THE JEWISH NEWS

SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS

SERVING DETROIT'S JEWISH COMMUNITY

AUGUST 17, 1990 / 26 AV 5750

60% Attend
Hebrew School

ALAN HITSKY

Associate Editor

T

he percentage of Jew-
ish youth in the core
areas of Detroit's Jew-
ish community attending re-
ligious school are higher
than recent reports in-
dicated.
Dr. Steven Cohen, one of
two key researchers analyz-
ing the results of last fall's
telephone interviews with
some 1,000 Detroit area
Jews, said this week that
more than three-fifths of
Jewish youngsters in the
core area age 6-17 attend a
Jewish school. "This is a
higher percentage than con-
ventional wisdom suggests
and higher than the overall
statistics," Dr. Cohen said.
Dr. Cohen and his partner,
Dr. Jack Ukeles, are pursu-
ing four major studies for the
Jewish Welfare Federation:
Jewish identity, use of agen-
cy services, attitudes on the
Allied Jewish Campaign and
neighborhood mobility. The
Jewish identity report is the
closest to completion, Dr.

Cohen said, and the four

reports will be issued to Fed-
eration monthly, beginning
in September.
An article in June in The
Jewish News stated that
7,700 youngsters attend
Jewish schools out of 24,000
school-age youth in the
metropolitan area. Dr.
Cohen's statistics show that
13,000 youngsters age 6-17
live in the Jewish core area
— the northwest suburbs
where the bulk of the Jewish
community resides.
Three-fifths of the 13,000
attend Jewish schools and
one-fifth are enrolled in Jew-
ish day schools. "And over
four-fifths have had some
Jewish schooling between
the age of 6 and 17," Dr.
Cohen said.
Most, however, complete
their Jewish schooling by
age 13. Less than one - third
of the age group continue
their schooling after bar or
bat mitzvah.
"This presents a problem
and an opportunity," Dr.
Cohen said. "Many children
Continued_on Page 20

Quest Continues
For Marrow Donor

SUSAN GRANT

Staff Writer

A

Southfield man's
leukemia may be in
remission, but his
family hasn't given up its
costly search for a bone
marrow donor to save his
life.
First diagnosed with
leukemia in December,
Southfield-Lathrup High
School graduate Jonathan
Cohen, 19, went into a brief
remission with the help of
chemotherapy. But when the
disease returned earlier this
year, doctors told Mr. Cohen
his best chance for recovery
was finding a bone marrow
donor.
Chemotherapy again
halted the disease during
the past month and the sear-
ch for a bone marrow donor
has intensified.

While the search usually
begins with the family, be-
cause Mr. Cohen was
adopted, neither his adop-
tive mother, Charlene
Ehrlich, nor his sister,
Shelia, 26, are compatible
matches. The donor search
took the family to
Youngstown, Ohio, where a
probate court gave Mr.
Cohen permission to open
his adoption records in the
hopes of finding his natural
family.
The hunt led to three half-
sisters. The girls were tested
but were not good matches.
The search for the natural
mother continued, but there
was no trace of her, Ms.
Ehrlich said. His half-sisters
had not heard from her in
years and the Southfield
family seemed to hit a dead
end.

Continued on Page 14

MARCH

27, 1992

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