SECOND CLASS

THE JEWISH NEWS

SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS

SERVING DETROIT'S JEWISH COMMUNITY

AUGUST 30, 1991 / 20 ELUL 5751

JPM Campaign Ok'd

CLOSE-UP

KIMBERLY LIFTON

Staff Writer

n their first date in
February 1963,
Ellsworth Levine and
Janet Birnkrant went to see
Arthur Miller's The Crucible
at the Jewish Community
Center's Deroy Theater,
then at Meyers and Curtis in
Detroit.
Shortly after, the young
couple married and spent
many days at the JCC,
where they were regular
patrons of the swimming
pool. Yet when the JCC
moved from Detroit to Maple
and Drake in West Bloom-
field, the Levines joined the
Royal Oak YMCA.
For the Levines and hun-
dreds of other families living
in the Huntington Woods,
Oak Park and Southfield
corridor, West Bloomfield
was too far and not practical.
Some opted for the Y, others
for nearby private health

clubs and others for com-
munity school programs.
Janet Levine didn't sit
still. With hopes of
expanding the Jimmy Pren-
tis Morris branch of the JCC
in Oak Park, Mrs. Levine
spearheaded a grass-roots
campaign in the late 1970s
at a meeting in her living
room. This week, her efforts
began to pay off.

On Tuesday, the Jewish
Federation Board of Gover-
nors approved the last hur-
dle for the JPM expansion,
endorsing plans for a $3.5
million capital/endowment
campaign for an indoor pool,
recreational facilities,
equipment and increased
programming.

Of the $3.5 million, $2
million will go toward reno-
vation and expansion and
$1.5 million will be placed in
endowment funds to support
programs within the
building.

A JPM campaign chair is
expected to be named in the
coming month, JCC and
Federation officials said.
The fund-raising cam-
paign, approved earlier by
the boards of the JCC and
United Jewish Charities,
will begin this fall. Officials
said the upgraded JPM
facility, to include an
estimated 20,000-square-feet,
two-level complex at the east
side of the building, could be
open within two years.
"I am very excited but still
cautious," Mrs. Levine said.
"We have a large challenge
ahead of us.
"I feel like we are a little
closer to the edge of that
pool. What has happened is
that the Neighborhood Pro-
ject (which provides interest-
free loans to Jewish home
buyers in Southfield and
Oak Park) and the 1-696
freeway have thrown out

Continued on Page 26

Violence In Brooklyn

-

•

„

THE

Crown Heights Jews try to pick
up from the ashes of the riots.

AMY J. MEHLER

Staff Writer

B

AND THE

Glory

Making sense
of the hostage crisis
and the proposed
peace conference.

Page 28

lack and white chil-
dren no longer play
together on the
sidewalk outside Asher and
Henna White's Crown
Heights apartment building.
That ended Monday, Aug.
19, when a car driven by a
Lubavitch Chasid acciden-
tally struck and killed Gavin
Cato, a 7-year-old black boy,
and critically injured his
cousin, also 7.
In minutes, violence bet-

ween Chasidic Jews and
blacks erupted on the streets
of the Crown Heights section
of Brooklyn, N.Y, world
headquarters of the
Lubavitch movement.
The clash resulted in the
stabbing death of Yankel
Rosenbaum, a 29-year-old
rabbinical student from
Australia. Arrested Aug. 21
for the • stabbing were two
black males, ages 15 and 16.
Since the killings, the
White family has kept their

See CROWN HEIGHTS

Continued on Page 46

Neither blacks nor
Jews think it can
happen in the
Detroit area.

NOAM M.M. NEUSNER

Staff Writer

O

n Sunday, Shepherd
Park, a sprawling,
municipal facility in
Oak Park, was teeming with
blacks, Asians, Chaldeans,
Jews and others. A high
school class gathered to have
a reunion. Families
barbecued, parents pushed
children on swings, and
everyone enjoyed the shade
of Shepherd's towering
maple trees.
Next to images of last
week's Crown Heights
violence between blacks and
Chasidic Jews, the scene at
Shepherd Park made it hard
to believe that Oak Park and
Brooklyn are in the same
country.
"I don't think the city of
Detroit has that kind of
ugliness in it," said Norman
Naimark, active in the
Michigan Housing Coali-

See DETROIT REACTION
Continued on Page 47