THE JEWISH NEWS

SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS

SERVING DETROIT'S JEWISH COMMUNITY

AUGUST 9, 1991 / 29 AV 5751

Shaarey Zedek Planning
Bloomfield Family Center

NOAM M.M. NEUSNER

Staff Writer

C

heryl Davis asked for
help, but never got it.
Her son, Scott, was
born prematurely and soon
died.
When she approached a
rabbi 18 months ago, seek-
ing spiritual assistance after
the death, she said she
received no solace.
Mrs. Davis said she's star-
ting to feel better now. The
only person who helped her
in her grief, she said, was a
friend who had suffered a
similar experience.
Finding spiritual answers
to life's everyday troubles is
tough these days. Syn-
agogues and rabbis, tradi-
tionally a Jew's resource for
solving family problems, are
finding it difficult to keep up
with the list of contemporary
challenges. There are prob-
lems stemming from inter-
marriage, AIDS, abortion
and single-family parenting,
among others.
Sensing this problem,
Congregation Shaarey
Zedek will break ground in

Or how I survived
mystery meat and a
poltergeist. My three
days at Camp Maas.

September for a facility
where parents can get help
raising a Jewish family in
the 1990s.
The parenting center will
be located at the site of the
Shaarey Zedek B'nai Israel

Center policies on
tough family
issues, like how to
help couples raise
their children, are
still unresolved.

Center, on Walnut Lake
Road and Green Road, in
West Bloomfield. At 15,000
square feet, it will have
facilities not only for the

parenting center, but for an
expansion of the syn-
agogue's nursery school. It
will cost $3.5 million to
build, but congregation
members Eugene and Mar-
cia Applebaum have already
pledged a sizable donation,
and the building will bear
their names.
Today's young Jewish
family faces a host of prob-
lems unknown to previous
generations, said Leonard
Baruch, the synagogue's ex-
ecutive director. Working
parents often cannot devote
time to their children's spiri-
tual growth. Families are
mixed and matched, with a
bevy of step-brothers and

Continued on Page 20

Sinai Hospital Employees
Are Pondering The Future

KIMBERLY LIFTON

Staff Writer

T

The pluses
and minuses of
adult children
returning to
the empty nest.

The proposed parenting center.

wenty years ago,
Delores Feldman took
a job working the in-
formation desk at Sinai
Hospital's front entrance
near Outer Drive.
For most of those years,
she has been charismatic,
greeting patients and
visitors with a warm hello.
She was still smiling this
week after Interim Presi-
dent Howard Watts an-
nounced the hospital would
trim 200 of its 2,600
employees in the next mon-
th.
But, Ms. Feldman said, she
was only smiling on the out-
side.
Employees from all
departments, ranging from
orderlies to department
chairs,. are possible layoff
targets, Mr. Watts announc-

ed. The layoffs follow the re-
cent dismissals of three top-
level administrators.
The hospital hired Mr.
Watts, a managing director
of the Hunter Group, a
Chicago-based health care
consulting firm, as president

"Everybody is
worried. Those of
us who have been
here a long time
feel a loyalty to this
hospital. We want it
to survive."

Delores Feldman,
Sinai employee

during the hospital's transi-
tional time. Sinai hired
Hunter Group in April to
help the hospital get out of
financial difficulties.
Sinai's daily patient cen-
sus tally has improved — to

about 385 patients per day
— since the medical staff
last December vowed to do a
better job encouraging pa-
tients to go to Sinai. Yet the
hospital this year still lost
$6.75 million.
A search for a full-time
administrator is ongoing.
Meanwhile, employees
like Ms. Feldman are
wondering whether their
jobs will be cut, and they are
concerned for the hospital's
future.
"Morale is low, although I
hate to say it," Ms. Feldman
said. "Everybody is worried.
Those of us who have been
here a long time feel a loyal-
ty to this hospital. We want
it to survive."
Word of the layoffs caused
a mixed reaction among doc-
tors and staff members.
On Wednesday, hospital
floors were relatively quiet.

Continued on Page 20