DETROIT

Jews Head Southfield, OP
Public School Boards

PHIL JACOBS

Assistant Editor

E

zra Roberg remembers
attending an Oak
Park school board
meeting to voice his com-
plaint about a millage vote
scheduled on the holiday of
Shavuot. He was told at that
meeting that he had the
following choice. He could
pray or he could vote.
Mr. Roberg decided he
could also run. Now the
school board millage is no
longer voted on Shavuot.
And today Mr. Roberg
doesn't just attend school
board meetings, he runs
them.
Mr. Roberg became what
many believe to be the
nation's first Orthodox
school board president of a
public school district when
the seven-member panel
made him a unanimous
choice earlier this summer.
At a time when many Jews
are opting out for the outer
Detroit suburbs, Mr. Roberg

joins Southfield board of ed-
ucation president Steven
Kaplan as two Jewish com-
munity activists who have
not only decided to stay, but
have decided to work.
He is hardly a stranger to
education. The 43-year-old
Detroit native has taught
science as a career for more
than 25 years, including 16
years at Yeshiva Beth
Yehuda. He currently
teaches in the Detroit Public
School System.
"There are great things
happening in this commun-
ity," Mr. Roberg said. "This
is a diverse community and
our school system is as di-
verse and vital as our com-
munity."
Still, no matter how di-
verse the community, Mr.
Roberg said that there were
those who did take notice
when he was elected to the
board and then when he was
tabbed as president. He add-
ed that it is important that
the Orthodox community get
involved politically in Oak
Park. He said the Orthodox

are perceived as typically
voting no for millage in-
creases for public schools.
And yes, there was a ques-
tion about where Mr.
Roberg's allegiances would
be since his children all at-
tended private, parochial
schools.
"During my campaign, we
were subject to rumors that
there was a hidden agenda of
some sort by the Orthodox,"
he said. "We were even
accused of trying to get as
much money out of the
treasury as possible and
leaving the district in sham-
bles. There were those that
felt we would concentrate
more on the yeshivas in the
district than on the public
schools. And the fact is that
Orthodox taxes have been
supporting the public school
system for many years
without any direct benefit
from it. And beyond that we
all have an interest in main-
taining an excellent educa-
tional system. It makes the
quality of life better for all of
us."

Ezra Roberg

Steven Kaplan

Mr. Roberg said the con-
cerns of his school district
transcend whether or not its
school board president is Or-
thodox. Instead, Mr. Roberg
said his board is more con-
cerned about using a $20
million annual budget to
improve state test scores and
make programs attractive
enough to keep the school
population diverse.
Last year, the district
tallied among the lowest test

scores in Oakland County,
this coming from a district
that traditionally was at or
among the top. Oak Park
has one high school, one
middle school and four
elementary schools.
"Listen, no school system
is perfect," he said. "We
have a fine system, and we
know that we have our
detractors. But we're all
working towards the same
Continued on next page

New 'Voice Connector': A Boon For Jewish Singles

RICHARD PEARL

Staff Writer

ou say your mother's
on your case because
you sit around the
house and never go out on
dates?
You say she's telling you
at the rate you're going,
she'll be too old to have
grandchildren?
You say you tell her you
really would advertise in
The Jewish News People
Connector, but your pen-
manship is terrible, your
typewriter broke and you
hate waiting for responses to
anything?
And she says, "I know, I
know!"
Is that what's troubling
you, Bubeleh?
Well, sit up and pay atten-
tion! The Jewish News hears
you — and your mother —
and is doing something
about it: Voice Connector.
Yes, Voice Connector —
the electronic voice mail
system that lets Jewish sin-
gles hear their prospective
date's voice — will debut via
The Jewish News' popular
People Connector personals
section beginning Sept. 7.
It's a system of getting
singles together much more

y

quickly. And it's something
else: instant gratification in
today's electronic age.
With Voice Connector,
singles who advertise can
hear responses to their ads
quickly, instead of waiting
for the mail to deliver
written responses days later.
And singles wanting to re-
spond to an ad can hear the
voice of the person who
places it.
Of course, Jewish singles
can still respond to People
Connector ads in the tradi-
tional way — by mailing
written responses to the
advertiser's special box
number. Or they can use the
Voice Connector electronic
voice mail system, in which
they call a special 900 tele-
phone number from any
touch-tone phone, hear the
advertiser's message and, at
their discretion, leave a
recorded message.
There is no time limit on
the length of the response to
an ad. And callers can hear,
and answer, more than one
voice advertisement.
To get on Voice Connector,
all People Connector adver-
tisers will be sent a code and
password, which gives them
entry to the system. They
simply dial a toll-free 800
number and leave a message

of up to two minutes' length.
The cost to those respon-
ding to ads via the 900
number is 95 cents per
minute, billed by the phone
company on the monthly
telephone statement.
Since The Jewish News in-
itiated the People Connector
section over three years ago
as a way for Jewish singles
to meet, well over 3,000 in-
troductions have been made

Recorded
introductions for
the electronic age.

and 12,000 responses have
been processed, according to
Arthur Horwitz, associate
publisher of the newspaper.
"We realized back then,
when we set up the People
Connector, that it had
become increasingly difficult
for Jewish singles to meet
other Jewish singles," Mr.
Horwitz said. "That trend is
still with us, and the Voice
Connector is an additional
attempt by The Jewish News
to listen to what singles in
the Jewish community are
telling us.
"Quite frankly, what they
said is that many of them
and their friends don't have

the time or the inclination to
write letters as a way of
meeting one another. A
method of meeting one an-
other more quickly and more
personally, they told us, is of
high interest.
"Based on the positive ex-
periences that a handful of
other Jewish newspapers
across the country have had
with this particular way of
bringing Jewish singles
together," Mr. Horwitz said,
"we are confident that The
Jewish News Voice Connec-
tor will become a successful
and valued part of the Jew-
ish singles experience in
Detroit.
"We are hopeful that this
new service to our readers
and others within the Jew-
ish community will be well-
received."
The Voice Connector will
be handled by Microvoice
Applications of Minneapolis,
a company well-experienced
in voice-mail applications of
this type, said Mr. Horwitz.
The two sister papers of
The Jewish News, the
Baltimore Jewish Times and
the Atlanta Jewish Times,
will go on-line with the
system at the same time,
although no inter-city ser-
vice is planned at the mo-
ment.

Both the Northern
California Jewish Bulletin
in San Francisco and the
Jewish Exponent in
Philadelphia have begun
offering the service and have
reported very good re-
sponses.
"It seems to be going fan-
tastically," said Marc Klein,
editor and publisher of the
Jewish Bulletin, which
began the service four weeks
ago. "We really feel we are
providing a service to our
Jewish singles."
The first three days the
service was offered, he said,
there were 900 minutes in
phone calls, "which we were
told was better than anyone
else in the country."
Carol Warner, the paper's
associate publisher, said the
Bulletin hit a peak of 1,100
minutes in calls the third
week, which surprised her
because "there were very
few personal ads in the
paper that week. I thought
that when the ads would go
down, the voice-mail would
go down, but that was not
the case."
So, if Detroit Jewish sin-
gles think it's too difficult to
meet their peers, they can
think again.
Mother will be so proud! ❑

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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