Left:
Orbach talks with WDIV producer
Mark Shepherd.

Bottom:
Orbach uses her reporting skills to
interview people for Steven Spielberg's
Survivors of the Shoah Visual History
Foundation.

ally like any chance to incorporate my foreign
language skins into my work."
Fluent in English, Hebrew and German, she
is proficient in six other languages, including
Spanish and Croatian.
Orbach thinks of news as light moving
through a prism.
"The white light is the truth, but once it goes
through the reporter and the photographer and
the producer, it gets refracted," she explained.
"My job is to make sure the white light that
leaves that prism is as close as possible to the
white light that went in."
Throughout her career, Orbach has remained
flexible about work hours and assigned subjects.
"Reporters know to expect the unexpected and
get used to different shifts," she said.
"I've done a variety of health reporting through
the newspapers and at every station where I've
worked, but I've never focused on it full time
as I am now. There are some new things I'd like
to do, but those are top secret."
As she becomes accustomed to her new post,
Orbach feels she is in "fast forward." Her tough-
est job is finding time for all her special interests
apart from work.
"I interview people for Steven Spielberg's Sur-
vivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation,
and I've already taped sessions with 30 sur-
vivors," said Orbach, who had three days of in-
tensive training to prepare for this responsibility.
"Recently, I was in the Catskills, where we did
nine interviews in one week.
"I arranged for my grandmother, Herta Or-
bach, to be interviewed. They wouldn't let me do
the interview because they don't like one fami-
ly member questioning another.

"I volunteered because my grandparents and
my father are all survivors, and I want to make
sure that all of these people and what they went
through are never forgotten."
Indirectly, a celebration of her family's sur-
vival led to Orbach's engagement.
"I met my fiance, Jeff Lazarus, almost six
years ago when I was in Florida for a party to
celebrate the 90th birthday of my grandfather,
Eugene Orbach, and the 60th birthday of my fa-
ther," the WDIV anchor recalled.
"I went to Florida one day early to see a
friend, and the two of us went to a bar in Boca.
Jeff, a banker then living in Boston, knew my
friend and happened to be there. She introduced
us. The name of the bar was Heaven, so we al-
ways say we met in Heaven."
With her fiance moving to Michigan and a
home picked out, Orbach is looking for more
time to devote to the Big Sisters Organization.
She already maintains little sisters in Flint,
Baltimore and Boston.
"I didn't know coming home would be so in-
credible," Orbach said. "If I had known it was
going to make my parents and grandparents
this happy, I would have done it a long time
ago.
"The best thing for me is the time with my
grandparents, who recently moved here. I nev-
er was able to be with them very much because
they were living in Florida."
Part of getting into the swing of things in-
volves resuming friendships that go back many
years. Ironically, one of Orbach's closest friends
is returning to Michigan from Ohio.
"They'll all be finding out that I'm the same,
old me," Orbach said. ❑

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