DETROIT
Jewish Volunteers Step Forward On Dec. 25
SUSAN GRANT
Staff Writer
E
ach year, Shirlee Mar-
shall thinks maybe
this will be the last
time she makes the trip.
She comes back home
exhausted, haunted by the
faces of the men and women
who she knows will never
leave the hospital.
Then she remembers the
pictures hanging on the wall
of the Jewish War Veterans
office, the faces of the young
men who died during World
War II and knows that on
Dec. 25, she'll return to the
Veterans Administration
Hospital in Battle Creek.
"Looking at those pictures
tells the story. I keep think-
ing of those faces and I know
I've got to help the others,"
Mrs. Marshall said.
Every Christmas for 15
years, Mrs. Marshall has
joined 40 other members of
the Jewish War Veterans Lt.
Roy F. Green Post and Aux-
iliary 529 to bring holiday
cheer to patients at the Vet-
erans Administration
Hospital in Battle Creek.
While other Jewish War
Veteran groups go to
hospitals in Allen Park and
Ann Arbor to help patients
celebrate the holiday season,
the Lt. Roy F. Green Post
and Auxiliary members has
made the two-hour trip to
the Battle Creek hospital for
40 years.
The post is one of many
Jewish organizations who
volunteer on Dec. 25 in
hospitals, nursing homes
and soup kitchens to fill in
for absent staff members or
just pass along a friendly
greeting.
"I volunteer on Christmas
every year. Christmas Day,
if you are Jewish, is just a
day off," said Liz Kanter,
who operates a non-
sectarian group, Volunteer
Impact, which provides vol-
unteer opportunities. "There
is no religious significance.
It's not our holiday."
In previous years when she
lived in Boston, Ms. Kanter
often spent Christmas Day
serving the needy in soup
kitchens. This year, she and
more than 40 others will go
to the Detroit Area Agency
on Aging Dec. 25 and at 6
a.m. begin packing 3,000 hot
and cold lunches for the
Meals on Wheels program.
Some B'nai B'rith
Metropolitan Detroit Coun-
cil members will also do
their part to ensure shut-ins
receive their meals on
14
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1990
Christmas. They will relieve
regular drivers on Meals on
Wheels routes Dec. 25, said
Phoebus Kaldobsky, com-
munity volunteer services
chairman of District Six of
B' nai B'rith.
For five years; Young
Adult Division of the Jewish
Welfare Federation vol-
unteers have gone to Sinai
Hospital to bring holiday
cheer to patients. This year,
about 45 volunteers will be
sent to Sinai, Borman Hall,
Prentis Manor and Tietel
Federation Apartments.
"I started to volunteer be-
cause it was important to me
to be involved in Sinai
Hospital and show my sup-
port for the only Jewish
hospital in the area," said
Hannan Lis, who chaired the
event last year.
Sometimes he'll spend the
morning helping the staff
feed patients, Mr. Lis said.
Or he will talk to a patient to
help ease the loneliness.
"I prefer helping the staff
because it gives me the feel-
ing that I'm doing some-
thing," he said. "It's very
rewarding. We get recog-
nized for the work that we do
by the hospital."
Milton Klein, a member of
the Lt. Roy F. Green Post,
said he likes the recognition
the volunteers receive from
staff members and patients,
most of whom are not Jew-
ish.
Shortly after arriving at
the hospital, the post
unloads crates of food, socks,
handkerchiefs and other
items and within an hour
has packed more than 800
bags with the gifts. After
distributing the packages to
patients, the volunteers
organize bingo games where
there are no losers. Flannel
shirts, leather belts, wat-
ches, perfumes and cosmetic
cases are given away. For
the wheelchair bound there
are more than 60 hand
crocheted lap robes to pass
out.
the same faces year after
year, Mr. Klein said. "Even
their families don't come to
visit. They're considered the
black sheep of their family."
Making lasting friend-
ships with the patients isn't
the goal, Mr. Klein said.
"We just hope to bring a
little joy into their world,"
he said.
"It's a very rewarding
day," Mr. Klein said. "It's a
long, tough day, but at the
end you feel like you've done
something worthwhile.
Mr. Klein figures the post
spends about $8,000 every
year on the annual party, all
of which is raised from the
poppies veterans sell in May.
The volunteers see some of
"When I leave the hospital,
I think 'there by the grace of
God, go I,' said Mr. Klein who
served during the Korean
War. "And that is why I go
back."
❑
A New Life, But Missed His Oboe
RICHARD PEARL
Staff Writer
I
n English, it's an oboe.
Among Europeans, it's
called a "hautboy" (pro-
nounced "ho-boy.")
But no matter what he
calls the musical instru-
ment, Sholom Ilyasov is
happy he's playing one
again.
Mr. Ilyasov came to Oak
Park from the Soviet Union
two years ago as a 67-year-
old who was leaving behind
a stellar career as a pro-
fessor and a symphonic oboe
soloist at Leningrad's Con-
servatory of Music.
The move meant leaving
behind almost a lifetime as a
musician and teacher, not to
mention his oboe, which he
sold to help with the ex-
penses of moving himself,
his wife, Esfira, and son
Yakov and his family.
Mr. Ilyasov thought it
would be worth it, despite
his age and minimal knowl-
edge of English: he would
finally escape the anti-
Semitism that had kept the
title "professor" from him
and which had kept the Len-
ingrad city council from
recognizing him, even
though many of his students
had won international and
national competitions and
were playing for world-class
Soviet orchestras.
He also could stop using
the given name "Semyon" —
Simon in English —which
his superiors forced upon
him because Sholom was
"too Jewish".
Sholom Ilyasov examines the oboe with son Yakov and Ruth Vosko.
To be sure, Mr. Ilyasov had
fought back. When the con-
servatory had told him he
could only take one or two
Jewish students in each
class of 32, he took more. He
knew they wouldn't fire him
because he was too good, too
well-known and liked.
But he knew it wouldn't
get better and so he came to
America and prayed in a
synagogue and marveled at
the freedom he felt.
However, the tall, stately
musician hadn't counted on
one thing: how much he
would miss the oboe and the
music, with which he'd been
involved since his teen
years.
It grew on him slowly.
First came the letters from
his former pupils. Then, last
spring, he presented a
master class to Prof. Harry
Sargous' oboe students at
the University of Michigan
and was stunned when the
professor requested a private
class.
It hit him full-force one
night this past summer
when the Ilyasovs accom-
panied Iry and Ruth Vosko
of Farmington Hills to the
Balfour concert. "He knew
the music," says Mrs. Vosko,
who met and befriended the
Ilyasovs through her vol-
unteer work as a translator
for Sinai Hospital. "He sat
there and fingered an imag-
inary oboe as the symphony
played. Tears came to his
eyes."
When she mentioned it to
him, he told her that if he
could have an oboe he could
perhaps teach lessons and
earn money that way, in-
stead of by babysitting. He
had recently lost his babysit-
ting job because the child's
parents didn't think him
qualified.
Mrs. Vosko told the story
the next day at her regular
job. The story spread and, a
few days later, Mrs. Vosko
was told of a donor who
would pay, anonymougly
through the Jewish Family
Service's Resettlement Ser-
vice, for a good used oboe, if
one could be found (new ones
cost thousands of dollars).
In early November, Barry
Warner of Wonderland
Music said he had just such
an instrument. A few days
later, Sholom Ilyasov,
warmed by a backstage
Detroit Symphony Or-
chestra reunion the night
before with a former Len-
ingrad student conductor
named Neemi Jervi, came to
see the oboe.
Against the backdrop of a
younger musician banging
away on a keyboard syn-
thesizer, Mr. Ilyasov coaxed
notes from the oboe. The in-
strument needed work, he
said, and Mr. Warner told
him it would be taken care
of.
Two weeks later, Mr. Il-
yasov returned to take the
oboe home.
Is he happy with it?
"Eh kookt and shpielt,"
says his wife, Esfira, in
Yiddish, when describing her
husband. "He looks (at the
oboe), and when he isn't
looking, he's playing."
Or, as they say in America,
"Oh, boy!" ❑