DETROIT)
THE JEWISH NEWS
UP FRONT
This Week's Top Stories
Lives
To Be
Changed
A Metro Airport terminal
crowded with 238 teens,
an El Al jet and enough
energy to carry everyone
in sight to Israel.
JENNIFER FINER STAFF WRITER
AND PHIL JACOBS EDITOR
Universal ex-
citement, mixed in
with some anxiety
ere it comes. Here it and nervousness, was the most
comes," shouted Jane frequently cited emotion of the
Sherman, half jumping day.
up and down as a 747 jet
Tamar Schiller, 16, had never
with the El Al insignia been to Israel, and the trip didn't
on its body and a Star of seem real to her until the day be-
David painted on its tail fore she left.
made a graceful descent into De-
"I'm actually going to be there,"
troit Metropolitan Airport on she reminded herself aloud. "I'm
Sunday morning.
a little nervous about going some-
Two hundred and thirty-eight where I've never been before. I've
pairs of watchful teen-age eyes never been out of the country, ex-
also peered out to the runway. cept to Canada, and it's a long
Within moments, the teens plane ride. Still, I can't wait."
Tamar predicts she
would be on that air-
plane, touching down
will return from the Mid-
right: Marci dle East with heavier lug-
briefly in New York and Top Brown
says
then landing 11 hours lat- goodbye to her gage and a stronger
er halfway across the boyfriend, Joey connection to Judaism.
world in Tel Aviv.
Maytal Fried was born
Bigelman.
"I never expected it to
in the United States, but
Above left:
be like this," said Ms.
her parents come from Is-
Parents peer
Sherman, who spent the
rael. Although she's been
through the
last two years planning_
there before to visit rela-
airport glass.
the Teen Mission. "This
tives, the novelty has not
is a dream come true. We
worn off. This trip, said
have been talking about a com- the West Bloomfield resident, is
munity-wide teen trip for about different.
Maytal speculates that, be-
10 years. The is the third time
we've done this (sent a Detroit cause her parents are Israeli, she
mission to Israel, although this may have more insight than
is the first Teen Mission), and I most teens on the trip. She
never thought I'd feel as much knows how Israelis are, how
excitement and emotion as I do things work and is familiar with
today."
TEEN MISSION page 14
Hoping
For A
Match
Thousands line up
for blood tests to
find a match for two children
with local ties.
JILL DAVIDSON SKLAR STAFF WRITER
omeday, somebody may be able to explain to Lau-
ren Cohn just how much the community cared for
her. Someday, God willing, someone will have that
chance.
And maybe one day Coby Levi will be able to grasp
why it was that hundreds of volunteers hundreds
of miles from his home in Teaneck, N.J., came to-
gether to take one chance at a genetic lottery that he may
win.
But for now, the families of the children, their friends
and much of the general community will hold their col-
lective breath waiting for the results of a massive tissue
typing drive held last weekend in an effort to find just two
people who have the same blood antigens as Lauren and
Coby.
"We are touched by the outpouring of support from the
community," said Kathy Cantor Cohn, the
Rod Carew
mother of Lauren. "We were hoping for a
listens at
large turnout, but this exceeded our hopes."
the press
"We hope that from this drive a match will
conference.
be made for Lauren, Coby and any other per-
son who needs a bone marrow
transplant," she said.
More than 8,000 people went to
be tested Saturday and Sunday at
the Bingham Farms offices of
Rock Financial; about 7,800 were
eligible to give their blood for the
tissue-typing test, making it one
of the largest tissue-typing efforts
in the history of the National Mar-
row Donor Program. Those who
donated two viles of blood at the
drive will be added to the pro-
gram's national registry for pos-
sible bone marrow donations.
MATCH page 16