/ YOU DON'T NEED

To BE A DOCTOR

OR NURSE To MAKE

A CONTRIBUTION

To MEDICINE.

SIMPLY JOIN THE SINAI GUILD

With 2,500 members, the Sinai

language interpretation for Russian

Hospital Guild is making its own

immigrants. In addition, the Guild

strides in medicine. Our volunteers

provides funding for numerous Sinai

assist both patients and medical staff

Hospital programs including Tay-Sachs

at Sinai Hospital and its ambulatory

screening and cardiology research.

centers throughout the community.

But we couldn't do any of this

They also sponsor programs which

without our Guild members and

aid the elderly, such as Sinai Lifeline

volunteers. Find out how you can make

and Service with Love, as well as offer

a difference — call (313) 493-5300.

Wayne State University

Sinai
Hospital

CALL X313) 493-5300 FOR MORE INFORMATION
OR TO JOIN THE SINAI HOSPITAL GUILD

51-

September Events:

Russian Women's Health Program

October Events:

Succah Decoration by Yeshiva Beth Yehuda Students

Sinai Heritage Ball

8/28
1998

16 Detroit Jewish News

The Old School

Retired Oak Park teachers get together to reminisce
about the golden years of the 1960s and '70s.

a

JULIE WIENER
Staff Writer

eoffrey Fieger may be trail-
ing Gov. John Engler in the
polls, but you wouldn't
know it from chatting with
his old teachers from Oak Park.
At a reunion luncheon on Monday,
retired teachers and staff — many of
them Jewish — reminisced about old
times and kvelled about some of
the school system's most famous
graduates.
"We had unbelievable stu-
dents," said former world reli-
gions teacher Aaron Goff, who
retired in 1984. "Even the trou-
blemakers turned out well."
And Fieger, who graduated
in the late 1960s, a period
which many of the teachers
describe as Oak Park's "golden
age," was one of those troublemakers.
In fact, Goff claims to have caught
10th-grader Fieger in what can most
delicately be called a compromising
position with a 12th grade girl. "You
either loved or hated him, but he was
good with the ladies," said Goff. "He
was theatrical and pompous, but if I
mentioned a book, he read it. Anyway,
I have to vote for him, not because
he's my former student, but because
Engler is anti-education."
Retired teacher Eva Gant
claims she pushed Fieger into
the legal profession. "I told
Fieger not to be a rock musi-
cian, that with his big mouth
he should be a lawyer."
Of course, Fieger wasn't the
only Oak Park graduate about
whom the teachers were talk-
ing. There was also former
State Representative Maxine Berman
(herself a retired Oak Park English
teacher and in attendance Monday),
Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs, Rent
producer Jeffrey Sellers, Detroit News
columnist Laura Berman and count-
less doctors and lawyers.
The retired teachers, many of them
Jewish, have been meeting since 1995,
when retired physical education
teacher Howard Stone and other for-
mer colleagues decided to organize an
end-of-summer reunion. Called the

Aaron Goff "Even the trou-
blemakers turned out well."
Left: Goff in 1970.

Former State Representative
Maxine Berman, herself an
Oak Park retiree, was in
attendance. Left: Berman in
1970.

"TGI Don't Have to Go Back" lun-
cheon, it drew approximately 130 vet-
erans this year and last year, up from
100 in 1996 and 65 in 1995.
Monday's luncheon at Big Daddy's
restaurant in West Bloomfield put
them in a nostalgic mood.
In the '60s and '70s, when most of
these teachers started teaching, the
student body and faculty were largely
Jewish. The demographics changed
later as Jews moved to newer suburbs
and the Oak Park school district