Coming Clean

'Mikvah Israel and Federation make way for a bigger ritual bath in Oak Park.

LYNNE MEREDITH COHN STAFF WRITER

A

fter two weeks of being is a member of the building com-
physically separated from mittee for the new mikvah and
their husbands and look- a past president of Mikvah Is-
ing forward to rekindling rael.
a bit of romance, some Orthodox
It will be built on the 10 Mile
women in Oak Park have had to Road Jewish Community Cam-
wait a little longer.
pus for about $1.3 million. The
The reason? The mikvah on Jewish Federation of Metropol-
10 Mile Road, east of Greenfield, itan Detroit has provided the
has outgrown its efficiency, re- land at a reasonable rate, says
quiring women to wait some- Robert Slatkin, president of
times until 1 a.m. to immerse in United Jewish Foundation.
the ritual bath before returning
"We have provided a ground
to their husband's amorous lease under very favorable terms
arms.
to Mikvah Israel, Inc., and they
When Mikvah Israel was are going to be building a mik-
built in the 1960s, it served a vah on the northwest corner of
smaller Orthodox population, the property which currently has
says Leah Lange, mikvah su- no other existing structure. We
pervisor. Since then, the local are doing this [as] part of our
Orthodox community has consistent effort to strengthen
grown, literally to overflowing. the neighborhood and our con-
And now it is faced with the task sistent belief that we should help
of building a bigger mikvah, to all streams of Judaism."
meet the needs of the commu-
Federation has not contrib-
nity.
uted any funds to the actual
This time next year, Oak Park building, says Plotnik, and the
may have a new mikvah, ac- committee doesn't plan to ask
cording to Avrohom Plotnik, who Federation for money. 'The or-

ganizations are raising it them-
selves — the Mikvah Israel and
the Women's Orthodox League
have some money," Plotnik says,
and the rest will be raised pri-
vately.
An acre of land has been des-
ignated for the new mikvah and
parking lot, says Plotnik. Al-
though exact dimensions are un-
available, the new ritual bath
will be "three times as big as the
one we have now," he says.
The current mikvah has two
baths and six preparation
rooms; the new one will have
two baths and 18 rooms, in-
cluding a handicapped room.
Groundbreaking should begin
before the winter, Plotnik says,
"and it should take us about a
year to build it."
Stuart J. Fine & Associates,
a West Bloomfield architecture
firm, has been retained to design
the mikvah. Fine says the new
mikvah will encompass about
8,000 square feet. It will sit on
the northwest corner of the Jew-

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ish Community Campus — west necessarily what one would de-
of the Biblical Playground and fine as Orthodox," but they like
just north of the existing park- this mitzvah, largely due to its
ing lot, says Slatkin.
private nature, she says. "Peo-
Fine was the architect for the ple are leaning towards it be-
last addition to Temple Israel in cause it's not making a public
West Bloomfield, including a statement."
mikvah there. He also toured
"For a lot of people, it's a way
three mikvaot in New York — in of beginning to grow in spiritu-
Monroe, near the Catskills; Far al levels but not making a com-
Rockaway; and Flatbush. "I'm mitment to the public as such."
getting some help from contrac-
But there's another issue with
tors from Monroe who are help- mikvah usage that is specific to
ing me with the Halachah suburban Detroit.
[Jewish law]," he says, as well
'Detroit is the far western end
as from local rabbis.
of the eastern standard zone, so
The reason the mikvah has that means that our night, our
become so packed is the influx three stars, [Halachah says it is]
of numerous young couples, "a officially night [when three stars
booming Russian population" can be seen], does not begin un-
and ba'ale teshuvah (newly Or- til 45 minutes later than New
thodox), says Lange.
York. The women are not al-
"This mikvah was built in the lowed to immerse until three
°60s, with ample thought for the stars, so we have to wait until
future, not built just for that mo- 10:15 in the summer. After a
ment, built to last. It's been here holiday, which ends at 10:15,
for some 30 years; it wasn't like like Shabbat or Shavuot, then
somebody made a mistake," she I have to come in, turn-on the
says.
lights, prepare the water, set up
'When I first began in '86, we the rooms — it takes at least a
had about 1,200 women a year. half hour. So we don't get start-
Now it's getting close to 4,000 ed on a summer night until at
a year," Lange says. "And it also least 11. When you have 14 or
encompasses other parts of the 15 people and six [rooms], you
community — there are more try to fit 14 people or 15 people
people who are choosing the or more into less than an hour,
mikvah as part of their Jewish you can't."
observance. They may not be
"We're not making people

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