Iwrey says.
"They are not. People living in the
group home and apartment program
are not dangerous."
Rabbi Solomon Gruskin, who
started the first Jewish outreach
program for institutionalized men-
tally ill adults in the late 1940s,
recalls his first meetings with Jew-
ish patients who were confined to
Ypsilanti State Hospital.
"They were removed from real-
ity," Rabbi Gruskin says. "The
families locked them up and threw
out the keys."
"But they weren't violent," adds
his wife, Gitel Gruskin, who has
worked with the rabbi on behalf of
the mentally ill.
Kadima resident Davis has lived
that stigma. Shortly after doctors
diagnosed her as mentally ill, she
lived with her parents in their
suburban home and worked at the
infant/toddler day care center at the
Jewish Community Center.
"Someone looked over at me and
whispered to another woman, 'Hey,
she is schizophrenic.' "
"It made me upset," Davis says. "I
am just like everybody else but I

have a few problems. I just ignored
it."
Kadima, established in 1984 to
provide residential care for Jewish
adults with mental illness, was the
brainchild of Faye Menczer and
President Rhoda Raderman, who at
the time were working with Project
Outreach of the Jewish Vocational
Service.
They discovered a need to care for
the Jewish mentally ill after visiting
state institutions with Rabbi
Gruskin.
A group of citizens met and drafted
bylaws for the non-profit organiza-
tion. Orchards Children's Services
director Gerald Levin designed the
program and helped secure state
funding.
Community members Deede
Holtzman, Marlene Borman, Bob
Sosnick, Doreen Hermelin and
Janet Aronoff purchased the home
for Kadima in August 1986. They
named it the Rabbi and Mrs.
Solomon Gruskin home.
Today, Kadima's board of directors
numbers 38. Among the board
members are several people with
mentally ill relatives.
Phyllis Levitt and her brother,
Harvey Rubin, a Kadima board
member, have a mentally ill
brother, who has been moving from
hospital to hospital and group home
to group home since 1961. Levitt
says her brother lost his self-care
skills and may not be rehabilitative.
"If a program like Kadima had
been around in the first years of his
illness, he would have had a totally
different life," Levitt says. " Some-
day, somebody like him will be able
to be serviced by Kadima."
Warren Zussman, 3 7 , is
schizophrenic. Because of his illness,
Warren's step mother, Lois
Zussman, serves on the Kadima
board.
Today, Warren Zussman lives in
Baltimore in his own apartment
under the auspices of a halfway
house.
His family sent him to a special
hospital for the mentally ill in
Baltimore about 12 years ago. A
graduate of Michigan State Univer-
sity, Warren started a successful ca-
reer in sales. He then opened a jew-
elry store in Birmingham.
"He was a good salesman," Lois
Zussman says. "He seemed to be
functioning fine."
But, at age 24, he started hearing
voices.

Soon after, Warren Zussman lock-
ed himself in his apartment. His
parents took him to a doctor, who
prescribed medicine. But he didn't
stay on the medicine.
Warren left town by bus, and he
began to travel the world. Then he
ran out of money. He was 28. He
called home.
His father, Milton Zussman, said
he would send money if Warren
would enter a hospital. Warren went
to Shepherd Pratt Hospital in
Baltimore.
"At first we felt tremendous
guilt," Lois Zussman says. "What
did I do wrong? You feel a sense of
guilt and you don't know what it is.
"We went for counseling," she
says. "It was so hard. It's not as hard
now as it was."
Lois Zussman says Warren is do-
ing well these days. He is trying to
get back into sales, but he realizes it
will be impossible to totally pick up
his life again.
"Sometimes he is better than
other times," she says. "Now he is
doing well. But you never know. Be-
ing away, he doesn't get the atten-
tion he needs.
"Kadima is wonderful," she says.
"But it is such a drop in the bucket.
If Kadima had been around when
Warren got sick, maybe he'd be
here."
Board member Gloria Perlmutter's
35-year-old son is schizophrenic. He
has been in and out of mental institu-
tions since he was 18. He is

An estimated 40 million
Americans will suffer
from mental illness
during their lifetimes.

living in a private apartment in Bir-
mingham. His parents support him.
"He doesn't work;' Perlmutter says.
"He does nothing all day long. He
lives a very lonely existence."
Three years ago, Perlmutter learned
about Kadima, which she says, "Pro-
vides tremendous hope."
"These people experience the hope
they have forgotten;' Perlmutter says.
"They are removed from the hopeless-
ness. The hazard of mental illness is
hopelessness both to the relatives and
the victims."
Perlmutter calls Kadima the "most
well publicized secret:'

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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