CLOSE-UP

Because they are Jewish,
they aren't "supposed" to be hungry
or live in shelters
or on the street.
But in Detroit and its suburbs,
Jews are very much part
of the poor.

Too PROUD
To BEG
R

PHIL JACOBS

Assistant Editor

Photos by Glenn Triest

eid Miller
just doesn't
get it.
A man in
his 60s, he
pays for his
downtown
apartment.
"You can't
do better than that; that
comes to $5 a day."
He knows where and
when to pick up a hot meal
for free. And on weekday
afternoons he can be found
at a Wayne State Univer-
sity student lounge, play-
ing the piano, his first love.
He lives his life and re-
mains happy on $435 a
month.
He doesn't have a car, so
he is adept at getting
around Detroit on foot or
on the bus. On a cool,
blustery November night,
he sits in the drafty
auditorium of the
Downtown Synagogue,
stirring a second cup of
coffee in a white styrofoam
cup. His friend, Willie
Schwartz, is trying to grab
Mr. Miller's attention with
imitations of Bogart and
Jimmy Stewart.

28

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1990

The two men were in the
synagogue for evening mi-
nyan. Mr. Reid discusses
life as a Jew in the city.
When he compares that life
to the lives of Jews who
have left him behind in an
SRO (single room only) ho-
tel, he's hardly bitter. In-
stead, he feels sorry for
everyone else.
"I'm rich in a lot of
ways," the retired musi-
cian said. "I'm a person
who has a musical edu-
cation. I consider myself
fortunate to have one of the
world's greatest luxuries, a
music education. It's not a
material luxury; it's a
spiritual luxury."
On the surface, hunger
and poverty for Jews is
much the same as hunger
and poverty for anyone
else. Going without a meal
leaves the same pain in a
child's stomach.
There is, however, one
major difference. Jewish
poverty and hunger come
with a stigma. Because
Jews aren't "supposed" to
be poor and aren't "sup-
posed" to be hungry, they
often wait until the most

dire moment before seek-
ing help.
With a heavy influx of
Soviet Jews needing help
in resettlement, and a
recession threatening to
cut loose the threads of the
safety net that once held
middle-class Jews in the
security of a paycheck,
more and more Jews find
themselves facing the un-
thinkable: the need to ask
for community support.
Gloria Bender has a
frontline look at what is

Rabbi Norman Gamze and
Downtown Synagogue
employee Sam Glass pose
in the shul's upstairs
sanctuary.

