YOUTH

B'nai B'rith Youth
Organization scrapbooks
have many memories.

BBI10: Yesterday and Today

M

aria Parker was
council president
of the B'nai
B'rith Youth Or-
ganization (BB-
YO) in 1972 and 1973. Back
then, when the BBYO office
was located near Southfield
High School, Vera Lev was
the council secretary.

Editor's note: Phil Jacobs met
his wife 22 years ago at a
Baltimore Council BBYO
Sweetheart dance. His wife
was chapter president of
Aliyah BBG. He was a "heart
throb" for one of the chapters
and a member of Chesapeake
AZA.

80

FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 1992

Ms. Parker, who attended
school at Southfield High,
used to spend almost every
available free moment in the
BBYO office working with
Arnold Weiner, the senior
executive director for BBYO,
and council secretary Vera
Lev.
Now, some 20 years later,
Ms. Parker, a magistrate in
the 47th District Court, said
she still uses the leadership
training, public speaking
and ability to work with
people that she learned as a
teen-ager in BBYO. And, oh
yes, she also came away with
Vera Lev, who works for Ms.
Parker in her law office.

PHIL JACOBS

Managing Editor

Whether it was
AZA or BBG,
many happy
times will be
remembered at
the upcoming
reunion.

Alan Feuer joined the
Herzl AZA chapter in Wind-
sor in 1970. Now, 22 years
later, the insurance ex-
ecutive credits his BBYO
experience with having the'
greatest impact on his Jew-
ish life next to the influence
of his own parents.
Chuck Kessler, then of
Rosen AZA, met Jane Her-
man during her chapter's in-
stallation dance in the mid-
'70s. The two were later
married. The same BBYO
love story holds true for An-
nette Meskin and her hus-
band Russell, Michelle
Unger Siegal and her hus-
band, and countless others.

Whether or not the story is
about marriage, almost all
current and past members of
BBYO — Aleph Zadek Aleph
(AZA) for the boys and B'nai
Brith Girls (BBG) for the
girls — agree that their par-
ticipation helped them in
some way later in life.
Mr. Weiner smiles when
he hears the stories of the
old days. He knows that each
crop of BBYO members ex-
periences a gift in Jewish so-
cialization and leadership
training that's there for the
taking for Detroit youths.
Like a proud papa, he listens
to those stories of the past,
and bridges any genera-