DETROIT

Hadassah Volunteers Extend
Ttitoring Program To Non-Jews

Staff Writer

uhail Kachal, 10,
sometimes has trouble
figuring out problems
with percents and decimals.
So once a week he spends a
half-hour with Harry
Krohner, a volunteer from
Hadassah Women's Tutor A
Student Program.
"He helps me understand
better what we're doing in
class and shows me things
about my homework," said
Suhail, in fifth grade at
Avery Elementary School in
Oak Park.
In its second year,
Hadassah's Tutor A Student
program still assigns vol-
unteers to Avery and Akiva
schools. However, instead of
working exclusively with

S

Soviet Jewish children, vol-
unteers this year also tutor
children of Arab, Chaldean,
African American, Indian
and Korean descent.
"Avery has a wide mix of
children at the school, so we
asked the Hadassah women
if they wouldn't mind also
coming in and working with
other children," said Cecelia
Wiar, principal of Avery.
Mrs. Wiar said the pro-
gram has worked wonders.
"The volunteers are faithful
and can be totally counted
on."
Mr. Krohner, 76, doesn't
mind being the sole male
volunteer tutor at Avery or
Akiva Hebrew Day School.
"I enjoy the children im-
mensely," said Mr. Krohner,
a former high school teacher
in Detroit. "I work with a
veritable League of Nations.

I have a good time with who-
ever they throw at me. I
don't care who it is."

Mr. Krohner spends about
six hours a week tutoring
children. He sits beside them
at a yellow desk set up in the
hallway or tucked away in-
side an empty classroom or
utility room. "We go
wherever there's room or we
find a quiet space," he said.
"Sometimes it's 20 minutes;
sometimes it's a little
longer."
Nora Peisner, responsible
for coordinating volunteers
at the two schools, said
Hadassah had no problem
taking on additional chil-
dren. "As a matter of fact,
we had more volunteers last
year than children," Mrs.
Peisner said. "So we were
more than happy to expand

Photo by G lenn Triest

AMY J. MEHLER

Suhail Kachal works with Harry Krohner.

our services this year."
Mrs. Peisner has 18 vol-
unteers at Avery and 15 vol-
unteers at Akiva. Mrs. Wiar,
Avery's principal, said 80
Avery students work with
volunteers each week. There
are 25 Soviet Jewish
students at Akiva who are
helped by the volunteers.

Ceil Glazer, Suhail's
teacher, can see the differ-
ence in her students. " We
ask the volunteers to go over
class assignments and to
sort of bolster the student,"
she said. "Sometimes chil-
dren just need some time out
of the classroom for one-on-
one attention." ❑

Panel Shows Students The Many Faces Of AIDS

AMY J. MEHLER

Staff Writer

llison Zameck, 15,
listened to the story
of Kathy Gerus, di-
agnosed HIV-positive in
1985, and the AIDS epi-
demic hit home.
"I've never met anyone
directly affected by AIDS

A

before," said Allison, from
North Farmington High
School. "I never expected
to."
Neither did many of the
almost 200 Jewish students
from the Detroit area who
were introduced to the
AIDS controversy Dec. 8 at
the Jewish Community
Center in West Bloomfield.

The two-hour program, de-
veloped for high school and
middle school students, in-
cluded panel sessions and a
memorial service. It was
sponsored by the Michigan
Jewish AIDS Coalition
(MJAC), formed last June.
"As human beings, we are
more upset for people we
know than for people in far-

Yeshiva Still Seeks Buyer

NOAM M.M. NEUSNER

Staff Writer

y

eshiva Beth
Yehudah, which owns
the old Bais Yaakov
school building near Lahser
and 14 Mile roads, is conti-
nuing to look for a buyer for
the building.
With an asking price of
$1.2 million, Rabbi E.B.

The old Beth Jacob building.

14

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1991

Freedman has been pursu-
ing potential buyers for the
last year. The former Valley
Woods Elementary School in
the Birmingham district in
recent years housed the
Yeshiva's school for girls. It
is now half-occupied by two
nursery school tenants.
The school's 13-year mor-
tgage was recently paid off.
"We're always looking for
a buyer," said Rabbi Freed-

man, executive director of
the financially-strapped
Yeshiva Beth Yehudah.
"Our ultimate goal is to sell
it at a good price."
By selling the building,
located at 32605 Bellvine
Trail, Beverly Hills, the
Yeshiva could stand to dra-
matically improve its finan-
cial standing. But Rabbi
Freedman said the Yeshiva
is in no rush to sell the
building and, in any case,
must negotiate the future of
the two tenants that cur-
rently occupy classroom
space there.
Those tenants are in the
first year of three-year
leases, which do not
stipulate any conditions
regarding the changing of
ownership of the building,
which is located in a residen-
tial area of Beverly Hills.
The Yeshiva's Sally Allan
Alexander Beth Jacob
School for Girls now holds
classes in Oak Park in the
former B'nai Moshe syn-
agogue. ❑

away places," Rabbi Paul
Yedwab of Temple Israel
told a room full of about 100
high school students. "The
purpose of MJAC's Youth
Day is to bring the problem
of AIDS in front of their
faces, to have them hear
different stories first-hand."
Middle school students,
many coming straight from
Hebrew school, watched The
Healing, a play about AIDS,
directed by Richard Frank
and written by Mara Bruton,
15, and Adam Gusman, 15,
seniors at the Jewish Parents
Institute, a Humanistic
Hebrew school at the JCC.
High school students met a
panel of AIDS activists and
educators, and discussed a
film about AIDS and about
the Names Project AIDS
Memorial Quilt, now on
display in the lobby of the
JCC.

Allison and friends Jessica
Light, 15, and Nora Curiel,
16, sat motionless as Mrs.
Gerus, a spokeswoman from
the Midwest AIDS Preven-
tion Project, told the au-
dience how she contracted
the Human Immunodefi-
ciency Virus (HIV) from her
hemophiliac husband.
"I knew Michael was a
hemophiliac when I married
him," said Mrs. Gerus, a
petite blonde. "I was fine
about it. He knew how to
take care of himself with in-
jections at home."
Hemophilia is a bleeding
disorder, a genetic trait
passed from mother to child.
Instead of normally clotting,
ruptured blood vessels bleed
internally. Today,
hemophiliacs live normal
lives, injecting themselves
when needed with a kind of
freeze-dried blood plasma.

Susan Efros: AIDS knows no race, color or religion.

