PHIL JACOBS EDITOR

Detroit Looks For
I ts Own Miracles

42

or Detroit,
the year 5753
was perhaps
best summed
up by West
Bloomfield
resident Marc
Beals, in an entirely different
context.
"I've never laughed so
much nor have I cried so
much in one day," said Mr.
Beals during his first trip to
Israel as part of the
Michigan Miracle Mission.
Mr. Beals' observation,
though directed toward his
trip to Israel, perhaps best
sums up a year where the
Detroit Jewish community
flourished in so many ways
and floundered in others. We
shed tears for the loss of

many of our family members
and we celebrated our contin-
ued growth.
But nowhere was that
growth ever more felt than in
what happened last April.
The mere sight of El Al 747s
at the Metro Airport interna-
tional terminal brought tears
to our eyes and pride to our
community. A year prior, the
concept of a Michigan
Miracle Mission was at most
one El Al direct flight from
Metro servicing 200-400
Detroiters. The months that
followed, Mission co-chair-
man David Hermelin said,
was the result of pent-up
demand and lessening
threats of danger in the
Middle East.
That pent-up demand

