THE JEWISH NEWS
SERVING DETROIT'S JEWISH COMMUNITY
SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS
FEBRUARY 22, 1991 / 8 ADAR 5751
Sinai Launches Search
For New Administrator
KIMBERLY LIFTON
Staff Writer
search committee met
Wednesday to launch
its national campaign
for a new Sinai Hospital ad-
ministrator.
The six-member com-
mittee, headed by trustee
vice chair Marvin Novick,
moved forward with plans to
find an experienced hospital
administrator a week after
Sinai's executive board ask-
ed President Robert
Steinberg to step down from
his post.
A
"There are a lot of good
candidates," said Sinai
Chief of Staff Dr. Norman
Bolton. "Hospitals all over
the country have closed, so
we should have our choice of
some of the best people
available."
Dr. Bolton said business is
normal at the hospital,
where day-to-day operations
have been divided among
administrators, trustee
President Merle Harris and
Chief Operating Officer
Larry Greene, who officials
say is not a candidate for the
administrator position.
Mr. Greene was
unavailable to comment.
Search committee mem-
bers expect the search to be
quick. A timetable was not
revealed, but trustee officers
said the process could be
completed within the next
few months.
Mr. Harris said the
hospital also will hire con-
sultants to map out a new
survival guide for the in-
stitution.
Mr. Harris said he did not
know whether being Jewish
was a criterion for the new
administrator, yet doctors
and other trustees have said
Yavneh Academy Finds
A New Future At Beth El
SUSAN GRANT
Staff Writer
A
fter two years at the
Jewish Community
Center in West
Bloomfield, Yavneh Acad-
emy, the Reform Day School
of Metropolitan Detroit, will
have a new home at Temple
Beth El next fall.
Moving to Beth El means
Yavneh will be centrally
located in Detroit's Jewish
community, said Jim Jonas,
the school's president. There
was a feeling that if Yavneh
moved east it would increase
enrollment, which has not
grown as fast as officials had
hoped, Mr. Jonas said.
"We had a number of in-
quiries from people in Troy,
Birmingham and Oak Park
who didn't want to drive out
to the Center," he said.
While a few of the school's
14 kindergarten, first and
second grade students live in
Farmington Hills and other
northwest suburbs, the
majority live in Southfield
and Oak Park.
The strategy seems to be
paying off. Since announcing
the move last month, more
parents have expressed in-
terest in the school, he said.
While Mr. Jonas is op-
timistic, it is too early to say
whether that interest will
translate into higher
enrollment this fall.
Continued on Page 16
CLOSE-UP
t Ira Kaufman Chapel, death is
Deco nized as a part of life.
PAGE 22
the person named to the post
must show a commitment to
maintaining the hospital's
Jewish ambience.
"Sinai will remain a Jew-
ish hospital no matter who is
at the helm," Dr. Bolton
said. "He or she will under-
stand that this hospital is
dedicated to Jewish ideals."
Mr. Steinberg, an in-
surance executive who had
no professional hospital ad-
ministration experience
before taking the hospital's
No. 1 position, is credited
with bringing back Sinai's
Jewish identity. But the
trustee officers said the
hospital needed a more ex-
perienced administrator to
keep it solvent.
"The two are not mutually
exclusive," trustee vice
chair Carolyn Greenberg
said of maintaining the
hospital's Jewish identity
and operating the facility
profitably. "We have to be a
viable institution or we
won't be alive. If this were
only a business decision,
other decisions, like a
merger, would already have
been made.
"It is because it is a Jewish
hospital that we're fighting
so desperately to keep it
alive," said Mrs. Greenberg.
The hospital announced
Mr. Steinberg's departure
two months after Sinai doc-
tors formed a coalition to
boost patient usage and to
save the financially troubled
institution without a
merger.
The doctors' coalition,
spearheaded by oph-
thalmology chair Dr. Hugh
Beckman, formed to aid the
38-year-old institution,
which has been losing about
$750,000 a month. The
situation took a turn again
last month when Moody's
Investment Service changed
Sinai's bond status to the
lowest rating.
Meanwhile, the doctors'
Continued on Page 16