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THE JEWISH NEWS
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This Week's Top Stories
Thank Your Lucky
(Jewish) Stars
Many Home for Aged residents and family members
express worry, anger over the plans.
How magic and superstition have influenced religious tradition.
RUTH LITTMANN STAFF WRITER
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM ASSOCIATE EDITOR
happy couple would even try
to bribe the demons by throw-
ing dried fruits and sweets
(which, in Christian tradition,
became tossing rice as the
bride and groom left the
Rabbi Aaron Bergman of
Congregation Beth Abraham
Hillel Moses takes another
view.
Granted, superstition has
played a part in shaping Jew-
AP/KAREN SHERLOCK
I
f you've ever wished a
friend "mazel tov" or ut-
tered a disdainful "pooh
pooh," consider yourself
having indulged, however
briefly, in the world of the su-
pernatural.
The popular under-
standing of "mazel tov" is
"congratulations," but its
real meaning is "your
star of destination was
lucky," a reference to as-
trology. And "pooh pooh,"
usually said after a wish
for good fortune or a com-
pliment (as in, "My
grandchildren are the
most beautiful in the en-
tire world, pooh-pooh"), is
the modern version of
spitting, once thought to
be a protection against
the "evil eye."
Speaking last week be-
fore the Temple Trea-
sures, a Temple Israel-
based group for seniors,
artist and art historian Esther
Tanioff-Cooper said that many
seemingly inexplicable Jewish
traditions — especially those
at weddings, births and funer-
als — are in fact part of a "Jew-
ish folk religion" that has its
roots in magic and superstition.
It starts with angels and
demons, though not the float-
ing beauties with silken wings
or the red guy with the pitch-
fork, smiling in Hell (which
are Christian images).
The Talmud speaks of
demons as beings God never
had time to complete, Mrs.
Tarnoff-Cooper said. They
were souls with no bodies, and
so they wandered about in-
visible, without shadows.
"They love dirt — mud,
swamps, cemeteries," Mrs.
Tarnoff-Cooper said. 'They are
spirits of uncleanliness."
The demons like nothing
more than to "wreak havoc on
the lives of the Jews," espe-
cially at happy times. So Jews
instituted preventative mea-
sures, such as covering the
face of the bride at weddings.
Demons also enjoy darkness,
which is why some families be-
gan using candles at wedding
ceremonies. Families of the
Above: Do you know why the
bride's face is covered at a
wedding?
Left: Would the ghost of the
dead come back for an
unwelcome visit?
ish tradition, he said. But
to suggest that everything
about the wedding cere-
mony is simply a way to
ward off demons is "non-
sensical."
He pointed to three key
elements of a marriage —
a couple's vows to one an-
other, a ring and a ke-
PHOTO BY GLENN TRIEST tubah — all of which are
halachically based and have
church).
Those little devils don't like no connection whatsoever to
noise, though — which is why magic.
The ketubah, for example,
Jewish couples smashed a
glass at the end of the wedding is a legal document which sets
out in specific terms a hus-
ceremony.
But the "most potent anti- band's obligation to his wife.
dote against the demons" was Ws about as enticing and mys-
the "magic circle," created terious as any legal paper
when the bride walked seven (read any fascinating trans-
times around her husband, fers of property lately?), and
not even the most imaginative
Mrs. Tarnoff-Cooper said.
"Everything we use in the observer could find magic in
wedding ceremony is simply a it.
Furthermore, the wedding
way of protecting the bride
and groom."
LUCKY STARS page 16
motions ran high during a
March 27 meeting at Pren
tis Manor to discuss the
Southfield nursing homes
closure by year's end.
About 85 relatives of Prentis
residents attended the session to
learn where their Jewish elderly
will go and how family members
can prepare for the move.
"People are scared. What's go-
ing to happen to them'?" asks 71-
year-old Sally Lepofsky, whose
mother, Anne Feldman, lives at
Prentis. "My mother has all her
faculties. She knows exactly
what's going on."
Representatives of the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan De-
troit and Jewish Home for Aged
coordinated the meeting with the
Prentis Family CounciL Although
the initial announcement was
made last August, further news
of the closure was received with
sadness and anxiety.
"If s a very difficult situation
for everyone " says Marcia Mit-
telman, the 10-year Prentis ad-
ministrator. "But a decision has
been made. Now we need to ask
ourselves what we can do to sup-
port one another and make (the
move) as positive an experience
as possible.'
Prentis Manor's census is cur
t .r .,-„,rently 95. The average age of res-
i&rits is 86.
As of March 11, admissions
were stopped at the home, and
this month, transfers out of Pren-
tis will begin.
One challenge will be finding
beds for the 88 percent of Prentis
residents who get Me dicaid.
An option: Menorah House.
Administrators at the skilled
nursing facility in Southfield are
discussing plans to convert, each
month, four Medicare beds to
Medicaid beds, which will be re-
served for Prentis residents who
need them.
The residents at Prentis also
have the option of moving to a
new, privately owned facility, tin-
der construction on the West
Bloomfield Jewish Community
Campus.
But of 165 total beds in West
Bloomfield, 30 will be Medicaid-
certified. HCR, the company
building and operating the facil-
ity, already has promised the
beds to Prentis residents with the
,
.
most seniority at Jewish homes.
Some residents at Prentis have
previously lived at the other two
JHA facilities, namely Fleis
chman Residence and the old
Bonna.n. Hall.
Federation says there will be
enough room at Menorah House
and the West Bloomfield home to
accommodate all Prentis resi-
dents who choose to move be-
tween. April and December.
Residents and their family mem-
bers may also opt to go elsewhere.
All relocations will be moni-
toriih7 the JHA, Federation and
Michigan Department of Public
Health.
The situation rings a bell fa-
miliar to many community mem-
bers involved with Jewish elderly.
In 1994 and 1995, Federation sold
the old Borman Hall in Detroit.
Most residents there were re-
located to Menorah House and
other institutions. The move ran
kled people opposed to the sale
and worried about the welfare of
their loved ones.
Mark Davidoff, chief financial
officer at Federation, said the
Prentis closing is part of the Jew-
ish community's plan to vest the
responsibility of acute nursing
care in the hands of private -busi-
nessmen with expertise.
Nonetheless, several family
members of Prentis residents
have charged Federation with
again backing out of its duty to
provide a home for needy Jewish
elderly. They say that with only
30 Medicaid beds, the West
Bloomfield facility will become a
home for the rich, while Menorah
House will be the poor-man's
counterpart.
JTIA. President Janice Shatz-
man denies those allegation& She
insists that although furnishings
will differ between the new home
and Menorah House, both msta-
tutions will provide excellent care
and Jewish programming.
Federation spokespeople de-
fend their plans as the wisest pos-
sible, given the sobering realities
of state regulation& insufficient
Medicaid reimbursements and
other costs.
Sy Katz, whose mother has
lived at Prentis for three years,
doesn't buy that argument.
"I think they owe us a really
good explanation." ID