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Celebrating 50 years of growth with the Detroit Jewish Community
THE JEWISH NEWS
28 SHEVAT 5753/FEBRUARY 19, 1993
JHA's Fate
Community leaders will look
next week at the Home's future.
KIMBERLY LIFTON STAFF WRITER
ederation leaders
next week will
lay the ground-
work for the
future of the
financially
strapped Jewish
Home for Aged, which
operates Borman Hall
in Detroit, Prentis
Manor in Southfield and
Fleischman Residence
in West Bloomfield.
In the past decade,
JHA has operated on a
deficit, and the Feder-
ation has allocated mil-
lions of dollars to keep it
afloat. Recently, finan-
cial problems were mag-
nified during a costly
six-month accelerated
clean-up program to cor-
rect four of the state's
highest levels of health
violations at Borman
Hall.
At a meeting on
Tuesday, the board of
governors for the Fed-
eration and its endow-
ment arm, the Jewish
Community Founda-
tion, will review final
costs of the Borman Hall
operation. Also, board
members are expected
to discuss an operating
plan for JHA and ap-
prove funding for the
next 12 months.
"Nobody is happy,"
Federation Executive
Vice President Robert
Aronson said. "Any
more money spent will
need to come from the
community reserves af-
JHA page 10
Inside
CLOSE UP
FOCUS
Finding Her Roots
An adopted woman struggled to find
her biological parents.
Page 26
SPORTS
Man In The Middle
Harley Marks has made an impact
for West Bloomfield High.
Page 31
BUSINESS
Rev Up Those Blades!
Targeting Jewish consumers has become
a huge business in the United States.
Don't wait for spring
for in-line skating.
Serving It Up
Page 35
Page 42
Contents on page 5
The End Of An Era
Philip Slomovitz, founder of The Jewish News and a lifelong booster
of klal Yisrael, dies at 96.
ALAN HITSKY ASSOCIATE EDITOR
he man who retained
Detroit's Jewish history
in his mind, and who
helped more than most
to create that history,
died Feb. 17.
Philip Slomo-
vitz, founder of
The Jewish
News and numerous Jewish organi-
zations in Detroit, will be missed for
the sense of history and the support
for klal Yisrael — the Jewish people
— that he brought to the community
for 70 years, said friends and associ-
ates.
Mr. Slomovitz turned 96 last
month. Though he had physically
slowed in the last year, he retained
his active mind and courtly sense of humor. As
late as Monday he was still planning his week-
ly Purely Commentary column, which has ap-
peared in The Jewish News and its forerunner,
the Jewish Chronicle, for 70 years. His final
columns, prepared last week, appear today
and in the Feb. 26 Jewish News.
He told a friend last week, "From the shoul-
ders down I'm not doing too well, but I think
I'm still OK above that point."
Though legally blind for most of his life, Mr.
Slomovitz typed
his own material
until two years
ago. He relied on
his nine file cabi-
nets of clippings,
articles, personal
letters and back-
ground informa-
tion, and his sharp
mind, to tie cur-
rent events to pre-
, vious episodes in
I Jewish history.
In 1992, he donated his files to the new
Community Jewish Archives, now housed at
Wayne State University's Reuther Library.
In recent years his deteriorating eyesight
forced him to dictate his column to longtime
SLOMOVITZ page 10