Aaron and Ruth
Bergman
Jewish couples tell
the unusual stories
of how they found
their beshert.
LYNNE MEREDITH COHN
How We Met
Orit Szwarcman and
PH OTO BY JOH N M. DISCHER
He was a student in Europe,
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Orit
Szwarcman
and Mark
Selitsky
JOHN M. DISCHER
where she was living. Both on va-
cation in Israel, Ms. Szwarcman
and Mr. Selitsky met on an El Al
plane between the Jewish state
and Belgium.
"Everybody else on the plane
was a pilgrim coming back from
visiting Christian sites, so there
were very few young [Jewish]
people on the plane," says Ms.
Szwarcman. She thought he was
the undercover security man for
El Al, but he wasn't. "So we start-
ed talking."
Two years later, in 1984, they
married and moved to Detroit,
Mr. Selitsky's hometown. They
now reside in Huntington Woods.
aybe you looked at the
Jewish boy-next-door and
suddenly swooned. Or per-
haps it was a girl with
dark hair across the
crowded Hillel lobby at col-
lege. Or maybe you met on
an airplane, leaving Israel.
Whatever your person-
al story, Jewish couples
meet in the strangest —
and most common —
places.
PHOTO BY DANIEL LIPPITT
STAFF WRITER
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Selma and Stanley Clamage
"We met at the old folks home, in
Detroit on Homer and Webb, in
1940."
Without much spending mon-
ey, the young people of the day
turned to the Department of
Recreation's weekly "record con-
certs," held at the old folks home,
for fun.
"I had never gone there before,
didn't really know much about it.
My aunt had a friend whose
daughter had an unhappy love
affair, so they sent her there to
get over it. She asked if I would
Selma and Stanley Clamage
go with her that night. I said, 'I
don't know, but I've got a new
dress so maybe I'll go.' So we did,"
says Mrs. Clamage.
Across a crowded room, she
spotted a young man around
whom "all the girls were clus-
tered." He had come to hear
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony,
sat down next to Selma, and "we
began to talk. (We never did hear
the music until we got the record-
ing for our own home)."
A few days later, Stanley
came to visit. "He had a terribly
bad cold, and he read Ogden
Nash's 'The Cold of Colds' to
me." The next week, they be-
came engaged.
The Clamages met in May of
1940 and married on Sept. 8 of
that year. The pair, who live in
Oak Park, have three daughters,
three sons-in-law and six grand-
children.